London Childhood

[daisiessunflowersandtulips]

In Laws are adamant we should move out of London when the baby's born. Apparently it isn't a "good environment to bring up children in". which they wouldn't know because they never bloody visit. I am to this because I grew up in London alright, but they seem to think I was terribly deprived.

Here are the things I missed out on (and which my in-laws always bring up)
-playing in the street. Neither I, siblings, friends, cousins, ANYONE I know who grew up in our parts of London (leafy zones 2-4) ever did this.
-knowing who our neighbours were. Well we knew who the ones on either side were and they didn't have kids. We didn't know any of the other kids to say hello to and frankly that was fine by me.

Here are the things we got
-being allowed to get ourselves to and from school at a younger age than DP and his siblings and other friends outside London because schools comparatively closer, roads busy in a suburban sort of way with traffic lights not an A-road busy way.
-going to wonderful parks to play, Heath, Golders Hill, Clissold Park, etc. Parents came with when we were younger and then we could go by ourselves.
-being able to go to and from friends houses independently by 9 or 10 if if were short walking distance or 11-12 if it were longer walk or bus by ourselves and not have to hang around getting lifts
-loads of museums, cinemas, art galleries with kids stuff on

Now London might not be to everyones taste and I TOTALLY get that. But you're telling me it's worse than some pissy town in the middle of nowhere with no transport links to bring up a child? Seriously?

God, I would have loved to bring my kids up in London. My eldest is 3 and I am just starting to appreciate everything on our doorstep. But housing costs were just too much for us - anywhere we could afford meant areas with too much risk on the schools (i.e. a few good ones, and a number of failing ones). If I could have afforded a 3/4 bed in a nice area with a garden, I'd have stayed. As it is, we are planning the big move to one of the very towns so disparaged up thread.

I grew up in the outer burbs and found it a bit dull by the time I was a teenager but looking back it was really the best of both worlds - access to Central London and all that offers but we could be in the Kent countryside in 15 mins and the coast in an hour. Plus we had gardens to play in, plenty of local parks, etc.

Come back to add that for various reasons (ie not simply wanting to escape evil london) we did move out but hated it and missed london so much that we came back and I will never leave again!

The grass is not always greener.

I grew up in a village in the midlands. I brought my son up in central london. He had a MUCH better time than me. London is a fabulous place to have a family.

want to apologise for "pissy towns". I'm not saying all other towns are pissy -I love Manchester, Warwick and others. I was thinking of the town nearest my ILs which is a bit grimbles. But I don't want to offend anyone who comes from there so I won't say which one it is.

Poster with the DSS coming from Cape Town - it may take a bit of getting used to, depending on how he's lived in SA (I know some people who grew up there in a well-off family and it was very restrictive) but I'm sure he'll be fine. Having been to state and private schools in London, I've always found that there are always a number of children who have moved from abroad relatively recently. Other kids and teachers tend to expect it.

Live where you want to live. It's your life, take control. Why are you even listening to your ILs? Seriously, tell them you'll live where is right for you all.

I grew up in leicestershire and hated it. For some reason thought when I had children would move out of London but the opportunities here are fantastic for you and children.

Now that doesn't mean I think London is the be all and end all, but I am sick of people talking bollocks about London when they have no experience, just what they've read in the mail/express etc!

What do you and dh want to do?

We do something different every day in London during the summer holidays and I don't worry about cost either because it's all free. The things I do with my kids, NH Museum, Science Museum, walking along the South Bank, daily morning matinees at Vue in Westfield, even just a stroll along the Thames are things I did about once a year growing up. We are lucky because we have a great location, the river 5 minutes one way, beautiful parks all within less than a 15 minute walk. Schools in our Borough are very good, Dd is at an Ofsted graded 1 primary.

I think, well hope, my kids are having a fantastic London childhood.

I grew up in Leicester and loved it.My children grew up here too.

Not everyone wants to live in oh so great London.

These threads really annoy me, maybe are pissy little towns are not good enough for you but there are plenty of multicultural cities apart from London.

That said OP if you like it, no need to move.

I grew up opposite Wimbledon Common, so in London, but leafy suburbia. I wouldn't go back if you paid me. Yes I had all the freedoms described by the op. Going to school on the bus at a younger age than most kids. I'll never forget standing in the dark at half seven in the morning, by the common, waiting for a 93 bus, and being terrified. (This was in the sixties when they abandoned daylight saving). I did know my neighbours, I did go to the museums and loved them, still do. But it's clean, pleasant and relatively safe in rural Suffolk and my dcs seem happy enough.

Reading all the school angst on MN about living in London would put me off living there TBH.

