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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand suburban/domestic bliss

316 replies

saltnpepa · 08/04/2015 19:32

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 posts:
CharlesRyder · 12/04/2015 17:39

Hakluyt oh to find Sebastian Flyte passed out on my doorstep... Grin

merrymouse · 12/04/2015 17:48

You can live wherever you like, but if you have children you will need to organise and pay for a babysitter before you go out to edgy clubs and you will be tied into the school timetable.

That might be scary, but you can't avoid it by not living in the suburbs.

crispandfruity · 12/04/2015 18:28

I live in suburbia and it's great. Sunday mornings are a mass car washing /lawn mowing orgy. Usually done with sore heads because we have a plethora of gastropubs that serve food on wooden boards within a 10 minute walk.

I have a picket fence - not a white one. And today I bought fairy lights for my back garden (sans decking but we do have a vegetable plot)

We all seem to have wicker thingys hanging on our front doors and I might have a LOVE plaque in my bathroom. (sorry)

Never been to Spain on holiday, but we do glamp. Someone shoot me now.

LotusLight · 12/04/2015 19:32

I love where I live - outer London zone 5, private road but would probably meet many people's description of "suburbia" and yes people who live in a similar house in the country which is a mansion with 100 acres in Worcs. for the same price or a Scottish castle or who live in some penthouse in WC1 might not understand why I like what I have but these are the reasons:-

  1. I like living where it is very quiet and not many people around, horses go by on the street etc. I don't like living amongst the noice
  2. However very useful to be on the tube and masses of ways to get to London including cycling in, over ground, bus and not far from major air ports.
  1. Children when graduated can use here as a base for all kinds of jobs in London
  1. Much bigger house than in central london so lots of space for a large family and all their stuff and separate rooms so we can all have the privacy we want.

5.After 20 years married it is absolutely wonderful not to be although you can be divorced in a tent, in a flat, in inner London or the HIghlands so that's I suppose not a relevant point.

There is nothing wrong with Tenerife although it's Barbados and Val D'Isere for us this year.

Stealthpolarbear · 12/04/2015 21:31

full where in earth do you live
or did you buy in the 1970s

RedToothBrush · 12/04/2015 21:49

Manicured lawn? Why bother?

Astroturf all the way thanks.

LotusLight · 12/04/2015 22:27

Stealth, was that to me? I don't want to give the post code! I just planned a career with money in mind as plenty of women do but of course most people male and female don't really want to work in the way you tend to need to get that. It's horses for courses really.

And not a manicured lawn! More like a field of moss over which large boys trample.

Gralick · 12/04/2015 23:16

I think she was asking full, Lotus. I'm guessing you live in Pinner Grin I thought Full might be somewhere near Woking, but it's a little bit further out than 14 mins. (Perhaps "the capital" isn't London anyway?)

fulltothebrim · 13/04/2015 06:50

I don't want to say where I live- but I bought my house 8 months ago.

Gralick · 13/04/2015 09:55

It's OK, full, I was just amusing myself - no need to share! It sounds good, wherever it is :)

Alibabsandthe40Musketeers · 13/04/2015 14:44

I'm guessing full is not in mainland UK.

Stealthpolarbear · 13/04/2015 14:49

sorry just 14 mins from London as I assume, detached house for 200k

fulltothebrim · 13/04/2015 15:33

Yes I am in mainland UK.

I didn't say I lived near London though.

fulltothebrim · 13/04/2015 15:36

I live 14 minutes from my Capital city- Edinburgh.

Stealthpolarbear · 13/04/2015 15:36

That makes a lot more sense! London was my assumption

Aermingers · 13/04/2015 15:46

I don't really think it's a bad thing to aspire to. I think a lot of people don't know how lucky they are. But to have a decent career, raise a family, do something in your community to help out is not such a bad life.

I had a very unsettled childhood and youth where there was enough 'excitement' and instability to last a lifetime and the stable and predictable is good for me. I think that's the reason why the older generations who lived through WW1, the depression and WW2 aspired to this sort of quiet suburban lifestyle. I think they'd had quite enough excitement and after all the tumolts they'd been through they just wanted a quiet life.

I do have some friends who have opted for the 'exciting' route, travelling widely, taking glamorous but insecure and short term jobs in far flung locations but they invariably don't have kids or a long term partner, which I assume is by choice as they don't want that lifestyle.

But it's what's right for you that matters most. And that still seems to the majority to be some sort of nuclear family.

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