Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 8 9 10 ··· 33 34

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:

gormenghast · 22/12/2016 22:25

I have family in America and visit a lot.I find the insular attitude of certian posters on here very sad.People in America are very helpful and friendly wherever you go and I have met some extremely well educated interested and interesting people there.A country which produces universities like Yale and Harvard is not composed entirely of small town narrow hicks .As for Trump don't forget Hilary won the popular vote and my relations were highly embarrassed at the result.I do hate the labelling of an entire nation.I would feel similarly embarrassed if people in America thought we all supported Nigel Farage.

PlymouthMaid1 · 22/12/2016 22:26

Not a chance. Loathe the very idea of Americans.

Sybys · 22/12/2016 22:26

Oh I'd forgotten about the cost of education in the US, coupled with their students loans being, essentially, bank loans. Would never want to raise a family there.

SenecaFalls · 22/12/2016 22:27

I'm amused by Brits criticising any country based on food stereotypes.

But British food has improved by leaps and bounds in the last couple of decades. When I was a student in the UK many moons ago, coming from a part of the US with a strong culinary heritage (Deep South, including some time in New Orleans), I found the food a bit challenging in its blandness and sameness. In subsequent visits, I have been amazed at how that has changed. Some of the best meals I have ever had have been in the UK, in Scotland, in particular.

And Americans can have dual citizenship. The US Supreme Court has so ruled.

PickAChew · 22/12/2016 22:27

Hell no.

lightingseeds · 22/12/2016 22:28

And anyway childbirth doesn't have to be very medicalised in the US if you don't want it to be. America is (with the usual caveat of unless you are very poor) the land of consumer choice.

BakeOffBiscuits · 22/12/2016 22:28

No one is saying ALL Americans support Trump.

We are saying we wouldn't want to live there.

Also you saying "people in America are very helpful and friendly wherever you go" is such a ludicrous statement. I for one could give you numerous personal examples of that not being the case, but I won't bother.

PacificDogwod · 22/12/2016 22:28

I love the country, have lived there and visited often - hopefully will again.

I would never ever consider living in the US.
Too parochial and up their own arse.
The constant 'best country in the world' chest thumping gets on my nut.

Witchend · 22/12/2016 22:28

I think the fact he not only thinks that, but says it like that underlines why I most definitely wouldn't.

BakeOffBiscuits · 22/12/2016 22:29

Sorry that was to Gormen

SingingTunelessly · 22/12/2016 22:30

I love visiting the US. Wonderful holidays, fantastic scenery and the people I've met over there are, on the whole, lovely. Obviously I'm talking from a holiday perspective but I love it. Would I want to live there? Probably not as I love my life here in the UK but if career move sent our family over there then, yes, depending on where (obviously) we'd seriously consider a move. Not sure why it's getting such a bashing.

lightingseeds · 22/12/2016 22:31

I know, Plymouthmaid, they're all just a bunch of ignorant racists.

Leanback · 22/12/2016 22:32

Sounds like hell. No NHS, very limited gun control and Trump as president elect.

PacificDogwod · 22/12/2016 22:33

I visited the States and stayed with relatives on my own when I was 10 - 6 long glorious weeks, it was great.
When it was time to leave, I was asked why I didn't just stay because 'this is the best country in the world'. Me trying to explain that is was not 'home', that I wanted to be back with my family, my friends, my school, everything I knew as 'home' was just met with incredulity.

Deluded, ill-informed, poorly travelled people, many Americans. Not all, but a significant proportion.

Headofthehive55 · 22/12/2016 22:34

The is nothing so awful about the USA but I prefer the UK.

AngelaKardashian · 22/12/2016 22:34

It's not that I think that all Americans are racist Trump supporters, that would be ridiculous. My concern is about institutional racism and, more specifically, the police.
Just today I saw yet another video of police abusing a black family. I wouldn't want to live somewhere where I have to weigh up the pros and cons of calling the police in an emergency. "On the one hand, I could get a decent cop. On the other, I might not and he could shoot me." (Not as far fetched as it sounds.)

I know the UK has similar issues (and I'm sure that our own police would be just as bad if they could get away with it,) but I was born here and have little affiliation to any other country so don't really have much choice. America, however, I can avoid.

YouMeanYouForgotCranberriesToo · 22/12/2016 22:37

No, I want to live in Canada!

OhMrsQ · 22/12/2016 22:39

I chose to move here (California) from London. I never want to go back. I have found it nothing short of wonderful. Great outdoor lifestyle, friendly locals, sunshine. Ok so there are guns, but don't all countries have their bad points? I shan't get started on Trumpy, he's a goon but I'd still rather be here. Cali is very liberal though - perhaps we get off a bit lightly.

wasonthelist · 22/12/2016 22:40

I wouldn't want to live there - although it was a very realistic chance at one point. I do love to visit the US and will do so again.

My reasons for not wanting to live there are not the ones commonly cited here - I don't feel the gun control or health system issues are major - but they are signs of a series of different cultural norms. I don't approve of Trump, but then I didn't think much of Nixon, Reagan or either of the Bushes.

Even allowing for the massively higher death rate from firearms, the statistical chances of being gunned down in some sort of random shooting must still be pretty slight.

LeadPipe · 22/12/2016 22:41

God that police video today was abhorrent - clearly overt racism and the cop didn't even care that it was live! (If you meant the Fort Worth video)

LaurieMarlow · 22/12/2016 22:41

I think your average Californian would die laughing at the idea that Britain has better food than they do.

FourKidsNotCrazyYet · 22/12/2016 22:42

I didn't mean two because of dual nationality, but please feel free to be nasty under the anonymity that is the Internet

squoosh · 22/12/2016 22:43

As well as the good stuff there is a lot of terrible food in America.

'First, open a can of Campbell's chicken soup.....'

lazydog · 22/12/2016 22:43

No, definitely not. I would like to see more of it, as a visitor, but I have absolutely no desire to live there.

I love living in Canada right now, so no desire to move anywhere else, but if I were ever to move countries again, I think it would most likely be to go back to the UK.

LeadPipe · 22/12/2016 22:44

I wasn't being nasty, perhaps I should have posted a 😊 I was just correcting the mis-statement. No need to take umbrage.

Flip

1 2 ··· 8 9 10 ··· 33 34