To wish it was easy to move to the USA

[Highway65]

I've been watching The Pioneer Woman on Sky the past few evenings. It's utter drivel but I LOVE it!! It's this blog writer/cook living in Oklahoma and it just looks ace! All cowboys, horses and massive ranches. I want to live there.

Infact, there are loads of places in America that I would like to live. Europe has plenty of highlights too of course. Not where I live, it's just grey!! But I reckon I should have been born American.

I have family living in California. They both married Americans to get their green cards. I would be up for that if I wasn't happily married

Downamong see, and I lived in MN, ME, AZ, and MO, and most people I knew had guns. Either for hunting (midwest) or for protection in the home (everywhere). I've seen racial issues and massive religious issues. IMO race and religion are much less volatile issues here in the UK than they are in the states (again, that's just from my experience). Although I know some very racist people in both countries, sadly.

And everywhere I've lived, there's been some sort of "class" structure. It's there, it's not hidden, but in some areas it's talked about more than others.

I agree, different parts of the states are vastly different from others.

squoosh I suspect mixed race couples are much more common in the larger cities than in the more rural areas, but again that is just based on what I've seen. I still remember all the talk about it when OJ Simpson was accused of killing his ex (mixed race couple). It was ugly and really polarised people.

You couldn't pay me to live there. Crazy place! However, holidays are ok because the exposure to the craziness is limited but give you enough time to see and do the nice things.

Yes, agree about the rural/urban divide in the US. That's how the politics is shaping up here too.
And seriously, the anti-women stuff here is unbelievable. Politicians trying to stop women getting the pill; using motorcycle safety legislation to close family-planning clinics; I volunteered to help escort women into a clinic and honestly feared for my life (and I work in hostile environments for a living). But if you are well-off you are insulated from the dark side! We have a very good life here just don't scratch the surface too deeply

I can't quite understand the US and women. On the one hand, there's their obsession with female nakedness, the anti-abortion stuff, etc. On the other hand, I find that girls are raised to be more independent, with more access to sports, and in some ways less gendered than in the UK. Maybe that's a wrong impression I get from observing a very specific subset of US society through my in-laws, though.

Yes, there is a class system in the US - going all the way from the "Boston Brahmins" to "Trailer Trash". But it's sort of a big enough place for it to not affect you. The UK is so small, you see it all around you.

There's no country that doesn't have a class system. We're humans. Basically, mammals that need a hierarchy.

Teens ime in the US don't get let loose on their own, as everyone has to be driven everywhere, so getting a bus into town at age say 12 onwards and hanging out with friends is not going to happen, instead you go to someone's house and hang out with them there

Sorry but this made me laugh.

My children all walk or bike to school, into town, to sports, to the library, to the ice cream shop, etc. They're 9, 11 and 13. Their friends do too.

I really do think I live in a different country to the one people on here often describe.

When I was on the committee for my very large employer in the states to assist in choosing the group health insurance they were going to go with, we looked over all the proposals very carefully. NONE of them provided any type of disability coverage for maternity. If you wanted that, you had to buy it separately, and it wasn't cheap and it had to be purchased well in advance of any pregnancy

But a company wouldn't buy disability insurance from a health insurance company, they'd buy it from a disability insurance company. I worked for one of the largest disability insurers until recently and maternity claims were the most common short-term disability claims.

Yes you can buy short term disability individually, but most people get it through their employer.

Of course there are class divides in the US but it is very different than in the UK, I think. Most Americans would describe themselves as middle class, even upper class folk. That's why every politician, including Barack Obama, can talk about helping the middle class. We might refer to "blue collar" or "white collar" jobs, but the blue collar factory worker may actually make more money and have the same education level as the white collar civil servant.

On a thread on here one time about the TV show "Frasier," a UK poster mentioned something about Frasier and Niles being middle class and their dad Martin, a retired policeman, being working class. This indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of class in the US. Both would be considered middle class.

Having said this, we do differentiate fairly often among lower-middle, middle-middle, and upper middle.

I agree that the attitude to the poor can be shocking among some people. But it is also important to remember that some of this is due to a fairly wide spread belief in a limited role in government. The same people who object to extension of public benefits may be donating large sums of money to charities that help the poor or they may be running a food bank with their church.

