To think the USA and UK should become 1 country

[FortyDoorsToNowhere]

As the title says.

I think it should happen, not sure why exactly other than to pool out resources.

You can make a left on red if the street you're turning left on is one way leftbound. (So to speak.)

And wrt media -- Fox News is a good deal less rabid in Chicago than in Kansas City for in stance. News organisations trim their sails according to the prevailing wind. That said, I am baffled by the appeal of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, who are syndicated nationally, with no editing of tone or content.

I have brought up girls in the US and found the school and sport system fantastic for them. They were handed every opportunity anyone could hope or wish for to succeed. I agree with Spamm's observations about active promotion of women, availability of a multitude of positive role models and the attitude that you are free to choose, and there will always be someone cheering you on if you are willing to make your choice work for you.

I like the attitude to driving that American women in general hold -- 'just do it'. I like the fact that my DDs as well as my DS will all be required to pass their driver's ed course before they can graduate high school and will therefore be equipped to drive for the rest of their lives. I am saddened by statistics showing fewer women than men drive in the UK and have been on threads here where women have told of being afraid of driving, in general showing a complete lack of confidence in their potential to drive. The various justifications for not even learning baffle me. You can learn the skill without intending to use it, but there is this fear among some women that is palpable. Worse, it is acceptable in the UK for women to express this fear of large pieces of machinery. My mother used to be like that (in Ireland) until she got her licence at age 68. American women, in general, do not express this sort of fear. They tend to be more gung ho.

I know there are problems in American education in general, but if it could be plucked up in its entirety as a concept and set down in the UK I think it would be a very good thing. In particular I love the separation of church and schools, which may sound strange coming from someone who sent the DCs to a parish school for elementary - but the point is people choose a religious school if they want one, and state schools that are entirely secular can be very, very good. In many places you have a real choice. The public school system and state universities in the US are the reasons the US pulled ahead of the rest of the world in the 20th century.

Now if you want constructive criticism of the US, how about this: slow down with the bloody cheese ! I love cheese, but I do not need it on everything! The good part is, if you ask for changes to your meal, the kitchen does not grumble, they graciously send whatever you ask (within reason)

spamm this "women who live each stage of their life as they feel best, whether they are Staying at home with their kids, or working in the community or in professional roles." is really well put, that's how the attitude feels to me, and I really like it. Unfortunately I've never lived outside the US so can't compare it to attitudes elsewhere.

Actually it's really interesting and surprising to me that this flexibility spamm is describing might be more present here considering I think our maternity leave is worse (and therefore less flexible) and so are our daycare options.

It wasn't me with the left turn on red thing but yes I think if you're turning from a one way onto a one way you can do it. Right turn on red is okay almost all the time, unless there's a sign specifically saying you can't.

Nice post math! I love the just do it attitude and am glad I was raised with it. British women seem very capable to me though, based just on this board ... I sense that there are differences in attitude/expectations but they are too subtle for me to pin down.

Interesting about the public schools here; I have a really low opinion of them but again don't know how they compare.

I LOVE cheese

Mathanxiety, I can't say your notions of what UK women are like resonate with me at all. I am 36 and I can't say that I have witnessed or heard of any of these fears. I was 17 when I passed my driving test for the first time, I wrote off my mum's car a week later and had bruising along the whole of my right side from the crash- it was quite bad but i couldn't wait to get back behind the steering wheel. My peers were very similar in their attitude towards driving. I don't think it is a generation thing either, my gran drove a bus during the war and a lot of women of her generation were very able and lived through the blitz without men by their side to 'save' them! My Mother and a lot of her peers were politically active, strong in their determination to change the 'established' British institutions.

The is more spend per head on healthcare in the USA than the UK - but that doesn't completely mean it makes healthcare better. It depends on how you define better.

If you define better at a bill of £3000 for 1 hour spent in the ER where you sat alone in a room for most of that time, and one nurse and one dr saw you for 5 minutes and gave you some steroid cream then ok, it's better. If you define better as your Dr saying you need a CT scan immediately because he is very concerned you have a blood clot and your insurance company turns around and says no which leaves you then with no choice but to go to the emergency room because your Dr says you absolutely must and after the fact you are landed with a 6k bill on top of what you pay in insurance every month as better, then yes, it's better.

If you define better as spending an hour in the physio's office "chatting" about what is wrong with your back instead of getting treatment and then being charged £240 dollars for that privilege (on top of what you pay in insurance) then ok, it's better. Incidentally, I could have gone privately here in the UK, actually got treatment and paid £40-80 pounds.

It's swings and roundabouts, but I can tell you that I didn't receive any better healthcare in the USA than I did in the UK - and I don't have to worry about my bank account when I do need healthcare.

