Though, now, Shara complains that Madison is too boring and small and homogeneous. She longs for the thrills and excitement of NYC. Maybe if we’d done a year in Laramie or Eureka or Goshen, IN, she’d feel differently about her hometown…

Lots of great points here, but what strikes me most is how comfortably you use “we” throughout. It’s clear that your family is working together to find a livable balance.

I think that’s really the key–and something that came across very clearly in the Obama interview–both partners communicating openly about these challenges, and wanting to do right by each other.

Glad to hear that you are content!

Which involved a good bit of sacrifice on Daniel’s part. He is at a lower-level college than he deserves, and is not on a tenure-track. But he still does a lot of research and publication, and truly enjoys teaching. There have been any number of positions opening that he’d have a good chance of getting if he were to apply, but in academe, as you well know, most of those are one-year appointments. You have to slog through several of those before you are considered tenure track caliber. And we just did not want to yank our family around the country in that way (I grew up under those circumstances, and it wasn’t fun or easy).

So here we are, ten or so years after D’s PhD, muddling along in places we really didn’t anticipate. I guess our decision, in the end, was to put the emphasis on place and not job. It was joint, and there have been moments of “what if”, but overall we are content.