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Wwyd - stay down south or move up north (home)

37 replies

Jkrowlingsarmy · 28/02/2024 18:04

Hi everyone,

title says it all really. DH and I live down south with our toddler - we both like our jobs and rly happy with childminder. But we just have a constant niggling at back of our minds about moving back north - it’s where lots of our close family are inc cousins similar ages to our daughter. It is honestly a joy to see them all play together.

we would have a bigger house up there but I wouldn’t have many friends - all my nct are down here as are childminder mums. I also worry about my job - I’m a teacher and there’s just not a great deal of jobs around. DH can transfer to northern office so he’s ok.

Wwyd? I chop and change daily!

OP posts:
Moier · 28/02/2024 18:24

Where in the North?

coxesorangepippin · 28/02/2024 18:27

Where???

BibbleandSqwauk · 28/02/2024 18:31

Of course there are teaching jobs up here. What subject/age?

Sounds like a no brainer to me. You'll make friends in a new job, new toddler groups or whatever and having family nearby is hard to replace with anything else.

shreknjumps · 28/02/2024 18:31

Depends where to and where from. Obviously

BusyMummy001 · 28/02/2024 18:31

And they’ll be crying out for great teachers in the north, just not advertising for Sept until just before Easter?

I’d not stay anywhere just for friends - if you have lots, you are clearly very likeable and will make more friends. That may also be easier if you have family to support you.

Could you rent out your home down south and try it for a year to see how it went?

User19798 · 28/02/2024 18:34

Where? it is a hugely diverse area. Bradford or York? Newcastle or Warrington? It is a massive part of the country.
I didn't realise that many parts of the UK view half the country as a vast hopeless wasteland where a house is 50p and there are no schools, libraries, museums. It's quite bizarre.

tillyandmilly · 28/02/2024 18:36

The North!

I long to move up there !

Flin · 28/02/2024 18:37

The North, that vast land of nothingness with hardly any schools and no friendly people?

Midnlghtrain · 28/02/2024 18:39

Ah, the people yearn for the North.

Jkrowlingsarmy · 28/02/2024 19:53

User19798 · 28/02/2024 18:34

Where? it is a hugely diverse area. Bradford or York? Newcastle or Warrington? It is a massive part of the country.
I didn't realise that many parts of the UK view half the country as a vast hopeless wasteland where a house is 50p and there are no schools, libraries, museums. It's quite bizarre.

Did I not say I was from there? I love the north!

i was being vague as some of my friends are on here so didn’t want to reveal tmi.

Manchester is where we’re from, and genuinely with my subject (RS) there are very few that appear. I check daily! That’s a big concern - that I wouldn’t have a job to go to.

OP posts:
Jkrowlingsarmy · 28/02/2024 19:55

Flin · 28/02/2024 18:37

The North, that vast land of nothingness with hardly any schools and no friendly people?

Lol! Obviously not. Could you not be a little gentler? The no friends thing (at first - yes I would make them) and the uncertainty of job opps is a big deal.

been in my job here for ten years in an excellent school so it’s a lot to give up.

OP posts:
muddyford · 28/02/2024 19:55

Go for it. I have family in North Yorkshire and yearn to move from the south.

Jkrowlingsarmy · 28/02/2024 19:57

BusyMummy001 · 28/02/2024 18:31

And they’ll be crying out for great teachers in the north, just not advertising for Sept until just before Easter?

I’d not stay anywhere just for friends - if you have lots, you are clearly very likeable and will make more friends. That may also be easier if you have family to support you.

Could you rent out your home down south and try it for a year to see how it went?

Thank you for your lovely words. I think you’re right - I just need to get used to the idea. I’m terrible with change! But I think it is all for the good.

OP posts:
Bobskeleton · 28/02/2024 20:05

Sorry I have very little understanding of teaching but could you look for jobs within different departments eg English to broaden your search pool? Or is it not that simple?

I'm from the south and am sick to the back teeth of inflated house prices. So for me, lower house prices alone would be enough to make the move.

