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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Does everyone want to live in the US?

846 replies

AteRiri · 22/12/2016 19:43

I was talking to an American friend and he made this blanket statement, "Everyone wants to come here!"

Is this true?

OP posts:
DangerousBeanz · 23/12/2016 09:55

No. I can't imagine any circumstances I which I would want to live there. It'd be a level of hell I have no need to endure.

corythatwas · 23/12/2016 09:58

I'm very happy in northern Europe; can't see myself wanting to move from here.

ISaySteadyOn · 23/12/2016 09:59

Mostly I RTFT before posting. This time I am just going to answer the OP'S question.

No, I emigrated from the US to the UK. I prefer here.

tanfield90 · 23/12/2016 10:02

Good Lord, no ! Last country on Earth I'd visit, let alone live there.

LaurieMarlow · 23/12/2016 10:03

*Obviously there are ways round crap TV - but the lack of decent news and general informed public debate was very jarring to me - but that's partly as I was brought up with lots of news consumption and radio 4 as background and even in our wider family we seek out the history, science and nature programs around.

It wouldn't be a deicing factor on it's own but a possible contributing consideration.*

There is tonnes of crap TV in the UK - think of all that daytime programming. And the vast majority of European TV is horrific. Ever watched an Italian gameshow?

You can always draw attention to the good or the bad, depending on the point you're making. But overall and objectively, you can't really argue that the US has contributed high quality TV to the world, across many genres.

The news point is an interesting one and valid. However, their print culture is much less 'lowest common denominator' than our tabloid offerings - and don't forget that infinitely more Brits read The Sun than The Times.

LaurieMarlow · 23/12/2016 10:04

Bold fail. Sorry.

M0stlyHet · 23/12/2016 10:12

No.

I've visited a lot of places in America. I find it a fascinating country. I find (for the most part) the people are very friendly and open and interesting to talk to. But no. I'd miss the culture here. I wouldn't want their crazy gun control laws or lack of social healthcare. And I certainly wouldn't want to live there under Trump as president (in fact, much as I love the place, I'd be in two minds about visiting right now - and if I was black, or gay, or... there wouldn't be any two minds about it, I definitely wouldn't go even for a visit while Trump was in power).

Simonneilsbeard · 23/12/2016 10:15

No.
In fact it would be the last place on earth I would want to visit.

clementineorange · 23/12/2016 10:30

No. And I'm American.

I intentionally do not live in America.

jetsetlil · 23/12/2016 10:43

I have visited America four times, New York twice, Chicago and San Francisco. Absolutely loved it . Thought the people were great. Would I live there ? No! For all the above reasons. There was a thread not long ago about the American Gun culture. An American poster said she carries her gun in her bag when she goes shopping....just in case....it sent chills down my spine. Crazy way to live

SpringerS · 23/12/2016 10:48

As first world countries go, it would be the last place I'd choose to live. Pretty much anywhere in Europe, Canada, New Zealand, even Australia with all it's deadly snakes and spiders, imo, offer a better freer life. Even just the way Americans are taught that their country is the best in the world is just fucked up propaganda. That along with their crazy prison culture, gun culture, insanely expensive education system and disgracefully costly medical system make it a very, very unappealing choice.

All my life I have been able to look at my country (Ireland) and appreciate the greatness it contains while being appalled at the areas it fails in. I have a wonderful standard of living and an incredibly generous social safety net should I need it. University education is close to free (and free plus a grant for children of lower income families). Our health service wastes money left right and centre but it also offers a great standard of care when needed, unless you are a pregnant woman who's life is being threatened by the foetus, then you are fucked. Our schools offer a very decent standard of education, unless you aren't Catholic or geographically very lucky, then you can expect your rights of religious freedom to be trampled all over.

It's easy for me to see and talk about all the failings of my country, while also appreciating what I've got. It means that things can and will (eventually) change for the better because we aren't married to the idea of 'best country ever.' While so many Americans lost in this idea of their homeland being the best of the best, fight change, are blindly swept into what can only be described as an idiotic tantrum of voting for someone like Trump. The little guys billionaire!

