Accidentally settled for such a small life

[longingfor]

I didn't really realise until it was too late, but I had my kids at 22 and 25. I got married at 26. I live not far at all from where I was born and raised. My eldest is happy and settled in school so I can't move, my husband is happy here. It's not an urban area (small town in Wales), jobs are limited. I do admin and earn £26k, even if I re-train the only jobs around here are within the NHS or the local council. We go on holiday once a year, but mainly kid friendly sunny breaks. I have good friends and do a city break with them once a year. My life is just so small though, isn't it? One of my sisters lives in Australia and is experiencing a whole new life to what we knew. My other sister has an amazing career and makes over £100k a year, doesn't have kids, goes on amazing holidays and seems to be out all the time having meals and drinks and experiences. I love my kids and my house and my husband and my friends but I can't help but feel panicky when I think about the choices I've made. How much I've limited myself to a place which can't do anything for me. I feel claustrophobic. I don't know why I'm posting, I've made my bed and now I need to lie in it, I suppose. Be grateful for the good bits, my kids etc. It just feels a bit like, is this it? I'm not even 30 yet, and it feels like everything is just done, and small. I don't know.

Don't compare. A close friend had kids in early twenties and bemoaned his life whilst I travelled the world having fun. Now we are both in our fifties. He and his wife are 'kid free' travelling the world and he will be taking early retirement in September. I had kids later in life just finishing schooling and hopefully on to uni. which I will no doubt have to finance. For me retirement is a long way off and the shoe is clearly on the other foot (not that I am unhappy). Your time will come

Could’ve written that. I’m turning 30 on Thursday (😳) and it’s not the life I imagined for myself. I’m dying to move overseas but would never do it because of the kids and jobs. Butttt when my youngest is 18 I’ll be in my 40s and then our plan is to move to a new country for a new adventure, just DH and I. And that’s really what I’m holding on to atm. Also not sure how old your kids are now but I can’t wait for mine to get older so they can become more independent.

Anyone who finds hotel rooms soulless is staying in the wrong hotels.

So retrain and relocate.
my sister took her family to New Zealand in her early 40’s.. kids were 8 and 12, all very happy and settled quickly.

Interesting that OP refers to Australia.
I remember a time, not that long ago, 4 or so decades, when the standard of living there was a fair bit below that of the UK. I'm not talking about the weather but general economic opportunities. Sure, people already found Australia an attractive destination to move to but it all seemed a bit backward until the 90s. Australia today is simply a far, far richer country than the UK, especially Wales. That's what you have when you compare a $60k GDP per capita to a $46k GDP per capita. Of course there are far more people in Australia who have the disposable income to afford "exciting" lifestyles, activities and trips.

The standard of living of the British middle class has dropped or at best stagnated such that those of us who can have the lifestyle OP is referring to, one with the occasional holiday, are actually the lucky ones but we don't realise we are. Many of us were brought up thinking that our lives would be richer and more exciting than those of our parents, that regular holidays abroad were a given. That is not a realistic expectation anymore.

Even at a European level, the UK is slowly becoming a very middling economy with Eastern European economies catching up and in the case of some of them, possibly overtaking us in terms of wealth per individual. 9 out of the 30 EEA countries are richer than us and that number is likely to increase.

This is obviously in direct contradiction with the belief that the UK is some standout dream land of opportunity that everyone wants to move to. It's not. Many migrants would prefer certain other European countries rather than the UK. Only some choose the UK for a variety of reasons (language often being a factor).

I was talking to my Dd about this recently and said the best thing to do is take the pleasure in small things. I’d say that my life is quite small. I live in the village I was born in and barely leave a twenty mile radius of my house. But I’m content with my life. I love cycling, walking the dog , meeting friends for coffee, reading books. I’m a content homebody I guess.

i do think life can feel suffocating when the dc are young and it’s all so mundane. I also had dc at a young age. I’m in my mid 40s now and Dd is 22yo. So from my early 40s she was fairly independent and I had more free time and got back into sports, hobbies, etc. life felt a lot better then.

the other thing is that if you wanted to it’s not too late to do something about your career. Plenty of people go to uni in their 20s, 30s or even older. When Dd was a toddler I was in an admin job, I went back to uni when she was 4yo and trained to be a midwife. Could you consider something like that?