We moved out of London when I was pregnant, but only to a part of Kent that's 25 minutes on the train to London Bridge (and we were living in a part of SE Londonin zone 3 that took 15 minutes to London Bridge anyway so didn't feel like that far!). We moved because
a) I didn't want to have the choice of sending DS to a shit school, or finding the money for prep or finding a new religion
b) For the price of a 2 bed flat with a shared garden we could get a large 3 bed house within a mile of the main station in our town - you need a lot of money to have what the rest of the country considers to be a normal middle class lifestyle in London - or to have bought before the boom

And then there's the real reason: c) the younger brother of one of DH's friends was stabbed and killed close to where we lived. He wasn't a bad lad or in trouble, he just got in the way of the wrong person. You heard family and friends say that over and over and you think "yeah, you would say that" but it was true with him.

And the shocking thing was, it happened on a weekend DH was away, I didn't particularly notice the story on the news that weekend, I realised afterwards that 'teenage boy being stabbed' had become so common place, it didn't even register with me when I listened to the news on the radio. I realised I lived somewhere where a child murdering another child didn't shock me. I realised that buying in a 'posh' postcode meant that I was only a 15-20 minute walk from a 'problem area'. I realised that 'problem area' for London and 'problem area' for the majority of the rest of the country is very different.

So we took the coward's way out, decided our DCs won't be the ones to bring up the average.

and DH's commute from out here to the City is still quicker than colleagues who 'just' have to get from NW London...

I grew up in London and DH grew up in a little village. We are now bringing our DS (2) up in London too. We have deliberated long and hard about where is best to live, and we're still not really decided (looking to move within the next year as we've run out of space). Having grown up in London I hanker after a village with a sweet little primary school and fields all around, but DH didn't thrive at his village primary (one crap teacher for the whole of KS2) and felt stifled by having to be ferried around by parents when he was older. I have to say I don't fancy being a taxi service for my kids, and I love the experiences living in London can give them. DH's job requires a lot of UK travel so he really needs to be able to access all the mainline stations early in the morning (whereas I work from home so could do it anywhere).

At the moment we are being swayed by the appeal of suburbia - zone 5 or so. It seems to offer the extra space we need for the money we can afford, plus green space, but with the ease of getting into London. However we are not quite sure we can bring ourselves to succumb to suburbia just yet. I suspect what we'll do is stay in the vibrant part of east London we currently live in, upgrading from flat to house, and stay here until secondary age, whereupon I suspect we'll head out to suburbia.

I grew up in London and have raised DCs here. I enjoyed growing up here but I can also see a lot of disadvantages too, especially where schools are concerned (even more so now, as the birth rate has exploded so much). I think a lot of it depends on how much money you have, as it's difficult to have a comfortable lifestyle on an average salary.

My DS went to a failing primary, which was distressing at the time but because we didn't have any other options and moving wasn't a possibility because of property prices here. But I dare say that might have been the case in many other towns too. I am lucky that he goes to secondary outside London now, in a rural village, due to a SN bursary and I have to admit I'm relieved that he doesn't have to deal with some of the harsher aspects of city life. It was something that I handled just fine but harder for someone more vulnerable like DS.

Personally I do love living here as an adult and I think it's easier to hold on to your identity as a person than if you were living in suburbia.

YANBU but your IL's are NBU either
I grew up in London, though on the outskirts rather than a high rise block in Hackney IYSWIM.
We never played in the street but we used public transport much earlier than DS ever will (we have one bus an hour here and that is a vast improvement) We made our own way to school, DS will either be driven or will get a school bus.
We had access to all the big museums, sporting events, shows etc (which I never took advantage of until I moved away) We take DS on a day out to these places and it is a big treat and day out.
DS never saw a coloured person until we passed one of the waiters from the local Indian walking down the road. He was about 3 and was genuinely I had many foreign friends from as far back as I could remember.
On the other hand, DS can identify literally hundreds of flowers, birds and butterflies. He knows all our neighbours and can name and, more importantly, have a conversation with every child (of any age) in his small village school. He has rivers to swim in, trees to climb and hills to scale on the doorstep. On the downside, DH and I are resigned to being a permanent (and essential) taxi service until DS is old enough to drive and probably after that if he has been drinking

Either scenario has its advantages and disadvantages. Personally I prefer to bring my son up in the country but it is not for everyone and he certainly misses out on a certain amount of streetwiseness(!) due to our location. Its easy to see how your IL's are worried, partly because (as you say) they do not visit so do not know the area. Take their views into account and acknowledge them, but do not be swayed by them.
FWIW I prefer to bring my son up in the country but if I had to move back to London then I would not be hysterical about it by any means :)

I grew up in London. I couldn't wait to leave when I was 18, but I don't think it did me any harm at all. I do actually think it made me a far more tolerant and cosmopolitan person than many, many other people I know, who grew up in villages without the exposure to the variety people of different and social class/racial heritage that I did in London. Eg: At primary school I had two really good friends. One was the daughter of the Ivory Coast ambassador and lived in an amazing house in Belgravia. The other was the daughter of a local plumber and lived on a council estate in Pimlico (not the posh end either!).

