To not understand suburban/domestic bliss

[saltnpepa]

I am beginning to wonder if I am the only person that doesn't aspire to the suburban/domestic dream of a detached modern house with a double garage, manicured lawn and 2 weeks a year in Tenerife. It seems adverts on TV and pretty much everywhere sell this dream, this image of modern family life, but it leaves me cold at best and fills me with dread at worst. Surely there's more to life than that?

OP Thanks for coming back and explaining your view. Now I see. I think perhaps if you'd said all that to begin with then people might have been less critical...
I didn't mean to be rude, so hope you were not offended.

But does anyone really take TV advertisements seriously, and (outside movies) is there actually a coherent 'suburban dream' for anyone to aspire to? I can only speak from my own experience and that is of course limited, but it seems to me that people mostly make a series of choices for all kinds of reasons, trivial and profound, and those choices shape their lives for the time being.

Agree with CharlesRyder - I have just turned 40 and have unexpectedly reached a 'lull' in my life and career that was not supposed to happen for another 10 years yet; I am loving it.

I have time to wander and bimble about, time to do stuff for myself, time to spend with the kids and a nice house and 2 cars (1 nice, 1 not!).

I am enjoying it because I have crammed so much in until this point - I am ready to slow right down, I've done everything.
Maybe I will do something new in the future, I don't know yet - I might do some form of further education because I like to learn stuff, or I may train for a whole new career, I may get a job where I don't have to think much and where I have no responsibility or I may remain a housewife.

The point is that I'm not scared of it like I once was, I'm ready to settle down now and live in and enjoy the moment. I've been married for 14 years and my kids are 10 & 13 this year - but it's only now that I feel like I am ready for the change.

I grew up on a remote island. Wasn't bliss and have travelled all over the world.

I love being alone but hate isolation.............yep I have tried the log cabin in a pine wood in the Artic Circle, the bamboo hut in SE Asia, tropical islands, the Outback in Oz, the lighthouse on a remote outpost, a clapboard house in Patagonia and many, many others.

I now live in a three bed detached and go to Greece next month for a weeks holiday.

I have got all curiosity out of my system.

The scariest thing I ever did was stay on an isolated island in a very small cottage. I stayed up all night wondering what the fuck I would do if someone knocked on the door. I really wanted three Rottweiler's and several guns.

I realised I was an urbanite at heart.

Also try to sell a house on a remote island. Not many takers despite the idyll people think it will be.

That ideal sounds wonderful to me right now, sat on a train at the start of my 2 hour commute!

We all aspire for different things, I live a hectic life due to working so far from home as dps dd lives here. Because of commuter costs we have a victorian Terence, no parking and a tiny garden. I would LOVE a garage, that seems like a dream!

To have a simple life like the one I grew up in (which was very much that tv ad) would be wonderful, one that didn't revolve around trains, flights and dsd schedule, where we could just be a family. It might be boring to some people but defiantly not to me

I'm not sure why the impression of 'suburbia' is that of kind of a Stepford Wives gig. There are thousands of people living this life who have really interesting and fulfilling lives. Isn't it about what you make of your own life rather than where you live?

In a nutshell Wilburpig .As I said above I am neither defined nor confined by living it suburbia .aaLufe is what you make it wherever you are

When oh when will Mumsnet allow editing...(and'liking )

saltnpepa - Your OP is one I wholly identify with. Without criticising anyone else's choices, I would not be able to thrive in the picture of "suburban domestic bliss" that you describe, whether a Stepford Wives gig or no. Perhaps it is as a result of my childhood, where we moved relatively often, including to three different countries, and our home life was chaotic and unboundaried.

I hope I'm taking the more pleasant aspects of that having worked through a lot of the shit - and as a result, my life seems to be turning out to be a combination of convention and adventure.

I rent a house in a small village; I am a single mother; I love my home and garden. I also travel often - I would shrivel up and die if I could not; I have an unconventional job where I call my own hours and which takes me to exciting places, both geographical and psychological/emotional; and do not have a life partner but enjoy deeply intimate, if non-sexual, relationships with two men.

Whatever floats your boat. Many of us are lucky we can choose; and if we can, then my wish is that we get to experience the life that is really calling to us.

Sounds wonderful gatewalker, except perhaps the two men, that bit sounds exhausting . I have so enjoyed reading peoples feelings about their life choices and it has really helped me too to think outside the external a bit more. I think I will carry on following my heart and join the other special snowflakes and DH and I will have to come to a compromise. If there were a special snowflake icon I would be using it.

You're lucky if you have all that actually. You must know that, right?