As an aside - Cheerful, people actually take The Onion seriously? Wow.

I wish I had known more people in the USA who found The Onion, Mr Colbert, South Park etc hilarious for it's piss-taking satire. Obviously, due to the show's popularity there must have been plenty out there who did enjoy it, I just seemed to constantly meet people who were religious nuts with world domination and female subjugation plans who had no sense of humour at all.

shows', not show's - 11am and I'm still only firing on 6.

Oh. Dear. God.

I have decided that it just wouldn't work out.

CheerfulYank

That's awful Dolcelette I gave no experience with boarder patrol

I have had similar nasty experiences with the American TSA. If you do a quick search you will find that many people, both American and non-Americans, have many horror stories to tell about the treatment they've received at the hands of the TSA.

The TSA can be pretty unpleasant - I've had good and bad experiences with them. JFK airport comes to mind with the bad - barking at people, staring them down, getting impatient when people are having difficulties removing their shoes - incredibly rude and unnecessarily intimidating.

DIA - lovely and friendly.

What the UK border control/security have done to us so far...

'Accidentaly' invalidated husband's indefinite leave to remain so that he could no longer work or claim any kind of benefit and had to spend months waiting for the Home Office to reissue his visa.

Held on to his US passport for over a year while they processed his UK citizenship application, so he could not travel anywhere.

Thrown away my extremely allergic daughter's allergy medication before she got onto a plane where they were serving peanuts (against their own published rules).

Insisted that my blind 91 year old grandmother throw away a bottle of whisky that she had bought in duty free on the plane before she got on an internal UK flight.

But I'm sure they're really lovely people underneath :-/

Nice to see some more balanced posts in this thread after the predictable anti-American insults. I agree with much that Spamm and Mathanxiety have written.

I have lived in the UK, the US, and Russia. There are aspects of each country/culture that I like and admire, as well as elements of each that I loathe. Recently I spent some time in Sweden and loved it so much that I began to daydream about moving there (despite sheer impossibility of such a move). But I imagine if I actually lived there for an extended period of time, I would discover its flaws and drawbacks. Perhaps it's better to retain the illusion. . .

The driving thing is true I think. As an American who doesn't drive I am looked at with absolute bafflement when people find out. Whereas when I first started on Mumsnet I was amazed at all the posters who said they didn't.

Happy not the actual Onion but things like it. Although obviously people do believe the Onion too.

Math I am religious as well but I really like our secular schools as well. If I want to send my DC to Catholic school then I should pay for it IMO.

Take out one of the "as wells", won't you, Math? :)

In a word, 'no'.

But, I pissed off to France 7 years ago, as we were becoming annexed to the US with Blair/Bush praying together.

I think the driving thing is more a town/country split. If you live somewhere where there is one bus in the morning and one home at 6pm or worse, the same service but only once a week on market day, then you learn to drive PDQ or you are stuck. City people, e.g. Londoners, don't have to worry about getting around with their extensive tube and bus network.

So large rural areas could account for the same need to drive in the USA.

It's funny, but this thread has gotten me all nostalgic

Cocoa Beach
Salem
"Mums" and pumpkins and apples...oh my!
The USA's obsession with seasonal decoration of porches
Decking
Hard wood flooring
Chick Fil A
Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich
Snow you could count on
Ice storms (even with 3 days of no power)
Mike's Pastries in Boston
Clam Chowder
July 4th
Aspen
Quaint colonial houses

I do miss it....just not the fuckwit that was attached to it.

I've never understood the obsession with mowing lawns though...

Oh, and Eatingwell and Oxygen magazines...I wish they would publish those in the UK.

It's true happytalk - even though I'm very happy not to live in the UK I get all nostalgic for bits of it. The Peak District, country pubs, wandering round National Trust gardens, edible quiche for sale in supermarkets, etc.

I think the thing about the US and driving is very few see it as something they don't need to at least learn, whether they end up owing a car or not. Driving is very much the norm and people tend not to sit down and decide not to have anything to do with cars. You might decide it was a good idea to commute by train, but you would probably have a car at home or parked at a park and ride spot at the station.

After all, there is also a large road and street network in London, so why not just drive? Americans tend to assume they will drive. Driving is something you do like eating and sleeping.

I went 10 months without a driving license in the USA - it was fucking miserable. You simply cannot not drive over there unless you want to be completely isolated - well in my case anyway. Here in the UK it is very easy to get out and about without the use of a car - unless you live in the sticks. Popping into town can be done on a bus - unless you live in a major city in the states that's not possible - or at least where I lived it wasn't. and we weren't out in the sticks.

Wobbly - Wholefoods used to do lovely quiche if IIRC :)