My secondary school had 46 mother tongues - for a well rounded eductaion of social awareness and understanding it must have been the best school in Lonodn at the time (not bad academically either). My dad reckoned I'd been to every musuem in London by the time I was 10 (we certainly went a lot). I was using the bus tube to get around by myself by secondary school. At 15 I was happily going to the Proms or Royal Festival Hall by myself or dad (we had a monthly "date" to do a Cultural Thing).

And I played in the street with the neighbours' kids.

London offers opportunities and amenities you won't get in small towns or the countryside- but then, so will small towns and the countryside. It depends on what opportunites that you want, for you and your family.

When I say I grew up in London, I mean proper central, SW1 Zone 1 London. Not pretend Croydon, Crouch End, Epping type London.

I think you can bring children up well and happily wherever you are - but from my personal experience:
I brought up my son on a tough council estate in east London. He was very happy, did well at local primary school and got a scholarship to City of London school. Very happy again - went to Oxford. Still has all his London friends. London is our home (both DH and I from small country villages). We love it and it is a brilliant place for children to grow up.

Topbanana "DS... more importantly, have a conversation with every child (of any age) in his small village school"

I think you'll find that is possible in a large London school too, especially as you must have gone to one yourself

London, or the nicers parts of it, are great. I grew up in North London in the 70s and 80s and we played out from from about age 5 or 6, we had plenty of freedom, off to the park on our bikes and making forts in the communal back gardens. I'd say my brother and I grew up street savvy. It was safer then. However, I certainly wouldn't want to live there now nor bring my dcs up there. Population has become more transient and the area is more run down. However, if you live in a vibrant part of London with access to great parks with ok schools then what's not to like? We now live an hour away from London by train so we go down every now again - the kids love visiting.

We now live in an old fashioned little town, near a bigger 4x4 market town, with a city 40minutes drive away. Importantly for the dcs, at 8 & 6, they get have a lot of freedom, playing out with their friends, going off on their bikes. People stop and talk, dcs attend a school where they know everyone, there is a real sense of community. The dcs do gymnastics, rugby, music, restaurants are good, as are the country pubs. We moved from a very small 3 bed house to a 4 bed detached house (it's for sale at 230k if any-one's interested ).

look I think you are either a city person or not. Personally I am a total city person and couldn't bear to live in the country or a small town but that's just who I am - those who are country orientated would be equally horrified at living where I live by the side of an A road. I couldn't think of a better place to bring up DD than London, there is so much stuff to do in all weathers and so many fab parks etc. Just the thought of a long country walk brings me out in hives! It takes all sorts, just do what is best for you.

I loved London. Practically headed there as fast as my little legs would carry me when I left home. But when ds was born, I realised we weren't actually going out clubbing every night any more. And schools were a worry - you had to live within a few yards of the only half-way decent primary in our neck of the woods to stand a chance of getting in. The one near our house, I could hear parents charmingly addressing their children as 'little fuckers' (and not an in affectionate manner) on the way there in the morning.

Then the thing that really made me call the estate agents - there was a shooting in the house opposite ours. Guy rode up on a motorbike, burst in through the front door and shot the daughter's boyfriend in the head. I couldn't get over the horror of it. Or the thought that he might have mistaken the address and got the wrong house. There were yellow boards every day with police appeals for witnesses to crimes within a few hundred yards of our house - and this wasn't scuzzville central, just inner London.

Friends of ours have stayed and have children who are perfectly safe and happy growing up in London, but I wouldn't have stayed after that shooting. We live in a small commuter town, 20 minutes away on the train, so regular trips to the museums and so on (and I work in London so am there every day). But far better quality of life here, especially for ds.

Another Londoner here. Grew up in a one horse town and couldn't wait to get here at 18 for university and still here. Lots of people move out pre primary and then again at secondary age. London prices seem to accelerate faster than outside, so stay put until you absolutely have to go. You might not have to of course!

The crime thing has never bothered me, because statistically London is so dense, of course you're going to occasionally have stuff on your doorstep. And that one horse town I grew up in, in the 70s- 2 grizzly murders one next door and one 5 doors away.

Yeah well statistically there were an awful lot of shootings in my neighbourhood in London. Been here in commuterland for eight years now and not a sausage - only time we've had the police helicopter overhead was for an elderly gentleman who was missing (he was found, thankfully).