AIBU to have concerns about returning to UK

[madchocolatemum48]

We are in the process of moving back to the Uk. Dh's job mainly, but I would like the kids to 'know their roots' too.
The more I read about the UK at the moment I am beginning to wonder if it is really such a good idea after all.
We have a nice house in a quiet village. Kids are at a good school. Life is a little hum-drum but nothing major to complain about.
I'm concerned about schools, areas to move too, crime, politics. Practically everything really.
Is it as bad as the newspapers make out????

I currently live in Scandinavia and I used to be terribly homesick but now I have a child I dislike the UK more and more each time I visit.

I think it depends on what makes you happy, for me the gender equality especially for young children is something I value massively, also the way everything is so sensible and orderly. I live in Stockholm and my parents live in rural England, just going to the shop is a nightmare in the UK, so so busy.

I have a good friend who is moving back to the UK soon, she wants her child to start school at 4, she misses British food and hates snow.

The choice to move back is 100% the right one for her.

I think having British friends really helps to feel settled in a foreign country.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

I'm in a similar situation and listening to my friends in the public sector say the cuts to local services haven't even started yet but will after 2015 . . . .

Might be worth seeing how they and the housing bubble pan out

As I said I would like Scotland, but definitely waiting to see if Independence is on the cards. I suppose that will affect the whole of the UK in some way.
Still have a while before we need to make a decision, but it's always good to hear what the natives are thinking.
Everyone I know from the UK think we are mad to consider a move back by the way.

I think it can be a case of seeing the UK through rose tinted glasses when you're in another country. You remember the good but not the bad or reality of it iyswim.

A friend of mine moved back a year ago after living abroad with her family (DH & 2 DC) and had regretted the decision ever since and are now saving like mad to move back abroad.

Visiting for an extended time might give you more perspective. Could you rent a house or do a house swap for a month or so and just run your life as it would be to see how you feel then? Have a look on mindmyhouse there are always swaps or house sitters all over the UK on there.

Short visits seem ok, you have lots of friends and family to catch up with and things to do, but that's often not how it would be if you were living back there full time.

I live in Scandanvia. Here's what I notice when I come back:

The good:

• lots and lots of people
• people of different ethnicities!
• fabulous vaiety of shops and restaurants
• 24/7 supermarkets
• cashpoints. You can do SO MUCH at a UK Cash point! Top up phone, give to charity, pay in.
• helpful police (seriously people, Sarah Lund is a FICTIONAL character!)
• people are generally more aware of people around them and are more considerate
• people are more likely to offer help. You know, to carry your pushchair up some steps or something.
• public transport. Accessable busses.
• NHS
• all sorts of information widely available
• considerate drivers
• sex shops that aren't seedy
• Cards for every occasion!
• Fast food is more than just a bloody sausage van!
• no VAT on kids clothes.
• more online shopping available.
• amount of volunteer opportunities, baby Groups, drop in sessons.
• availability of yoga (this has JUST got to my village).
• no one pointing and staring when you have your toddler on reins.
• orange wednesdays
• the theatres, Cathedrals, high culture on tap.
• always getting your bank Holiday
• sense of humour. I laugh more in a week in the UK than in a year here.

The bad:

• too many people!
• huge amounts of poverty, people on the streets.
• road surfaces, or lack of
• endless automated telephone answerphones. Pess one for this, two for that.
• the behaviour of children in restaurants. They just sound anxious, all the time.
• I am more anxious because I feel I will be judged if DS misbehaves.
• poorly trained shop assistants
• low turnout at elections. Makes me very sad.
• inefficient public authorities.
• too many signs on the road. Very distracting.
• Cold houses.
• marmite

Norway-Scotland is okay in terms of outdoors lifestyle. I don't think much will change after referendum because I don't think Salmond will win.

I presume you;re oil industry- well, even if there was a vote for independence, oil industry jobs would be secure.

Just to speak up for the cities of the UK as there are a lot of posts saying in a village you'll be fine...

I live in a city that is perceived by outsiders as being rife with crime and unemployment. The reality is there is some, but I truly wouldn't live anywhere else. The marvellous (free) museums and galleries, so much going on all of the time, the shops, the bars, the theatres, great schools, cheap housing, good FE & HE options, the beautiful parks yet in less than an hour you can be well into the countryside (if that's your thing). When we have visitors they always say "we had no idea it was like this" - er, that'll be because you swallow stereotypes on shitty C5 documentaries or the bloody Daily Mail.

"We have a nice house in a quiet village. Kids are at a good school. Life is a little hum-drum but nothing major to complain about."

Same here. We live in South Yorkshire.

I live in London, kids in a good school, life a bit humdrum.

it isn't particularly quiet, and there is a bit of crime (I saw a man running out of sainsbury's clasping packets of chicken to his breast once), but isn't day to day life pretty much the same wherever you live?

I think if you are coming from Norway, the NHS is not a plus point. Neither is "all the people". Going into central London drives me absolutely nuts.

If you have children, you need to know that nurseries are extortionate. Like £50-75 per DAY per child. Children are not let out to play unless the play equipment have been wiped off and dry if it has been raining, if it is raining, no outdoors play.

Education can be hit and miss, unless you are prepared to pay (3-4k per term), or live in a very expensive area to be in catchment of a good school, or be able prove your allegiance to some sort of religion. But good education is good, probably better than in Norway.

