Interviews

Name: Peter
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

1) Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Uppsala, Sweden. I grew up in Knivsta, a small town south of Uppsala, north of Stockholm. I am back in Uppsala now.

2) Describe a typical day of the week.
I'm on paternity leave now, so I get up around 6 a.m. Viggo, who is six months old, wakes up first. I heat a bottle for him and coffee for me. He's usually busy with the bottle for a while, which gives me a moment to myself. I'll read a book and enjoy my coffee before My, who is two years old, wakes up, at around 7a.m. Three times a week—Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—we'll go to the open daycare center. Parents go there to prepare their kids for kindergarten. The parents stay, but we sort of keep in the background, letting the children socialize. At 11 a.m., everybody gathers for a cup of coffee and a cookie or two. It's a nice way to meet other parents. They close around noon. Viggo is always out asleep on the way home, and My usually takes a nap too. When they wake up, I give them lunch, and the rest of the afternoon is just basically playing with the kids. We try to have them in bed by 7 p.m., but it's hard during the summer because it's so light outside. It's especially difficult to get My to bed, so we've postponed bedtime about an hour for her. I have been on paternity leave for about two and a half months, and I have about two months to go. My wife, Sussie, has been on maternity leave ever since My was born, so compared to her, I haven't been at home with the kids much, but it's still very nice. In the evening, I'll just take it easy, spend some quality time with my wife, or hang out on Facebook or play video games.

3) Do you identify strongly with a particular ethnic group?
Ethnic group? Um, no. I mean, I'm Swedish. If I were a part of a minority group of some kind, I guess it would be different. I have a lot of friends who are not ethnic Swedes, and I can't say that I identify less with them than I do with friends who are ethnic Swedes. But it is very difficult for me to answer that question. I see myself as a parent foremost, but that's not an ethnic group, is it? I guess I'm a part of the ethnic majority, and since this majority is pretty dominant, I can't see the wood for the trees.

4) What language do you speak?
Swedish is my mother tongue, and I don't think I have a dialect. I speak Rikssvenska, which is the standard Swedish dialect, heard on the news and so forth. I guess it's some form of a dialect, but it's a dialect in the absence of a dialect. I know English, which I learned in school. I also know sign language. I had a friend growing up whose parents were deaf and mute, so I was a little interested, and when they offered sign-language education in gymnasium (high school), I signed up. I'm a little rusty though. The last time I remember using sign language was when I helped a couple outside the baggage service office at the airport where I used to work. They were really surprised, relieved, and happy, so that felt good. I use English a lot at work. I work at the detention center, where people await trial, and it is quite common that these people come from other countries. But Russian or Polish would come in handy as well. You only get so far with English. Recently, we have had asylum seekers who, of course, are not suspected of committing a crime, but they have been placed in detention centers because the refugee quarters are overfull. Only a few of them know English.

5) What role does religion play in your life?
I'm an atheist. We celebrate Christmas and Easter for the kids' sake but in a very secular fashion. I don't feel a need for rituals. My wife and I got married because it was the most practical thing to do. We had been living together for years, and if we wanted the same rights that spouses have, without getting married, it would have taken an enormous amount of paper work and a lot of money to pay lawyers to come up with the proper agreements. We had a civil ceremony. I am a member of the Church of Sweden, but I should leave it since I'm not religious. It used to be a state church (until 2000), and you're more or less automatically a member if you don't take an active decision to leave it, and I just haven't bothered. When my mother died, we had a church funeral. It was nice enough I guess, but when my brother passed away, we had a civil funeral, where we were allowed to shape the way that the service was going to be conducted, and it did feel better that way. So I guess a funeral is a form of ritual, but I can't say I believe in an afterlife. If anything, I would hope that my mother and my brother are up in Valhalla drinking mead with Thor and Odin,¹ instead of sitting on some lame cloud in the sky.

