Hit the north part 2

The second force that propelled us North was the Swedish welfare system, the Försäkeringskassan. 

In Sweden every parent has the right to take time away from their jobs to look after their child or children. Fathers are entitled to 180 days, or six months. During your maternity or paternity leave, you can resign at any point, and your period of paternity leave counts against your notice. 

After consulting with my union for advice on how to handle the matter, and then promptly ignoring what they had to say (the advice seemed at best ill thought out and at worst designed to anger my then employer in Malmö) I decided that I would be as open and honest, although it was quite awkward. 

They were a small software house, and during the year I was there three staff (four including me) of a total of ten had decided to move on. It came as quite a shock to the owner of the company, but as I stated to him, this wasn't about my position, although I wasn't really happy there, but my decision concerned my family and the environment we wanted out daughter to grow up in.
I sympathized with his position, and felt like I was letting him down, but I reminded myself how much I'd done for him, including rewriting most of his software development process, and designing and implementing a recruitment and training process. It was a difficult conversation, but I hope I handled it, and my last months there with professionalism. 

Being able to take six months off work to look after my daughter has meant that we were able to relocate to our new house, and that I have been able to build a much stronger relationship with my daughter. It has also allowed my wife to go back to work and to find a great position on the emergency ward of our local hospital.