Do you judge people who have never left their home towns?

[Waferbiscuit]

Genuinely curious to ask if you judge people who have never left their home towns?

I grew up in a family of diplomats who had lived around the world. We were really encouraged to move away and experience life in other cities and countries. I appreciate that is a privileged mindset and an experience that is not available to all. But I think my parents really felt that staying in your hometown your whole life with a friend group/social milieu you made in primary school limited or 'fixed you' in that time and didn't give you opportunity to grow.

I get what they mean but I'm also aware that in the past humans basically stayed within their communities and, unless they were part of nomadic tribes, didn't really aim to move away. At the same time I've lived in places in the UK (towns in Scotland, the midlands) where people not only stayed put but wanted to live across the street from their mom and down the road from their aunties - which I find a bit too tribal!

I read a book called David Goodhart called The Road to Somewhere in which he sort of divides the UK population into 'Somewheres' and 'Anywheres.' Somewheres are very rooted in their community, place matters and they see the world through that community. Whereas Anywheres are more modern, educated internationalist types who basically aren't grounded in their community and will happily move about for the right jobs. Somewheres tended to vote for Brexit, Anywheres against Brexit. This is a simplistic summary of his book but I thought it was interesting.

Anyway, is the view that it's good to move away unusual or normal and do you judge people who never move away?

Yes I do actually. I find they still have a small town mentality and are inward looking

I think maybe that’s the difference between happiness and contentment. I don’t need or want excitement in my life. I have come to realise I might not be neurotypical and I really need order and predictably. I do love to go abroad but am always ready to come home after 2 or 3 weeks. Too much excitement is a bit too stimulating for me. 😂 🤷🏼‍♀️ We’re all different and as was pointed out upthread- maybe the world needs both ‘Somewheres’ and ‘Anywheres’.

And I think I probably do have a ‘small’ life by many people’s standards- but why should that attract judgement? It doesn’t hurt anybody! I’m quite happy for others to lead their ‘big’ lives. A number of my friends live in or have lived in other countries (and I also have homebody friends like myself). I enjoy hearing about my adventurous friends’ lives but I don’t want that for myself.

I agree with a pp that it's far too simplistic.

I have a cousin who left our home City 20 years ago and never came back. She's instead experiencing the exotic cultural wonders of...Leicester.

Is her life 'less small' than mine, because I still live in the same City I was born in?!

No, never judge. The idea that someone is boring because they haven't lived in a different place makes no sense to me. I know people who have lived in one place, who have nevertheless travelled widely, experience a rich life and keep a wide and diverse circle of friends.

The failure to live in different parts of the UK doesn't condemn someone to being a dull, unambitious bore. I've traveled to and lived in several different places. As I get older, I almost feel envious of people with deep roots in a place.

I've lived in inner London almost all my life and I don't think I have a small town mentality, although where I live now is under 2 miles from where I grew up. I think it would have been nice to live abroad when I was a young adult, but I had my children young and I believe it's better for children to give them a settled and stable childhood and not move around and switch schools for the sake of it.

I am definitely not rooted in my community and where I live is just the buildings and the amenities that I use as a service. I don't build relationships with local people and would be fine living in any other area with similar amenities and services. I am not in touch with anyone from school, university or any of my old workplaces. I have family nearby and I am nc with them.

I meet a lot of young graduates in London who move here for a few years to work, but then move back to their home towns as soon as they're married. I find that mindset is a bit small town and they never really embrace city living, just tolerate it for a while, a bit like expats who spend all their time around other expats and only using services for expats.

It seems so strange to me to look down on people for something like that, why on earth should it matter? I've lived in a lot of different places for work and I haven't minded it but I certainly don't feel that I gained anything particular from moving around. I've found that reading widely has done more to broaden my mind than any amount of travel.

Wouldn't that be just as narrow minded as people in small towns are perceived to be?! I know people who could have gone anywhere and done anything but chose to stay near where they grew up because they were very close to their family. I don't judge, it's just a different life. Of course there is a small town, insular mentality in some places but it's not everybody. It's not like I had anything in common with everyone I met in the big city either.

I don't think this is true. They are Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California. Of these only Costa Rica could be argued to be 'developing'.

I stayed in the big city I grew up in and even stayed about 5 miles from the house I grew up in. I regret not spending some of my twenties living in a different city, but then again I don’t as I would probably have quite a different life now.

I travel a lot with work and we travel widely in our leisure time but I find the whole ‘must travel’ brigade tiresome and elitist. It’s just another way for middle/upper classes to feel superior isn’t it

True that they are not ‘developing’ but they are generally multigenerational and community based

With the blue zones I wonder if it suggests the opposite. A place that's nice enough that people want to stay living near is also a place nice enough to give a better life expectancy.

I'll be honest, where I grew up I noticed that the people I went to school with whose parents and grandparents were from the area tended to be quite troubled families. I think this led me to internalise the idea that staying where I grew up = failing at life. It wasn't until I moved to where I am now and met some happy and stable people that settled near their parents that I started to challenge this idea.