I do know what you mean by a “small life” OP. That feeling that you can’t do much, you’re limited by money and kids, it’s very routine and unexciting. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad life, and of course having kids and a partner and enough money to get by are things lots of people would love to have and don’t. But just because it could be worse, doesn’t mean that feeling doesn’t matter. It’s the price you pay for having kids, unless you’re very well off.

It might help to dream / plan for the future, even though it’s a long way off. You’ve started a family young and that means there will be a time when you’re free to travel, move elsewhere, explore other job options etc, and still be relatively young.

I had my DC later and that means I did have a wild life before, travelling, living abroad, being in bands, being totally spontaneous. Since being a mum, first with a partner who wouldn’t do much parenting, then as a single mum, I’ve had a much “smaller” life - working hard, very little travel (and no child free holidays), mainly staying in, no spontaneity. But now my kids are teens and I should soon be able to get some freedom back. I think about it a lot, even though I’ll be nearly 60 when I can have that life again. I want to travel, go to late night jazz clubs, take off for a weekend if I feel like it.

I don’t think it’s bad or wrong to feel like you do.

The vast majority of people live lives like this. Even those who emigrate are generally doing the same things in a sunnier place.

That appears to be a widespread Mn fallacy, spouted (I tend to imagine) by people who’ve never lived in other places. I lived mostly outside my home country from my early 20s till 2020, and I’ve never found this to be true. My life has been very different, in often very interesting ways, depending on where I was — a different culture, different language, different landscape, different climate, different social norms, different workplace cultures, different nationalities of new friends. How could that in any way be ‘more of the same’?

I think the point was that even abroad (most people) still have to work, pay the bills, deal with kids, do housework, have annoying colleagues, etc. there is always dull day to day life to some extent. It isn’t like being on holiday, it’s life with different scenery and maybe a bit more sun.

My point is that this is (I imagine) usually said by people whose only experience of ‘abroad’ is sun holidays, or those endless ‘Brits Moving to Australia’ tv programmes. Only someone really unimaginative would think that moving to another country involved nothing but sunloungers and tapas. But the fact is that your life will be potentially very different depending on where you live. Living in a different language changes you. Making friends with or having romantic relationships with people whose ‘normal’ is entirely different changes you. Having a child who is growing up speaking as a native a language you learned in adulthood, or who has a different accent to you speaking your language is different. Your workplace may operate on entirely different norms, as when I worked in the UAE during Ramadan (or your working week may be Saturday to Wednesday), be far more or less hierarchical, involve shoeless offices etc. Different ideas of social distance, different appreciations of silence, different norms of relationship fidelity.

Definitely not just your life as you know it with different scenery.

Guess maybe that’s how you found it but not how I found it and I’ve lived in a few different countries in my late teens and early 20s. Sure it was exciting initially but the novelty soon wears off. Hence I’m back home 😁. Maybe it wasn’t for me.

Hi OP, I envy people who manage to develop deep shared connections with people in their community over a lifetime. I have moved around so much in search of new fields and opportunities that I missed much of that. In recent years I have realised it’s those long term connections that really count.

Borrowedtime wishing you well. I think those lifetime connections can sometimes be a double edged sword though and can be restricting or can revert to previous ways of relating even when the people have grown up and changed.

So maybe not the only way to build a supportive community, though I am sure it is less hard work than building and maintaining one from scratch. I think an assembled community that shares your interests and values that you’ve collected around yourself over time has a lot of merit to it as well if that is your situation.

When you youngest is 20, you will only be 45.
I'm nearly 50, had my children in my mid 30s which was the best thing I ever did but it devastated my career goals.
With two 13 year olds and a 14 year old I am only now trying to put those goals back in place.
The good thing is I was very present when they were very young and I feel that investment in them has resulted in them being happy secure children who give me no problems at all (yet?!?) and I have (some)space to try and get my career going again....earn a bit more....get some travelling in.
There is so much you can do online now -training, developing new interests, even work. You could spend time investing in your little ones, because before you know it they will be off out into the big wide world. You will have lots and lots of time still to pursue those dreams you have been planning.
Just as a side, maybe be mindful that if you are feeling low or apathetic, don't rule out the possibility that this could signal mental health problems. They have a nasty habit of distorting your sense of hope and fulfillment....without any changes to your life at all, supportive treatment or intervention could change your mindset.
The world still is your oyster. Xx