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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that parents who uproot their child from all friends for new life are selfish.

72 replies

Loveweekends10 · 07/12/2012 12:41

Build a new life in the country...but not at the expense of your 5 year old child having to live in a caravan over winter with no friends whilst you try to completely renovate a house on £14 grand and your wife lives in cloud cuckoo land spending £3 grand on an aga.

OP posts:
FireOverBethlehem · 07/12/2012 13:12

depends what the end result is. If they're leaving area of London with crap school and will end up with a lovely house near a decent school in the country, it's worth the short term pain of a winter in a caravan to get there.

UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea · 07/12/2012 13:13

Yes, I have every sympathy with this POV. But moving in childhood can make it easier to adapt as an adult.

It doesn't make the parents selfish though.

AvonCallingBarksdale · 07/12/2012 13:17

Why are you watching daytime crap on Channel 5? Xmas Confused

RedTinsel · 07/12/2012 13:20

At 5, most kids have a new best friend every week! And my kids would love it if we lived in a caravan.

Original poster
Loveweekends10 · 07/12/2012 13:20

Waiting for a bloody plumber to turn up only 2 hours late! So thought I would watch channel 5 crap whilst I wait!

OP posts:
quoteunquote · 07/12/2012 13:24

Caravans are fine in winter if you have heating (gas or burning),

you do know lots of people live in them all the time.

ReindeerHooves · 07/12/2012 13:26

I think a lot depends on the child. I was a forces child, we moved every couple of years or so. I hated it, was really unsettled after each move and really upset when we had to pack up and move on again.

My brothers were both fine.

On the plus side we lived in some amazing places (eg Hong Kong) which I would never have had experience of otherwise.

As an adult I can't emphasise enough how much I LOATHE moving. DH and I are still living in the first house we bought together 13 years ago, we're in the middle of buying/selling atm and the whole thought of packing up and unpacking again brings me out in a cold sweat. We're staying in the same town, DD's will not have to change schools/childcare (in fact it's closer to dd1's school) but I still dread it. I certainly don't intend ever to do it again.

Almostfifty · 07/12/2012 13:26

We did it. They all survived and have gone on to do well.

LiegeAndLief · 07/12/2012 13:26

I moved every year or two as a child. My parents took me to live in extremely desirable locations like obscure villages in Africa with no schools or doctors and the middle of war zones. I think they were completely insane now but actually had a great childhood. Ime kids make and lose friends pretty quickly anyway.

AppleOgies · 07/12/2012 13:28

Judgey pants a bit tight?

Throughout my childhood I was 'uprooted' every 2 years because my parents were in the army. I was fine thanks...

I think living in a caravan for a bit as a child while your parents try to provide you with a lovely home would be kind of fun for a child.

Original poster
Loveweekends10 · 07/12/2012 13:29

Yep I know. I did for a while as a child and hated it.
You needed to see the programme really but you have to be desperate to watch channel 5 daytime TV.
Just thought the mother was a bit bonkers to be honest. At one point her mother came over from uk to Ireland to give her a talking to!

OP posts:
RabbitsMakeGOLDBaubles · 07/12/2012 13:31

I didn't like the uprooting of the army, so I promised I would let my children grow up going to the same school, in the same area, with the same friends. But I don't believe everyone not doing the same as me is in the wrong. We all do what we think is right, and we all have our bad moment, this lady was just captured on camera.

Hobbitation · 07/12/2012 13:36

I think uprooting someone every couple of years is vastly different from making one move when the child is five. Some kids thrive, some don't. Moving once when you are five isn't usually damaging.

Jinsei · 07/12/2012 13:36

One of the key things that I want to teach my dd is the ability to cope with change effectively and to embrace new opportunities. I know so many adults who struggle with this, and it causes great unhappiness fir them. On the other hand, I generally regard change as something quite exciting, a new challenge to be attempted. I suspect this is partly due to the fact that I got used to change as a child and was encouraged to acquire the skills needed to respond to it.

We relocated several years ago, and would move again if we felt we needed to. DD hasn't been scarred by it at all, and loves having friends in two places. Children are adaptable, but lose the ability to adapt if they never have to use it.

DewDr0p · 07/12/2012 13:41

I might "uproot" my children next summer. What a selfish cow I am, wanting to live somewhere where their parents can earn a living Confused

EdgarAllanPond · 07/12/2012 13:49

Yabu

TalkativeJim · 07/12/2012 13:57

There's probably some sort of balance to be struck, yes.

But when it comes to parents either getting jobs/good jobs through moving or not, it's a no-brainer in terms of what will really make a difference to their kids' lives.

'Yes kids, we could have been a lot better off by now it's true, more secure, owned our own home and been able to afford to help you out with uni/car/house, but when you were seven you were such good friends with Susie and Emma who lived only two doors away that we really felt it would be unfair to uproot you...'

Lavenderhoney · 07/12/2012 14:13

Er, it's a tv show. It's cut to buggery. Also, IMO it's unreasonable to stay in a place for the sake of children. What if their families moved and you turned down a great job and house because of children's friends.

EdgarAllanPond · 07/12/2012 19:58

"
Felt sorry for Demelza"

really, was that the little girls name? or the mothers?

ChippingInAWinterWonderland · 07/12/2012 20:06

Edgar - the childs - another reason to be sorry for the little mite. Bloody Dad though, even at the end when the went back to see the finished house and the chicks had grown, he was saying 'this one for Christmas, this one for Easter, this one for your birthday' the poor bairn was understandably upset and he couldn't see it... fuckwit

EdgarAllanPond · 07/12/2012 20:08

i think you need as parents to be reasonable about what living conditions you are willing for your children to experience - living in a caravan for a bit whilst building a house doesn't sound outside reasonable.

though we are moving house in the New Year and yes i have to say the children that are old enough to understand don't like it. but then they don't know that they could have a larger house, more space to play...they certainly don't understand about better catchments and all the other reasons we want to move.

i am not about to say to my child 'we need to move because you bouncing about our lounge is annoying five shades of shazzle out of me''

rhondajean · 07/12/2012 20:12

My mother did this with me quite a lot

I hated it, I hated living on building sites, and I swear it one of the main reasons I struggle making lasting friendships as an adult. I had to get used to people coming and going and never being seen again.

I bear the scars on my legs of living on building sites, they are not child friendly.

I had no sense of permanency and now, it's as if my childhood never was, there is nothing left of it to say where and when it happened.

Yeah I do think it's selfish tbh. She's still doing the same thing, chasing some impossible dream. I on the other hand bought a new build so I don't need to spend all my time, energy and money on it and can instead concentrate on my kids.

EdgarAllanPond · 07/12/2012 20:13

foot in mouth chipping a mumsnetter may have used that name Grin

but yes i hate all that 'see this cute fluffy animal we're going to eat'

(disclaimer: i am a vegetarian so long as salami is a kind of spicy ground nut)

rhondajean · 07/12/2012 20:15

Oh and living in a caravan while your parents try to provide you with a lovely home is not fun, it's three shades of hell on both a practical level and on what you get from the children you go to school with.

gail734 · 07/12/2012 20:25

I went to school with a girl who had this done to her by her batty parents when we were about 14. They moved her from a particularly cool, central area where she had loads of freedom and public transport to a one-street country village. I remember her saying, "... and it'll be great to be out among nature, and we'll go on hikes and rambles and it'll be dead peaceful..." Obviously just parroting the shitty bill of goods that her bonkers parents had sold her. She was totally trapped in a bucolic idyll that had one shop and one bus a day, except on Sundays. She used to come and stay with me, until she learned to drive. Parents who do this are selfish.

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