PestoFrostissimos · 23/12/2016 10:49

No

SpringerS · 23/12/2016 10:56

Oh yeah and the food. Sweet fuck. I bought a Pepsi at the airport first time I visited the US and nearly spat it out. I tried a tollhouse cookie ice-cream and actually had to spit it out. The food in the regular supermarkets is inedibly sweet. I threw away a cheese and salami sandwich I bought while shopping because it was so very, very sweet. You can get excellent food there, but you need to at least be going to Whole Foods, if not specialist artisan shops, and you have to pay through the nose for it. For lower income people eating healthily must be incredibly difficult.

NameChanger22 · 23/12/2016 11:04

To be fair, if I could live anywhere in the world I wouldn't choose to live in the UK either.

PhilODox · 23/12/2016 11:06

I have met several Americans that were offended if you didn't agree that USA was the best place on earth, had the best food, the greatest scenery etc etc. I think they genuinely would believe that "everyone wants to move there".
I don't think all Americans are like that.
I definitely would not want to live there, I won't even visit since they introduced fingerprinting visitors. I am not a criminal.

SirChenjin · 23/12/2016 11:13

Absolutely not. I'm sure that if you're white, moneyed and have the right connections it would be fine, but that's not the kind of country I would want to live in - and even less so now they have Trump at the helm (may god have mercy on our souls)

BayaGoji · 23/12/2016 11:15

This is a really unpleasant thread with a mass of sweeping generalizations.
The majority of Americans want some kind of gun control

God, the Americans posting in this thread are so sensitive! You don't have to take everything so personally, y'all!

People gave the gun thing as a reason for not wanting to live there. That's not a personal attack on individual Americans. It doesn't matter if "the majority of Americans want some kind of gun control" - the proliferation of gun ownership and violence is still a valid reason for somebody not to want to live there.

Don't be so defensive, jeez.

sashh · 23/12/2016 11:20

I agree that there are HUGE problems with US healthcare, but something to think about- with a population of 320 million to Europe's 500 million, the US spends a lot more on medical research. One reason the NHS is so good is that it benefits from US healthcare advances

And the US benefits from European advances.

How much research is actually done in the US compared to Europe?

HollyBollyBooBoo · 23/12/2016 11:21

Not a chance!

LaurieMarlow · 23/12/2016 11:26

There's a world of difference between saying 'No I wouldn't want to live there' and saying 'I can't think of anything worse, it's a total shithole, you couldn't pay me to visit'.

The overall tone of this thread (in spirit rather than actual words) has lent towards the latter, which has come across as either hyperbolic for the sake of it, ignorant or defensive (or some combination of all three).

The US, like most countries, has its good points and bad points. Many of the reasons given for not wanting to live there are sound, but there seems to be a lack of acknowledgement that there would be positive points too, which I guess is what the American posters are finding upsetting.

Leanback · 23/12/2016 11:28

Do the people being upset in the comments realise that most of the posters are commenting about American not Americans.

Yes 70% may be in favour of gun control but you don't have good gun control in much of America.

Yes 3 more million people voted for Clinton over Trump; but he is still president elect.

There are many wonderful things about the US I'm sure, but British people tend to enjoy things such as employment rights and the NHS. Nobody is saying the uk does not have its flaws, every country does. However to the majority of us this place is home and so we can look past that. That doesn't mean we have to look past those of the US and want to move there.

Beebeeeight · 23/12/2016 11:31

To whoever said you can have a non medicalised birth in America I beg to differ.

Home births are illegal in some states.
Gas and air is rarely if ever available meaning women are left with an epidural or nothing 'choice'.
The midwifery profession is almost non existent. Ob-gyn's control childbirth and this system results in many more injured mums and dead babies.

SirChenjin · 23/12/2016 11:33

The overall tone of this thread (in spirit rather than actual words) has lent towards the latter, which has come across as either hyperbolic for the sake of it, ignorant or defensive (or some combination of all three)

You appear to have forgotten the key 'imo' there.

LeadPipe · 23/12/2016 11:33

I can see many reasons why my American friends who visit us in London would never move here to the UK and as I said upthread, they let us know how awful they think it is here. I really don't take it to heart, it's a matter of preference.

LaurieMarlow · 23/12/2016 11:34

You appear to have forgotten the key 'imo' there.

Or that's a given because we're on an internet forum.