I think if there is one generalization that does hold true about Americans is that as a society we put a strong emphasis on working hard, whatever your job. I think it is one of the reasons that visitors from other places often see our customer facing friendliness and helpfulness as fake. It's not fake in the sense that the people doing it see it as an important part of doing their job well.

where do you live wobbly?

where DH is from, it's absolutely impossible for an adult (let alone a child) to walk anywhere. If only because they don't really do sidewalks.

when I first visited his family I told them I would just be riding the bus, and they looked at me like I was insane. Apparently the bus doesn't really go into middle-class suburbs, because it's only used by those who don't own a car, ie the very very poor.

I have a secret desire to live in Portland in Oregon.
It's a ridiculous fantasy really as I have never been there, but if I ever see it on tv I just really really want to live there! I have no idea where this desire comes from. I've even been known to look at it on google earth/street view. I also know the exact what kind of house I want

That's interesting Scone

So on what basis would someone be considered upper class or lower class? Is there social mobility between classes or is it as in the UK where you are born upper class or you aren't?

It's true that there is little access to public transportation in many suburbs. But my experience is similar to wobbly's. (I live in a suburban area of a large city in Florida). Our kids were riding bikes to school, to shops and to visit friends from the age of about 12. When they were 16, they got cars (paid in part by them) and we hardly ever saw them, except at mealtimes.

In terms of walkability the area around Seattle is very walkable and seems to have good public transport. I have visited lots of towns around Lake Washington and all of them have sidewalks, some even have people walking on them

There are also beaches, parks and trails that are very popular with walkers. The buses are all well used and lots of people bike to work/school too.

Social mobility is harder than it used to be, and is very difficult for the poor. But I think it safe to say that once achieved, people have the identity of the class they have moved into. The class your parents were will not be relevant as it might be in the UK in determining class identity. There are also fewer outward markers of class, like accent. Of course this is a big generalization, and there are many exceptions.

When I was a student in the UK, (and this was a few years ago and I know things have changed), my experience was that friendship groups did seem to organize themselves around class to a surprisingly large extent. I found that as an American, I had a sort of class-free status and so had friends of all classes. I had a group of working class friends that I met through my course, a group of middle class friends that I formed at my hall of residence, and I even had some upper class friends that I met through a society I joined.

Chachah I have lived in Seattle, Connecticut, Ohio, Maine, Mass and West Virginia. The only one I didn't walk in was WV because I was living on a track deep in the forest so I biked everywhere.

My sister lives in Portland, Bigby. It is a great city.

I think if there is one generalization that does hold true about Americans is that as a society we put a strong emphasis on working hard, whatever your job. I think it is one of the reasons that visitors from other places often see our customer facing friendliness and helpfulness as fake. It's not fake in the sense that the people doing it see it as an important part of doing their job well.

I think this is true.

All societies have some form of class, but I think things are made worse in the UK by the fact there still is formal aristocracy and royalty. Symbolically, it sends the message that some people are just born inherently "better", and the principle trickles down to the rest of the society.

Social mobility is not particularly high in the US I don't think, but at least everyone believes they can rise to the top if they are clever enough and work hard enough. Largely a myth of course, but there's something I like about the optimism of it - as opposed to the self-defeatism I often see in Brits.

There has also been a fair bit of downward mobility in the last few years because of the recession.

Y'all should be living in NJ. We have 12 weeks of disability plus another 6 wks tacked onto the end, also paid at $500 by the state. The $500 a month disability is what you get paid by the state. I got paid more because my employer took out insurance privately. I pay something like $2 a month for it. I think 18 weeks is plenty of time to take off.

There are classes in the US and it is based on income unlike the UK. Within each class are subdivisions. DH and I are middle class with DH's boss being a 1%'er. Most of our friends have household incomes of $250-500k. Don't be fooled though, that kind of income in NYC metro area is very average and needed to make ends meet. Nearly no one here has more than 2 kids and in our calculations we have budgeted for hiring two childcarers as you can't find people who will look after more than 2 children at a time. I find the class system in the US refreshing, in part because I felt suffocated in the US by my family history. The whole lower, middle and upper class thing is so limiting.

With regards to social mobility, I like that my kids can't rely on us to have a good standing in the local community and children whose parents don't have a good standing won't be defined by that. They will need to work hard and prove themselves. It is a different system here and where you can go up and down.

So class = money and influence rather than title and heritage as in the UK?

Upper class = 1%ers? Or is that too simplistic?

There are pockets of America that look like fun places to live, NYC or Seattle perhaps but vast swathes of it just look like one huge suburb from which there is no escape.

Every place has it's grey areas and pockets of poverty.
Where I live in the UK definitely isn't grey.