to not know whats best for dc

[lostintransit]

We currently live in a rurally. Recently we have been considering perhaps it would be best to move back closer to the city we came from. However we are constantly weighing up the good and the bad. Can you guys give me your thoughts as there are many pros and cons.

RURAL
POSITIVES
-Lovely little school 45 kids.
-safe environment, kids can play out in forest, garden, street etc

• no chavs

-no druggies, drug dealers -private -beautiful countryside for walking -friends i have made are lovely, really lovely -nice detached but small house with huge garden -dc are developing lovely accents NEGATIVES -no mains gas etc, solid fuel, cold dirty pain in the arse and not cheap either -shop 45 min drive -everything takes forever, pace is slow -small community, quite a few small minds too -small social circle -no family nearby -ticks and midges spoil the summer -winters are HARD -3 buses a day, none on sunday -kids are bored alot with no one to play with

CITY
POSITIVES
-near family
-huge social circle
-everything on hand
-good public transport
-plenty for kids to do and other kids to play with
-mains gas available
-less ticks and midges, if any!
-less insular

NEGATIVES

• accent is awful and harsh

-druggies and dealers within community -smaller house with smaller garden -kids cant play out as not 'safe' -schools not so good -chavs galore

Am i being a terrible snob. I want whats best for the dc ultimately but more and more dh and I are unsure what is best. I suppose being completely sheltered as a child doesn't necessarily prepare them for life in the real world.
We made this list but its not really helped us decide, just highlighted that there are pros and cons for both.

AIBU and a terrible snob to consider things like seeing drug dealers, drug addicts, dc having certain accent etc. I can over look these things if i am sure about the 'bigger picture'.

I'd rather stab my eyes out with a spork than live in the rural area you describe.

If it's not safe to play out in the area you want to move to and there are so many drug dealers, why not move to a different area in the City?

Or split the difference so to speak and move into a town nearby.

why dont you move to a nicer area of your city ? there cant be junkies all over there must be somewhere they dont live ? i think id move to where you are happy , 3 buses a day Id go spare , Is the accent really bad im scottish and have an accent central scotland so not Harsh , DDs have an outside voice and an inside voice IYSWIm i wont tolerate slang in the house ,

The upside to city living (depending on city) is lots of options re further/after school education.

The same with part time/flexible jobs. It's inevitable that your children will have to move away in the future.

Ilive in Liverpool, it has it's share of problems,but we, personally don't have issues with drugs/dealers. My children can go out and about on their own.

Lots of students come into the city, from rural districts and are exposed, for the first time to drugs/clubs etc, as teenagers, anyway.

Having said that i would like tolive as you do now. Without the country parks that we have nearby and Wales two hours away, i would not cope with being in the city.

We live in zone 2 London. The accent's fine, there are no druggies, the chavs are on the other side of town, the primaries are brilliant but unless you have £18k to spend per child per annum, forget staying for secondary. Can you leave the country for a nice market town, thinking: Beverly, Wetherby, Salisbury, Helmsley, Winchester, Faversham, anywhere with a decent railway station, a centre, and some decent shops and brilliant schools

Your reasons for not living in a city are fairly daft to be honest.

Yes there are drug dealers in all town and cities. They do not generally target children who have responsible decent parents.

Drug addicts are also unlikely to harm your kids either.

Other children will be playing out.. you cannot keep yours indoors until they are 18, or they will grow up unable to form friendships and socially inept.

Accents are not something that should make any difference and yes, that does sound snobby.

Well said Squeaky

Anyway, who's to say the OP's accent doesn't grate on the ears?

My accent is the one im talking about! I hate it! My dc have a different accent to me which is much softer.

Drug addicts might not 'harm' kids directly but even in nicer areas i have come across needles in places they shouldnt

It is a fair point that kids raised rurally come to the city as young adults and are less than street wise. I have seen this myself.

However i do feel its a quite nice in the country when they are young, the people where we live now are quite reserved and quiet. When we were in my home town at the weekend in the shopping area there were arseholes everywhere a few folk obviously high on something fucking and cunting about a foot away from my 2 and 4 year old dds. That sort of thing i dont miss. Maybe i have just become hyper sensitive to it now that i am not exposed to it regularly.

Cheers for the replies, appreciate a different perspective.

I think in a city environment you have to teach your kids to be aware of different dangers, and the bigger dangers will happen as they get older, not while they are small children.

I also think that there can often be a false sense of safety in rural areas, and parents can be complacent that "bad things never happen here".. but they can and do.. it is still very rare, but it can still happen.

Public transport may be plentiful in the city, but again at night, it isnt always the safest way to travel, particularly for teens.. on the other side of the coin, rural life means much more driving, a greater risk of drink drivers and teens piling into cars to get to bigger villages/towns for a night out..

I grew up in both the town and the countryside from the age of 7 until I was in my early twenties and have seen both sides, from the point of view of a teen.

My instinct would be to stay rural to be honest.. your pros and cons need a bit of adjustment, and maybe move closer to a city, but not quite in it maybe.

There is a middle ground though, why is it back of beyond or rough as fuck city... have you thought about looking somewhere in between? Am i missing something as to why it is only these two options (neither of which sound appealing tbh!)

The reason we have only looked at these 2 options are simple. Its isn't a rough as fuck city, it is a town, around 20 mins drive from Glasgow and we have lived there before. Its not rough as fuck, it is a reasonable little town but like most towns/villages this close to a big city, it has a few druggies/dealers. It certainley doesnt have a big problem but compared to the hamlet of 10 houses in the back of beyond where you'd have to travel 20 odd miles to see a druggie/dealer, it is significant enough for it to be a consideration.

The reason we'd consider moving back there is convenience and because our very good friends still live there and both sets of grandparents within half an hour.

WE know the schools, area etc and know good and bad.

This is interesting to read as I'm near a city just wondering whether I should move to somewhere more rural! I suppose wherever you live you will always see good things about somewhere else and wonder what it might be like.

Personally I think that in your children's immediate world, it sounds like they have a good quality of life at the moment with a small friendly school and more freedom than you would let them have in the town. Would they be happy to move right now and leave it behind?

How about waiting until they are a few years older and get to the stage when they want more things to do and might start find rural life boring (this happened to my friends kids about secondary school age)

The 'burbs.

As far as I am concerned the country is somewhere to visit, wouldn't want to live there. The City is just too expensive and a bit too busy, so I find myself in the 'burbs.

Got a bit of space, a nice school and a bus into the City when I feel the need.

It's all good.

Personally I'd move school with 45 kids to a rural negative, there will be far fewer opportunities to do interesting things and a very limited pool of potential friends for your children. But I'm biased the other way.

Other general rural negatives:

• I've stumbled across far more people fucking outside on the boundary of the villiage (don't think I ever did in the city)
• In the teen years, drug use is rife in villages because there is nothing else to do
• Bullying and sexual violence between teens is still a problem. The difference is that the same people are at every activity because there's hardly anything going on so you can never escape it
• Difficulty of getting part-time/temporary work (both for you and your DC as they grow up)

I cant flame you, as have similar concerns about living in a not posh London suburb

FWIW I went to a rough as fuck secondary, I had 2 accents! school one and home one!

Basically they will be FINE whatever you do, so go with whats best for the family overall

reading, I think you would prefer to stay rural

Okay I would say suburbs near a city and not the arse-end of nowhere because I find rural folk can tend to be a bit sheltered. The kids in all likelihood will not eke out their existence in a tiny village 45 minutes from a shop.