to ask how you cope with teens in a city ? schools ...gangs etc ?

[doley]

We left SW London 5 years ago .

Now we live in a very rural area in the states ,but ,will be returning to the UK (country this time ) later in the year :)

How do your teens cope /and enjoy life ? ~what do they get up to ?

I couldn't see my boys fitting in /coping with London life again after a much gentler slower place of life .(they are not un-streetwise btw, just now 'from here ' )

AIBU to think I would be a nervous wreck each time they left the house for fun, or just a daily journey to school ? Male gangs particularly concern and frighten me .

I do not read the Daily Mail that much

I have to say, I have some sympathy for Animula's point - this is a bit of an odd thread. It does almost seem a bit vicarious - you are not moving to London so I don't see that you can realistically be that worried about the impact of London gang culture on your sons.

There are many people for whom it is a real and daily problem. I represented a young man who got sucked into gang-life through fear and isolation. He finished up with a 5 year stretch and would almost certainly come out of prison and straight back into the same lifestyle. There are people who can't get away from this issue - parents who spend every day terrified that there will be a knock on the door telling them their son has been arrested, or worse.

If the most you are going to have to worry about on that front is an occasional visit to the city, you really need to count your lucky stars.

I also strongly disagree that looks play a major part in the selection of victims by gangs. I have been involved in many gang-related cases - I have heard all sorts of explanations and excuses for the gang activities. I have also had the singular misfortune to spend several months ploughing through several thousand pages of MSN discussions between members of a gang about the robberies they committed. Not once have I ever come across a suggestion that someone was targetted for being good-looking - for being the wrong colour, for being posh, for looking rich, for being from the wrong postcode, all of those things. Good-looking? Not on my radar so far.

But the point is that if you will be living in Dorset and just visiting Wandsworth to see family, your children will not be growing up in the gang culture and therefore will be unlikely to be involved in any gang related violence. Worrying about your children getting killed by a bunch of thugs while being in London is pointless.

It could happen to any of us, sadly, but it is still RARE.

(and to be honest I would imagine that you won't be allowing your child to go toLondon on their own for quite some time yet)

Agree that I find your tone....grating.

OP, please ask HQ to remove your 18:42:11 post. Because if you don't, it will be reported and deleted as, no matter how upset you get by posts, it is against talk guidelines to tell another poster to fuck off because you disagree with him/her.

Sorry, it's unmoderated and that's grand, but guidelines were put in for a very good reason.

My apologies if I have over-interpreted what you have written, doley.

But why focus on the gang thing?

Much of the violence experienced by young men is indeed male-on-male violence. But I am fairly certain it is ALCOHOL not GANG related.

I strongly suspect that a lot of the violence experienced by young women is male-on-female and quite probably has a sexual or gender-power element, rather than being about gang-issues. And I suspect there's often alcohol involved in (stranger) male-on-female violence too.

The above is not true for certain groups, who really are at high risk of gang-related violence - often the very same people who are at risk of joining gangs. And risk is disproportionately borne by those living in, let's be clear, economically-deprived areas.

So the risk of gang-related violence is borne disproportionately by the poor. and by young black people.

I'm sorry if I brought an inappropriate political slant into this, but there is something horribly grim about the way that gang issues have a huge "SEP-field" around them, precisely because of the marginality of those affected most. It affects the way the issue is covered - which is intermittently.

'I also strongly disagree that looks play a major part in the selection of victims by gangs'

I do as well, also having worked in the criminal justice system in one of the US states with the most people on Death Row . Most victims of gang violence are quite effectively trapped living in areas where such groups abide as well, are other gang members (of the same or another race or ethnicity), involved in the supply of drugs, come from gang families/the care system/have family members already incarcerated, etc.

Ok ,the whole gang thing took off more strongly than was at first intended .

My use of the word gang in my initial post came from the old use of the word ~I simply meant groups of boys/kids . I don't ,and didn't take an elitist attitude to the REAL problem that effects so many families these days .

I understand there is a real gang problem in inner cities (in the true sense of the word ) and was grateful for the candid posts that offered me help in that respect also .

Why are so many posters missing the point ...I will not be living there, but have strong connections that will take my boys there with or WITHOUT me ?

I suggest, if anyone has misunderstood me ,read all MY posts and come back and let me know where I have cast gloating words from my ivory tower .

They don't need to fit in with London life though, they will be tourists.
We daytrip to London often and it's lovely.

Ok,expat I will .

Let's not mention the thin good-looking gloats, shall we?

OP - I don't think that anyone is suggesting you are gloating but, to me, your professed worry about this issue seems a bit OTT. Your kids will go to all sorts of places in their lives - why borrow trouble about an issue that is highly, highly unlikely to affect your lives?

People do often make a fuss about some major, popular news-issue even though it is not realistically likely to affect them. It's the same type of urge that makes people try to find a tenuous link to a big tragedy. "Oh, I know someone who was in London the day of the bombings" or "I was in the pub where that guy was killed just the week before".

