We moved away nearly 7 years ago to switzerland, 2 of my 3 boys were born here. I love it here. We have a fantastic quality of life. My eldest stared school in August, aged 7, and still only does 5 mornings and 2 afternoons. The rest of the time he's outside playing with his mates.
My middle son is in Kindergarten (5 mronigns & 1 afternoon).
The youngest will start Kindergarten in 1.5 years.
The eldest 2 are bi lingual, the youngest is learning fast.
I basically agreed with dh to move back, he's in a fairly specialisied field and much more opportunities in London than here. He's been looking for a new job for a while & not found anything here. So now he's looking in london.
I thought I was ok with it, but thinking about it, now seemingly an imminent reality I feel truly sick. Sorry, I know you all, or the vast majority live in UK and most of you happy, but I feel we'd loose so much
- the kids would loose their bi- lingualism, ds3 would never even get it.
-they'd have to start school, and go the full day!!! They would hate to be away from me, and me them. My poor ds2 has never even been to school yet (he's 6.5) how on earth would he manage in a school where kids have bbeen going already for a couple of years?? My youngest is too young. He really is.
- Even finding a school and getting a place at a decent one sounds unbelievably difficult.
-they'd loose their freedom, going out to play every afternoon. I constantly read on here parents saying even their 9 year old is not allowed out to play & other such stuff.
- how on earth would we find a house, never mind be able to afford one?
- I'd loose my lovely new home.
- Our health service here is brilliant (if I phone doc a 7.55 am they ask if I want to bring him in straight away! I have never had to wait even a day for an appointment,)
The conjestion in london, the madness, the traffic.
- In the unicef report published last week, UK came out bottom place for bringing up kids, whereas Switzerland feels idillic.
- I have a great support network of neighbours, and we all look out for each others' kids.
- We can get to Austria, Germany etc really easily for holidays etc.
- our family quality of life is really high.
- we'd either have to live in London (used to live in leyton, Wimbledon, Battersea & tooting, so know it & don't want a repeat performance), or we'd move to a village/subburb with the horror commute involved)
OMG, sorry for the mammoth ramble. It just feels like a no win situation. I can't see anything good about moving back to uk, apart from seeing family more, but seems like comparitively small gain.
If I say no, then dh stuck in job he's fed up with. Then he's unhappy. He already is. And now so am i.