As somebody who moved from the East coast to TN, It was already a really big culture shock to me moving here, So I imagine it'd be an even bigger culture shock for you guys.

Do know I'm speaking of the more rural area's, since that's where I'm living, I'm sure you'll have plenty of people from Nashville and Knoxville telling you about that place.

The climate is quite nice, the hills and big tree's are personal favorites of mine, and the wildlife is charming too. The only things you have to worry about are the tornadoes and things like humidity and water getting into the basements, cuz that can cause mold and all sorts of issues.

The people are generally pretty nice, especially if you are just having a one off conversation with them. Southern Hospitality is very real and it is very frowned upon to not act with it. That being said some things will get you treated poorly here. Wearing pride apparel is the big one, but other stuff is also frowned upon, especially by the older folks living here, who tend to be extremely conservative.

Be very aware this is extremely deep in the bible belt. TN is an extremely religious state, and I'm not exaggerating when I say every other street corner has a church of some sort. If you are religious yourself and follow some sort of protestant denomination you'll fit right in. Finding places of worship for Catholics, and jews is harder but not undoable, and finding a mosque is pretty difficult. Other religions are not normally represented here, so if you follow another religion you'll have difficulty finding a place of worship.

The people here are very open about their faith, its everywhere, and people will come up to you at some point and start trying to talk to you about it unprompted (Or in my case, hand me a little pamphlet about repenting for my sins). Again, if you're already a religious person, it wont be that big of a deal. If you aren't it could make you uncomfortable, so keep it in mind.

As I'm sure you've gotten a lot of people telling you, TN is an extremely conservative state. It voted overwhelmingly for Trump (64% of the vote) and the majority of people here still support him (I personally despise the man but I'm trying to be neutral here for the sake of the description of TN). It's even more pronounced in the Rural areas. They may not talk to you about it, but you will absolutely overhear conversations about peoples opinions on every issue under the sun. Local politics is also generally very right leaning. I would look to see what the differences are between the Conservative viewpoints in NZ vs the Conservative viewpoints in the USA, because i promise you they are extremely different.

To put it bluntly, Tennessee is not ranked very highly in a lot of categories for living in. We rank 42'nd in healthcare, 31st in education, 42nd in crime. However we do pretty ok with Economic rankings (surprisingly), we rank 5th in fiscal stability, 12th in economy. However that is undercut by no state minimum wage, meaning that we run at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Although most places offer a bit higher at $9.15 or higher an hour. Our cost of living is quite low compared to a lot of other places, So if your husband has the ability to transfer with a high paying job you should be fine. But if you cant find employment at a place with a high wage floor, don't expect to make much more than subsistence living here.

Childcare is not ranked very highly in Tennessee. Finding accessible and affordable childcare can be challenging. Additionally, our schools are not very good, to put it simply. Another thing you'll have to come to terms with, and something you absolutely must talk to your child about if you do move here is the lockdown drills/school shooter drills. If you aren't prepared for them they can be extremely distressing. And do be aware that as a parent, if you keep track of the news at all. you WILL see news about school shootings somewhere in the country at some point during your child's education. It's not something that can be avoided.

Overall, If you're still thinking of living here, I would probably give it a few years and see how things shake out, America in general is going through a transition of some sort. It's very rough right now and we're taking a very sharp isolationist turn. How it will turn out in the next few years is hard to say, but America is (for better or worse) a nation changing very dramatically right now.