6) Describe your mealtimes.
Since I'm on paternity leave, I eat breakfast, lunch, dinner—every meal—with my family. When I'm working, I only eat dinner with them. I get up so early that I'm out of the house before anyone else wakes up. At work, I usually try to bring a lunch box, as do most of my coworkers. My wife prepares all the meals at the house. She won't let me. My cooking is too spicy, so I would be the only one eating if I were to make dinner.

7) What is your favorite food?
I don't have a particular favorite. I like spicy food, I guess. It really depends. Sometimes I really feel like having fish, and sometimes I'll crave Asian. I guess the food culture in Sweden is pretty similar to that in the U.S., except maybe for surströmming (soured herring). The herring are fermented in barrels for months and then tinned. It really smells terrible, but the taste is mostly salty. You eat it with potatoes and snaps (small bottles of strong alcoholic beverages). It's a very traditional Swedish dish, but I wouldn't want to eat it more than once a year.

8) What is your role in your family?
I'm the breadwinner. I bring in most of the money. And I'm the play leader for my kids and the husband of my wife. I take on a lot of responsibilities. I grew up being the youngest of three brothers, and I think that might have made me grow up faster, in comparison to other kids my age, that is. I hung out with friends of my older brothers. I was the first to get a driver's license, even though I'm the youngest. My oldest brother, who passed away a few years ago, was eight years older than me, and he was the first to have kids, which I guess is not too surprising, but I beat my other older brother to it. Some people who grow up being the youngest sibling seem to take their responsibilities lightly, but it's not like that at all in my case.

9) Describe your home.
We rent our apartment. It has five rooms and one kitchen. It's 1,400 square feet (130 square meters) and has two floors. I relax in the living room. Once the kids are asleep, I'll turn on the Blu-ray projector and watch a movie or play video games on my Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. The apartment is furnished in a very spartan way. There are a couple of leather couches in the living room. We have a couple of paintings by my wife's older daughters, who are in their teens. Since we rent the apartment, the amount of work you can put into home improvement is limited. But we are really happy about our living arrangements. It's just that we don't bother too much about home styling at the moment.

10) What do you do during your leisure time?
I love running. It's really relaxing. There are beautiful running trails close to our home. I used to be more into lifting weights, but since I was assigned to work at a different detention center, there hasn't been much of that going on. We shared a gym with the police at my former work place, but I like running better. My favorite sport is soccer. I follow the Premier League (an English soccer league) closely, Manchester United being the team I'm rooting for. I usually watch the games at home. I don't want to be a soccer fan cliché: you know, sitting in the pub neglecting your family. I would really like to follow American sports more. I love American football, but not enough to get up in the middle of the night to watch games. I guess I could record them, but I haven't bothered so far.

11) What holidays or events are most important to you?
I would have to say Midsummer's Eve. That's when we bring out the snaps, the fresh potatoes, and the herring (not the fermented kind, though) and drink some beer and socialize with friends and family. We usually go to my father's cabin out by the coast of the Baltic. Skärplinge is the nearest village, I think. We celebrate Midsummer's Eve traditionally enough, but we do not raise a maypole or anything. It's the only occasion during the year when the whole family manages to get together, which does not even happen for Christmas. The weather is usually nice, and since you can sit outside, there's plenty of room for everybody. I'm not sure if we'll go this year, though. We've just sold our car. But maybe my brother can come pick us up.

12) How confident are you in your country's economy and your ability to make an adequate living?
Well, I'm just about to lose my current job, even though I have just finished an internal education that has cost my employers a ton of money. It's just crazy the way that they have spent all that money on me and then decided they can't afford to keep me. It's just typical Swedish bureaucracy. But I believe things will get better. I certainly hope so. It can't get much worse. Of course, we're a lot better off than, say, Greece, but still. I don't really worry though. I'm sure I'll get another job. I might have to commute though, which is not very appealing to me. But I'll do it if I have to. I have never been unemployed. There are jobs available for those who want them.

