Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if anyone enjoyed growing up rurally?

129 replies

YellowRedwheels1 · 29/05/2025 13:43

I’ve been on MN long enough to know that all the threads about rural living mention how bad it is for teens and how they themselves really resented it etc.

However, I feel like myself and some of my friends must be anomalies then as I absolutely loved it and wouldn’t have wanted to have lived in a town or city.

I guess I’m worried as DC is 6 and currently loves the fact we live rurally, have a big garden for her to charge about in , she horse rides just down the road etc but I’m waiting for the inevitable resentment when she gets to her teenage years and for her to hate the countryside and spend all her adult life living in towns and cities due to being scarred from her time in the countryside!!

I never felt this way though, to be fair we did have a bus service in my village growing up, only 4 a day, one in the morning, one at lunchtime and then coming back one in morning one in evening to the nearest town and city so I wasn’t completely cut off in my teenage years.

Myself and my friends were involved in the YFC, rode horses etc and even now, a lot of them work in agriculture or live rurally. We just weren’t bothered by living in the countryside and it was almost a way of life for us?

These people all have normal jobs in the local towns and cities now that they commute for or a lot WFH, there’s a couple of drs who moved back and work at the local hospital, one is a university lecturer and again, works at the local university. Another a nurse, project manager in tech etc so it’s not like we’re all a load of unskilled/ qualified country bumpkins.

You just don’t ever see this side on MN, it’s nearly always how bad it is for teens and how living rurally is bad for them/ isolating.

Is there anyone else on here who grew up living rurally and enjoyed it?

OP posts:
LilacLouLou · 29/05/2025 13:59

I grew up in a rural village and still live there, in fact so do many of my friends and several have moved back.

I loved spending my youth mooching about in meadows and woodlands in all seasons. We are also by the sea so imo, had the best of both worlds.

My DC are now 17 and 19 and although they enjoy towns and cities they both love rural life so I feel no guilt for bringing them up amongst nature.

I love it so much that I'm looking forward to selling up and moving somewhere even more rural (too many new builds popping up within our village over the last few years).

HiddenInCubeOfCheese · 29/05/2025 13:56

I loved it! Yes, when I was mid teens did I long for a city, but now I’m pushing 40, I can see the appeal of moving back.

That said, I’m not sure that I’d let my kids go out for bike rides or swim in rivers with their friends the way I did in the 90s.

neverbeenskiing · 29/05/2025 13:54

Sorry, OP not what you want to hear but I hated it and got out at the first opportunity! Although I do think it's relevant that we moved from a town to the countryside when I was 11, maybe if I'd never known any different I'd have loved it? Who knows.

Fatrosrhun · 29/05/2025 13:52

No I’m with you. I grew up in the countryside, had horses and dogs, and loved it. Found it a bit hard when I was 16-18 and going out. Moved for college and I no, then moved around a lot, but ended up right back in the countryside again (with horses and dogs!).