Honestly, after living here again for three years after spending three years in Norway, I dont think life in general is that much cheaper here (London). I have also developed asthma since I came back, and what is more shocking to me is not all the murders and teen murders which seem to happen weekly, but that London is one of the most polluted cities in Europe.

I moved to London from Norway when I was 20. Loved it, but went back for three years, and I certainly dont love it as much now as I did between the ages 20 and 37!

Fraidy and Ikea* make good points. We've been out of the UK 8 years. When I go back it seems sad, dirty, shabby and crowded. When I read forums and tbe press it sounds as if tbere is a trend towards xenophobia and isolationism, and is if peole are ahort sightedly shutting downand turning inwards.

I'd hate to have to go back, I think it would be worse for my kids, both short and long term (even though where I live now has enty of faults, and I so miss just speaking English by default...)

Depends on what you're after. I've lived abroad and found that what I missed most was the people in the UK. Their sense of humour, tolerance and intelligent, interested outlook.

Not saying you don't get that elsewhere, but that is what I value highest living here.

Plus proper crisps/baked beans/countryside. And carpet, oh lovely carpet on the floor. No chilly tiles!

*btw "Ferrel" children is the opposite end of the spectrum to my concerns - my kids are (as is normal for where we live) given a degree of freedom and responsibility that I am 100% certain is to their advantage, yet I suspect would have the neighbors tutting or SS called in the UK - whilst at the same time they'd be callex babies because my 8 year old likes playing in the sandpit, and none of them get to watch age innapropriate media... they are "young for their ages" by UK media standards but years ahead of what would appear to be UK norms in terms of outside the home independence and self sufficiency... I think integrating into the UK would be a nightmare, til they are almost grown up, and I hope nothing happens that makes it necessary.

Thete is also the fact that being a foreigner where we are is just an interesting novelty, but I can imagine my kids being bullied for it inthe UK (I used to teach secondary school in the UK and remember the xemohobia even 10 years ago).

I agree with your points about freedoms/responsibilities drinkingtea, when I read posts about people wondering if it's ok to leave a 10 year old at home whilst they go to the shop or how to find after school care for teenagers I am shocked and I feel worried about children who are brought up in such a claustrophobic environment. I think you could try to bring your child up without being overly cautious in the UK but it would probably be seen as very odd.

It really comes down to how much money you have in the UK, and how stable your job and health is.

If you're coming back here to live in London on anything less than £60,000 a year, don't bother moving. If your health is poor, yours or DH's job not very stable, don't bother.

We're in the above categories (for now) but as renters without a lot of savings. It makes me nervous to live here because we're probably one year or one big disaster away from our nice life becoming a very tough life. Once you're in the shit, it's pretty hard to climb back out of it.

I am an immigrant from North America, DH is English. If he died, I would not hestitate to move back home again even though I haven't lived there for nearly 10 years. In particular, the school system and the erosion/privatising of the NHS are worrying. And bringing up DD in this current climate of austerity and Tory governance and the ridiculous archaic class system is quite depressing to think about.

But that's just my view as a lowly colonial... maybe if you were born and raised here you see it differently.

OH is from a Scandinavian country, he's been here 10 years now and says he'd never go back 'home' to live. Shame as I quite fancy it. Horses for courses.

Come and move to Shetland, idyllic place to live, lots of jobs, low crime, and if Scotland does become independent we'll be campaigning to go it alone (with our oil) too!

I wouldn't leave Scandinavia for the UK. Not in a million.

I live in the UK and no, it's not all bad at all....but the long term view for people like me...working class...isn't great at all. I'm worried about job prospects for my children as well as my own retirement.

Re the children not getting any freedom...that worries me too. My DD is 9 and we've begun to let her go to the shop alone and she and one other girl in her class are the ONLY ones allowed to do this.

She can't even call for a friend up the road as the parents all still arrange pladates. I have to call ahead by days for things to get organised. They call me too...but that's not the point. I'd love her to have the freedom I had as a kid.

NotMyProblem no...I'm native to the UK and I agree with you. DH and I are out of her by the end of next year. I'm sad to go...but want my children to have more opportunity.

A conversation I had with DH earlier tonight actually made me think about posting a very similar thread...

10 years (or should it be 20? Hard to pin down when, like me, you have tended to flee the UK frequently , despite beinv post grad educayed, since tbe age of 18 and are now nearly 40...) ago, would it not have been somewhat gauche or the providence of the blue rince brigade to wave the union jack at a royal jubilee and royal wedding - I found the "Ted, White and Blue" kind of American in its patriotism, and it left a bad and unfamilier taste, on my last UK visit - it is only "home" in a historical and (more strongly) linguistic sense; things have changed.
n

*red, white and blue... typos ago go when I phone-post, sorry!

Yes, the UK is insane and irrational with the child safdty/ freedom stuff as far as I can see now, with no benefit or advantage to UK raised kids, just teens growing up too fast one way and stinted the other, and more likely to be hit by cars for beong goven freedom all at once, much too late...

• or come to that pregnant at 15... all the things my UK aquantances (friends who have necome less close over time) and strangers on forums, seem afraid of if they let their kids have an EU- normal level pf freedom and responsiblilty, actually seem more likely to turn out badly in the apparently deeply rosk averse UK...

Poor UK, I enjoy living in your country!

America would be worse; couldn't imagine a reason good enough to move there, short of environmental disaster/ zombee apocolypse/ ... they are ridiculously paranoid in the USA - where are you from Squoosh? :o