13) How do you usually get around?
We walk a lot. It's about a half-hour walk downtown from where we live, so I usually just put the kids in the stroller. We have a two-seated stroller, and we head down to a nice café. We ride the city buses a lot too. If we have to do some major grocery shopping, we'll often take the bus to the supermarket and call for a taxi to get home. But like I said, we've just sold our car. We bought it when the kids were born. We got a big Chrysler Grand Voyager Stow & Go, because we thought you needed one if you have kids, but we realized we almost never used it. It was just sitting in the garage swallowing insurance money and our down payment. Keeping it didn't make economic sense.

14) Was life different for you growing up in this country than it was for your parents?
My parents were better off in a lot of respects. It was easier for them to find a good, steady job. It's much harder now—and not just to find a job. Above all, it's very difficult to keep a job these days. My father has been an industrial painter all his life. He has never had to worry about unemployment. These days, I think a lot of people study at the universities not because they feel they belong there, but because there are no jobs for them. If given the opportunity, I think a lot of people would like to start working after gymnasium. Education at the universities is free in Sweden, and the student loans are pretty generous, but the older generation had almost ridiculously generous student loans with no interest. Today, you have to pay it back a lot quicker. There are so many educated people in Sweden, but having a good education doesn't help if there are no jobs suitable for that education.

15) What has been the most significant event in your life?
Well, that would be the births of my kids, without a doubt. So I guess that means I have two events that have been very important to me. In Sweden, you are by law granted 10 “dad days” when your kids are born, just to help out and get a chance to be with your new family. I hear some dads do not make use of this opportunity, which I think is very weird. But I guess it was extra special when My arrived, since she came first. I attended both births. It was actually less gory than you would expect. I cut their umbilical cords. I'm really happy I was there to witness this beautiful event. Having kids has really changed my life. But since my wife had kids from a prior relationship, I was used to leading a very calm family life. Maybe the change would have come as more of a shock had I led a more stereotypical bachelor life.

16) What does being a citizen of your country mean to you?
I guess one should be proud of one's flag and one's national anthem. Actually, I think it's a real shame that they have banned the Swedish national anthem in schools. That is just sick. They are claiming it's racist, which is so weird. There is nothing racist about it whatsoever. Banning the Swedish national anthem from schools is a severe case of a form of political hyper correctness that is very typical of Sweden. People are scared to death of giving the impression that they are superior. I think it actually annoys the hell out of a lot immigrants that Swedes can be so vague about their national identity and what it means to them. I mean, just because I'm proud about being Swedish, doesn't mean that I think I'm better than anyone else.

17) What do you worry most about?
My biggest fear is that my children will die. It's not a rational fear, but it's there. I guess it's very natural to feel that way. It's a price you pay for happiness. I mean, I feel very blessed to love something so intensely. If I didn't love my kids so much, I wouldn't be so scared to lose them. But other than that, I don't worry about anything in particular. We are all supposed to worry about the climate, but I haven't seen any polar bears on surfboards yet, so I don't know. They keep talking about global warming, how the winters are getting so mild, but this past winter was the coldest I've ever experienced, so it makes you wonder. But then again, there have been a lot of natural disasters, earthquakes, and storms, so who knows?

18) What is most important to you? What are your most important aspirations for the future?
That Manchester United wins Premier League! No, just kidding. The well-being of my kids comes first: that they have good lives, that Viggo becomes a professional soccer player. As soon as he starts walking, I'll give him some soccer shoes. I don't know what My is going to be, but she does like to dance. Seriously, they can choose any path in life. I'll still be as proud as any dad can be. When it comes to work, I don't think I have a dream job or anything. I am starting to get kind of bored with my current line of work at the detention center, and I was just really annoyed when they decided to lay me off after I had completed this internal education that they had paid for. I don't know what's going to happen. The detention centers are full, but they keep shutting them down.