I think that is how several posters, myself included, read this thread. And for many people it is such a big worry that it seems a bit, well disrespectful to get in a flap about some hypothetical vist that may or may not occur years in the future.

This is going to be the lat thing I post - promise.

First - I was probably a bit harsh about the cream teas and cows.

Second - I think that it was because of my own feelings of impotence about this. As a white, middle-aged woman, living in relative affluence, I find myself contorted by how much I care about this issue, and how little I see being done about it.

I really do think that one of the problems is that it only affects, really affects, a small, pretty powerless, section of the population.
And the fact that the only way it seems to touch people beyond that population is in the (statistically irrational, though of course devastating for all those it does involve) fear of being involved as a "victim".

I would really, really like to see concern go mainstream, but not articulated as a discourse of "We must stop gangs, in case innocent, white, middle-class children get caught in the cross-fire".
That particular discourse has a place, no victim's loss should be borne - but I would so much like to see a different discourse take gang-culture into the centre of public discussion.

I am very much enjoying reading (some of) the responses on here, because some are so clearly informed and concerned. Far more than me. It's so good to hear those voices.

I hope that doesn't sound patronising. I mean it very genuinely.

x-posted with BofF who disproved my theory with the word 'gloats'.

[slaps BofF for being too good-looking]
[then steals her watch]

<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=thej4g.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/goat_1.jpg&imgrefurl=www.thej4g.com/%3Fp%3D518&usg=__xOxLIPvl0XKEB1NkrgJWKyi8NA0=&h=1200&w=1600&sz=230&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=qDvo_qjmdMud6M:&tbnh=157&tbnw=216&ei=GQy3TZv8FIO28QPjxoUa&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dgoat%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D981%26bih%3D661%26tbm%3Disch0%2C11&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=155&vpy=17&dur=2170&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=46&ty=321&page=1&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&biw=981&bih=661" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">thin good looking gloat

It seems to me that what you want is an answer as to how to prevent your children being hurt by someone else whilst on a trip to London without you in the future.

The answer to this is....well, there is no answer is there? Otherwise we'd all be doing it and no innocent kids would get randomly stabbed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Pag - that gloat wasn't thin.

It was good-looking though.

[concedes half Pag's point]

I didn't scaremonger cat64 I take it you have lived in both the US and the UK ?

I take it you have lived in exactly the same spot in London that I did ,cocaine deals on one corner and down the alley to some of the most expensive homes in Putney ?

Violent crime can happen in most streets in London(not all the time and it is rare obviously) ....

I have teenage siblings ,I know the good ...I also have experienced the worst .

I am a realist ,who came with a question .

Would it have helped if I was a little stupid ,or made spelling mistakes ?
Maybe then ,I would have been placed in an entirely different box ?

I am an average Mum of 39, with normal concerns and a normal life ...I just happened to have actually LIVED it and wanted to see how things are these days .

I have actually had enough ...I think asking a question here is futile ...it is way too cliquey and posters have used their own agendas and insecurities to totally mess with my original question .

Thank you to all that understood :)

I think people have understood well enough. Cheerie-bye though, and best of luck with the move.

Kungfu
That was a real goat. Not an air brushed waif goat.

you are fatist goatist daft

I think you have goatily missed the point, Pag.

OP - you are not honestly trying to suggest that living "down the alley to some of the most expensive homes in Putney ?" has given you a real insight into the difficulties facing those in less affluent areas, are you?

Please tell me you are not.

I lived in Putney for years. I work in Lambeth. There is absolutely no comparison between wealthy, predominantly middle-class areas like Putney and some of the more deprived parts of Wandsworth, Lambeth or Southwark, or any other part of London. Serious crime is rare enough in Putney that I can probably list pretty accurately anything more serious than a shop-lifting that has happened in that area in the last 5 years.

If the parts of Wandsworth on the edges of Putney are really the type of area that you are fretting about then I think you need to stop borrowing trouble and look forward to your move to somewhere where gang culture is only an unpleasant story.

Have lived in the US in a place where violent crime and even petty crime was an extreme rarity, but cross one street which formed the municipal boundary with a huge city and the picture was completely different. We would sit out on the porch of our apartment on summer nights and listen to the crackle of gunfire only a few blocks away, but in a different world.

Pagwatch Tue 26-Apr-11 19:29:53
Kungfu
That was a real goat. Not an air brushed waif goat.

you are fatist goatist daft

Are you suggesting there is something wrong with naturally thin goats who happen to enjoy eating salad? That is so cynical.

I don't think people have understood well enough.
I remember when my DC were in their early teens. When you are used to looking out for them every step of the way, it is difficult to let go - to let them go to the park or catch the bus on their own for the first time. I found it easiest to take baby-steps and allow little increments of freedom. It was scary enough for a mother who has lived in one place for a long time and knows the danger areas/triggers. Imagine moving from one continent/culture to another and trying to do the allowing-freedom at the same time.
I hope your new neighbours are a bit more understanding OP.