I once lived on one of the worst council estates in the country. My parents had bugger all money. Everyone around had bugger all money. It was awful. I went to a school across the town and the bus would wind through a little estate full of semis and bungalows. Many of the kids in my class lived in those houses and I thought they were rich - yes rich - and oh so lucky. I couldn't imagine the bliss of living somewhere so quiet and clean and pretty. I think back to that time a lot and am grateful that luck, hard work (not just mine my parents too, who studied and studied to get more qualifications and get us out of there) and a total fear of being poor again has led to a nice, quiet, safe and pretty (!) upbringing for my kids. And I live in the centre of a town, not suburbia, but can understand the attraction of safe and secure living.

There are many, many families living in this country who would find your fear of suburbia simply baffling... Someone's scared of being able to afford their own big house and a manicured lawn? Terrified of a double garage? Many, many families across the world would echo this. No-one is forcing you to live that life. Is your husband really going to drag you kicking and screaming to that detached home and force you to plant hanging baskets? Be grateful you have the money and choice in the first place. Seriously.

Perhaps the Op's feelings are more about the bourgeois ideal rather than living in the suburbs.

You know, the whole 'Location, Location, Location' wield view where a millionaire presenter talks about your 'forever home,' and the 'property ladder' and about property in terms of an emotional relationship. The whole idea that you start with a 'starter home' and progress until you die with mortgage only just paid off you have a country pile and a 'city pad.'

It presents this as an ideal and even a social norm while most young people in the country will never be able to buy a 'starter home' let alone a 'forever home.'

Of course if you want to differentiate yourself from the suburban Zafira-driving hordes you can purchase some farrow and ball paint and congratulate yourself on your superior taste.

You know why people live in the London suburbs? Because there are almost 9 million of them and however edgy you are you can only fit so many people into the centre before body odour becomes a real problem.

You know why the outer Hebrides aren't very populated? Only so much money to be made out of traditionally hand woven products.

People don't live settled lives in the suburbs because they want to wash their car at weekends.

The suburbs grew because people liked having gardens and indoor bathrooms near towns and cities with jobs and people tend to stay put when their start school. Most people probably aren't living in detached houses, but atleast they have a roof over their heads.

I agree with op. I don't aspire to the suburban dream and don't want to move up the property ladder, living in suburbia or rural areas fills me with dread. All my friends are the opposite. I am not sneering about their choices, different things make different people happy. For me, I need to live in or just outside of a big city. I have 2dcs and despite living near to the city centre live next to a large park with woodland walks, play areas etc. They are growing up seeing diversity and using city facilties, art galleries, theatres etc. I will also not have to be their taxi when teenagers as public transport is so good. However I am one of those people mumsnetters mention who would hate to work 9 to 5 in an office!

Yes, all people outside cities are uniformly white, can't use public transport, and hardly ever go to the theatre.

This is a great thread. Life affirming

OP this isn't about aspiration.

It's about functional living.

Johnfarley there is unarguably less diversity in rural areas and cultural pursuits are just harder to access and sometimes what is available is hardly cutting edge. There is also less public transport, that's just fact. I think it has been hit on the head, I have no care in the world for the aspirations pumped in the media like location location. A friend of mine said that all she wants in life is a bigger house and that got me thinking, that a bigger house is always nicer, a bit of flashy decking can be smashing but I wish for more than that. I'm not sure it is a city vs rural debate for me, I still can't quite work out exactly what it is I want to run for the hills from.

I love suburban life - it takes a lot of the crap out of life - meaning your time and efforts can be put into what you want to do....

House - paid off, car - paid off, married, 2 kids in secondary school, live on bus route between a city and a big town, great broadband speeds, SW so reasonable weather, etc etc etc - all that being sorted means life is for living!

I have it :o
4bed detached place in a semi rural area (but we have a co op ten mins away :o)
2.4 children. .4 does get neglected though
manicured, well chopped short, lawn
double garage (if you breathe one)
holidays - we could do package in Tenerife but we prefer to travel places a little more exotic and off the beaten track. like york and the Lake District :o
and we work in offcies and have pension plans
I love suburbia

If you want to condemn your children to a life of rural isolation then so be it. You'll have to run them everywhere and the local community will never accept you. Not with an attitude like that!

hakluyt

I'm not sure rural is the same as suburban and I don't think questioning a mainstream life demonstrates an attitude, I would say this has become an interesting philosophical debate.

Ah no it's ok, of course you don't want flashy decking and a manicured lawn. Heaven forbid. Of course you want more than that.

You want that artisanal rough hewn local stone, an edible corner and a beard garden. All set off by contrasting seats and pots (vintage, natch) in Farage and Bull's edgy grey toned Hippo Turd.