The other factor here is that I grew up with parents that didn't grow up in the area, struggled to form lasting friendships with anyone and so I didn't feel rooted. The lack of rooting is going to make you less likely to want to stay. I think some people can move and put down roots but some struggle to or don't want to which will make the somewhere and anywhere families have very different narratives around their children growing up.

My brother settled as a teen in his town and has lived there ever since. He knows so many people, entire generations, whereas I moved away and the number of people I know is barely in double figures.

I kind of envy him sometimes. Only sometimes though.

I live in the same city, but I've travelled. I enjoy seeing the world but I enjoy coming home.

My parents never even travelled, and live less than a mile to where they grew up. They did the same routine every day, every year. I don't think they were happy.

I've got one child who wants to work and live abroad, travels everywhere; and one child who doesn't enjoy travelling and wants to stay locally. They're both happy.

The documentary stated that they were all ELD locations with the exception of Loma Linda and another one I can't remember. This is what surprised the researchers.

That made me laugh. SIL1 moved to the Antipodes and lives in a dreadful town, with a hopeless dh and despite her RG Education and outstanding artistic talent works in a shop. Her three dc are all currently unemployed. When we first met she told me my job was boring and she couldn't live my sort of life.

But I digress, I think it's interesting that the alpha girls from school were the ones who went back or stayed and never really moved on from the lives they were desperate to move on from in their teens. It was us more unremarkable ones who spread their wings.

However, my son and dil have just left for South Africa and it may be permanent; DD I expect to spend time living in Europe as her BF is likely to be seconded in the next year or two. There's a place in my heart that wishes they would settle within a few mins of where dh and I have settled.

Your assumption that moving countries is only for the privileged is flawed logic, though. Look at the stats of those passing through Ellis Island at its height — few privileged passengers there. The poor and desperate have always travelled for something better. The peak of Irish emigration was in the immediate aftermath of the Famine. Nearly a quarter of the population emigrated to the US.

I grew up poor, and neither of my parents had ever left the country, even for a holiday, but I still emigrated with most of my cohort in a deep recession in the 1980s. I’ve lived longterm in five countries and speak a lot of languages.

I’ve lived and worked in several countries but I don’t feel anymore superior to my siblings who haven’t. I’ve also had friends who were ever so proud of their world view and experiences but showed no interest or concern for the community or the area where they lived. In fact they seem to condemn anybody who did.

In my experience the people who move around the most and/or make travelling their personality aren’t as interesting to other people as they like to think

So true.

Every Christmas we get a letter from some friends who have moved away. Instead of it being full of family news it is just a list of holidays they have taken.

Last year it was sent as an email attachment so I didn't even bother to read it.

An ex work colleague moved away and spent 20 plus years living in London had a string of failed long term relationships to men from much more exotic shores.

She has now moved back to her home town in her mid fifties. I caught up with her twice once by choice with some other work colleagues and another time by accident. She is now extremely vocal and absolutely vile also very sarcastic and condescending to myself and others who have stayed in the home town that she has returned to. What she doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing and only her opinion counts. She first bought a big house in the country when she first moved back they have now moved closer to the small town in a smaller house in suburbia pretty close to where I live. Moving away hasn’t done her any favours whatsoever.

No. Having left home at 18 and moved away I sometimes think would have been lovely for my children to have lived near their extended family. I’m envious of those that do.

I think both positions come with benefits. Personally, I'm in awe of people who live where they were born and have all local friends and family. It makes me think of "hallmark christmases".

I have an old university friend who went straight back to her small hometown afterwards, married her teenage boyfriend, got a teaching job in her old school, bought her parents’ house when they downsized and raised her children in her own childhood home. When I went to her wedding, I was one of the few people there who hadn’t always known her for her whole life.

I think I thought at the time that here was someone who had had the good luck to be born into the kind of life that suited her, and who just wanted to get back there and perpetuate it. That there was nothing for her to quest after.

On the other hand, there are good things about my life she’ll never experience — the excitement of settling a new country, a new climate, mastering a new language, making friends from different cultures, relationships where my background is exotic and strange etc.

I haven't read the full thread yet, but I moved half way around the world to a small Welsh village, where I have remained for 20 years. So I suppose I was an anywhere who became a somewhere!!

Where I live it's common to live on the same street as your mum and dad, with aunties and cousins just down the road etc. A lot of the mums at the school gates were pupils themselves at the same school, often together, and now their kids are growing up together with big extended families within walking distance.

It's not for me and I wouldn't chose that lifestyle, but it benefits children massively. It creates a sense of belonging and community that is deep and intrinsic. Plus, childcare is less of an issue, there is no panic around inset days, there seems to always be a nain on hand!

Like I said, it's not my life, but a village life with a deep sense of community and family is not to be looked down on. Especially once kids are involved