A Reluctant Prospective Immigrant Now Reluctant to Go Back "Home"

I'm having a hard time concentrating on my work tonight (I have started to work on the dissertation every night after my husband comes back from work).

This evening hubby and I had some time to talk in the car and as we thought about job applications and interviews he said: "You know, if I don't get any offers, we may have to go back to Brazil."

Whoa! Really? I hadn't been thinking about that at all.

It hadn't really dawned on me that this was/is a very real possibility. I just found out that while all these years (over 10) I didn't really care too much about life in the U.S. and I was very reluctant about becoming an immigrant, now it seems that I do really want to live here after all. When the imminence of having to leave (maybe forever) presents itself, all of a sudden I discover that I don't know if I want to go back. However, I just may have to.

You see, there is a job offer. The only one so far. The college that supported us for six years (and then "released" us from any further obligation to go back) would like us to go back and teach there if we so desire. My parents (who lives there) are "desperate" for us to go back, of course. Our friends would also love to have us back there. It wouldn't be bad... except perhaps for my husband, who would probably have to stop researching and have to concentrate on teaching or administration. One thing he keeps saying is that "people would value us a lot there" with the Ph.D., all these years abroad and all. True, but is that the main point? Is that really important? I don't really care too much about what people think, I want to be happy and value myself. I know we might be "more useful" there (no Thomas the train reference this time, I don't feel like being humorous at all), but would we feel more "fulfilled" by our work?

In addition, I feel very torn about living in Brazil. I have become very critical of the superficiality of life there. People care about appearances way too much. Everyone wants and feels like they have to look beautiful. This involves wearing the right things, doing manicures and straightening one's hair every weak (it's EXTREMELY cheap, mind you). The media (mostly TV and one main channel) "rules" people's lives, particularly the lower classes. People don't read (of course, education is one of the country's main problems) and consequently the news media (magazines and TV reports) is very superficial. There are so many things!

Of course I feel the same way about various things in the U.S., such as the rampant consumerism, the emphasis on having big houses, big cars, tons of things, eating junk, watching lots of TV, etc. But I have come to value the access to knowledge that we have here. There books just about everything. "Scientifically minded" books, not the self-help books that pile the Brazilian bookstores and make many authors famous overnight. These are just some of the things, the main ones. I know I could still buy the books (I don't know if I could afford them, which I may not) and keep in touch with people via blogging and online communities... but, I'm sure I'd miss things like Mother Talk salons, a lot. Oh, and don't get me started on the differences in teaching, and academic pursuits such as research, etc. there.

So, here I am, torn. And it may be a useless discussion after all if my husband does get at least one job offer (30 applications, remember?), but it doesn't hurt to start preparing myself. Steeling myself for the possibility.

The hardest things unfortunately have to do with money. I don't like to talk about money, I positively loathe it, particularly not having enough. (I edited the paragraph below to include the correct link)
BIG DIGRESSION: There was this brief discussion a while back sparked by this post from Separation of Spheres about whether families would be able to afford to have only one of them working while the other did a Ph.D. and/or took care of kids. I don't agree with the arguments brought forth by Dr. Dobson, of course, and I was more interested in the comments, particularly Sarah's (thanks for the link, BTW). All this to say that I have an answer to the question of whether it's possible to live on one income: YES, it is possible, but one has to live a very frugal life. We have been living a frugal life for many years now, since the income of two graduate students was even less than what my husband makes now. There was a period of a few years when things were better financially (it was during the period when we received support from the college in Brazil) and we got to travel to Europe and were able to buy a house, but other than that, we have been able to survive on two graduate students and now a post-doc's salary. When my brother-in-laws did his master's degree, he and his wife lived with much less and he had the added weight of paying tuition... what they did is even more amazing than what we did or have been doing. Problem is, I wasn't planning on living forever like that, penny-pinching, I was hoping that someday both of us would have reasonable paying jobs and that we'd be able to do some of the things we enjoy, like traveling a lot and buying many books :)

All right, back to the subject. In Brazil, the financial aspect would be tough. It would be extremely hard to save enough to travel abroad with the boys (and I have already been dreaming of the day I'll take them to Europe, for example), and we would basically continue living frugal lives so we could afford to save to build a house, buy and maintain a car, etc. the basics. Here it's so much easier, one just gets a mortgage -- it doesn't work like that in Brazil, interest is sky high, no one can ever get in debt (while here everyone is in debt because it's the way things work, money-wise).

OK, I'll stop. Too many things, you must be bored already, and I'm getting impatient. I need to be prepared, though, for whatever happens. Oh, I forgot to say that my husband had a phone interview today (school in Virginia) and that it went quite well. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed.

P.S. I was planning to write a more light-hearted post today, I haven't written any of those in a while, haven't I? I'll try to do so over the weekend. Oh, and I have to apologize to my husband for using this "sacred" dissertation time to write this, but I just couldn't help it. I had to get it off my chest, and it took just over half an hour, OK? ;)