Plus the north is beautiful!

CorylusAgain · 28/02/2024 20:07

Teaching is one of the most transferable jobs to be in! And you would be moving in the economically sensible direction.
I was in the opposite situation. A teacher moving from the Midlands back to the South East where I'd grown up and all my family still lived. Same payscales but totally different cost of living. I ended up with a house twice the price but half the size. But living close to my family was really important to me and I'm really glad I did.
The perfect post may not be there instantly for you, but there will be opportunities in the future.
I'd go for it!

Hairdyemistake · 28/02/2024 20:11

I'd stay where you are for now but see family more often if possible.

If you move there, there's no going back really due to the disparity in CoL. It's different when you're young, single, childfree and starting out. You don't mind so much being a bit poor then.

Once you're older and have got used to a certain standard of living you don't want to let it go. So if you couldn't find work it wouldn't be so easy to just come back down South, but you could change your mind and move North at any time.

It's harder to make friends when you're older too, at the moment you've got some, I wouldn't give them up in a hurry.

Maybe further down the line when you and your friends have possibly lost touch as DC grow older or if one of you was facing redundancy etc, you'd have less to lose by moving back North. Or if the idea crystallises in your mind as something you definitely want to do, perhaps to help parents out in old age or because you've become jaded by the South.

But for a maybe? No, I wouldn't. You'll get there and find the grass is no greener, that you've swapped one set of problems for another set.

Maybe your cousins wouldn't be available so much as you'd like, if you moved back North. Maybe the DC would grow apart and naturally not want to spend so much time together. Maybe you'd feel pressured to provide elderly care and not want to.

You've got a life that's working out well at the moment and no real idea exactly what you'd be swapping it for, only a rose-tinted vision of DC playing happy families with cousins. That's not enough to base a life altering decision on.

You have annual leave, so do your family, visit each other more often and see how you feel in a few years.

Plmoknijbuhv · 28/02/2024 20:15

We moved to be near all my family when our first was a baby. I love that our children are growing up with their grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins. We all get on very well and socialise as a family lots. I never regret the move. Does help that we live in a lovely part of the country

Hatty65 · 28/02/2024 20:24

It's a no brainer to me. Go home. Family and a better house.

Frenchmartini02 · 28/02/2024 20:37

I think one way of looking at it is to attach weight to different things family, friends, big house, job, support etc which might help you work out what's most important to you, help with your decision making. I do have friends that moved from London to Leeds to be closer to family and then fell out, because they were too close. It can go both ways.

LlynTegid · 28/02/2024 20:38

I wouldn't myself, because of the earlier darkness in winter. Though Manchester has a lot going for it.

piscofrisco · 28/02/2024 20:48

Move. We didn't and I regret it massively. Now my parents are elderly and a 3 hour drive away. I'm paying through the nose to live in a house that's half the equivalent size of what I could have up north. Everything is more expensive and all the friends I made when the kids were little have drifted a bit-where I'm still close to all my original friends from home.

BIossomtoes · 28/02/2024 21:33

LlynTegid · 28/02/2024 20:38

I wouldn't myself, because of the earlier darkness in winter. Though Manchester has a lot going for it.

Balanced out by the fact it barely gets dark at all in the summer. I wouldn’t trade closeness to my family and a nicer house for ten minutes more daylight five months of the year. Go for it @Jkrowlingsarmy, it’s a win/win situation.

Jkrowlingsarmy · 29/02/2024 10:17

Wow, so many messages saying go for it! That’s really encouraging - I expected the opposite tbh. Sometimes I worry that I’m a bit weird to still be wanting to be near my mum?! But then, what if she dies and I regret all the time I’ve not spent with her? Sorry - so morbid I know but that’s my lovely anxiety there.

thanks everyone - a lot of think about ❤️

OP posts:
Toddlerteaplease · 29/02/2024 12:18

@Jkrowlingsarmy look on diocesan websites for teaching jobs. The Archdiocese of Liverpool frequently posts job adverts for schools. I presume the other do too.