To think an American/Canadian childhood seems nicer than a British one?

[WilsonandJackie]

I know I probably am BU as stuff like this will always be a "grass is greener" situation and I can't judge a place based on a holiday (have just returned from 10 days visiting a friend and her husband who moved to Pennsylvania 9 years ago) but I really did notice some things while I was there that have me wondering. I know America has it's issues like the UK with poverty etc and is in an absolutely dire state at the moment politically but I was amazed at how different the children and teenagers over there's lives seem to be.

My friend's live in a suburban neighbourhood outside a big city. The neighbourhood kids (know I shouldn't judge it it over one neighbourhood I spent 10 days in but I live in a neighbourhood of a similar socioeconomic class in the UK which is nothing like this) seemed to be living such an idyllic childhood. Kids out playing on bikes on the roads, climbing trees, building dens, in and out of each others houses. I didn't think kids that age did that anymore, it was like a flashback to the 80s and it felt quite lovely. We're talking kids who are 12-14 years old. They seem on a completely different planet to kids in the UK of the same age. I'd see them riding their bikes to school each morning and they looked genuinely happy, in their own clothes rather than a depressing formal uniform (I hate uniforms with a passion, much prefer the system of a dress code). There were some kids who were smoking weed I admit, but it just looked a different apmostphere. They weren't in tracksuits standing outside a corner shop and intimidating people (yes I see this every day in the UK in my "naice" area, didn't see it once in the US), they just seemed to be laughing with their friends in their gardens.

My friends have 2 kids (girl 16 boy 14), they are completely Americanized and you'd have no idea they were born in Yorkshire. The DD drives now and has a job in a diner, so she earns her own wage. Her school finished in June and isn't back until September, so gets 3 months to let her hair down. While we were visiting her and her friends ended up renting a minivan and all drove to a spot 2 hours away (it's meant to be a sort of mountain range with outstanding natural beauty) to camp. Yes there was probably booze and maybe bud, I'm not oblivious, but the pictures seemed lovely. Gorgeous scenery, campfire etc. They all returned next morning and her friend gave her a lift to work on her way to her own shift. Her brother is very sporty and his friends were round a lot practising basketball in the back yard and then they jumped on their bikes to go to another house. Both kids and their friends seem so carefree and happy. In a way they seemed more independent than teens I'm used to, but also seemed to have had more of a childhood. The schools looked nicer, I know there's still bullying and badly behaved kids etc but none of the schools we droved past looked like the ones I'm used to. I'm used to crumbling concrete blocks that haven't had any money spent on them since 1973 and kids in grim uniforms walking in looking like clones of each other. Whenever I see kids walking to school at home they always look so bloody depressed. I think the middle school system is fab. Why are we chucking kids who may have only just turned 11 into a huge building with kids who may be nearing 17 and expecting them to get on with it? They go from being the oldest, the "big kids" in primary to suddenly being chucked into secondary with no transistion. No wonder they feel under so much pressure to grow up quickly. I'd have paid for my kids to do a middle school system. My 2 boys high school experience along with my own were horrendous. They were both under so much pressure by Year 9 and had no energy to do anything. For 2 years every other bloody word was "GCSE". Even in the holiday's they just wanted to rest. Only went out with friends to KFC or to doss in someone's living room and have a takeaway. Meanwhile my friend's DS at 14 still plays out and lives and breathes his basketball. DS's both insist a kid who was always playing football would have got bullied and teased in their school.

The UK just seems depressing, and my friend's have said the same. My friend's own words were "You couldn't pay me to take my kids back to the UK now. There's so many more oppurtunities for them over here and they are both so much happier than I remember being at their age. We are never coming back." I still love the UK, and would never move to the US because of stuff like Trump and the godawful healthcare system etc. But forgetting stuff like that and just thinking about the kind of apmostphere I'd want to raise DC in, I'd choose the US any day of the week. I've heard of many people who have gone to the US and Canada with kids and have stated that their kids are doing amazing there. My friends knew another family who emigrated to Canada and eventually the parents came back but the DC (late teens who had been there 5 years) downright refused.

@MabelMoo23 I appreciate the different in gun laws, but gun and knife crime IS an issue in the uk.

Also it depends on where you are brought up....we live in what I consider the ye olde worlde countryside (I grew up in nearest major town) so it’s all a bit weird and new to me but guns are common, majority have guns in their household....as a result I’ve had to adjust, I have now brought my kids up learning to shoot and learning to “use” guns and be around them sensibly.

Father in law most certainly does not always follow the rules with how they should be stored, it is not uncommon to come across them in places that they shouldn’t be in the house, but although I make sure to reprimand etc and get them moved, I don’t for one minute ever think my kids would ever touch them let alone use them

@oblomov19 Maybe it's less of what's good across the Atlantic and more an issue of where we've gone wrong over here? Because there is something, as a previous poster said it must be a deep seated cultural issue. I've also been to plenty of European countries and the teenagers just seem happier. You're going to get rebellious, bratty behaved and struggling kids everywhere but I've never seen so much of it as I have in the UK.

I think that there's an attitude over here that every teenager will go through an arsey phase where they act like a bloody terror and it's some kind of right of passage so the teens almost want to live up to that. When my boys were little adults were always saying stuff like "Oh wait till he's 15 and getting pissed every weekend you'll be ripping you're hair out!".

I was raised in a Scandinavian country and my childhood was like this. I’ve been in the UK more than 20 years and it’s very different. People seem more closed off and distant unless old friends. Our street is full off kids and in a nice area and they are never together.
One example is “play dates” which I never heard of before UK. Generally, I think It’s a very controlled environment in the UK. You don’t meet up at someone’s house to have coffee, you meet up at a Coffee house to have a coffee. Very different.

You’re seeing the very, very nice parts of America, and the result of a society that’s incredibly stratified by socioeconomic class. I wouldn’t move to the US until gun laws improve and it doesn’t feel like it’s about to descend into the Handmaids Tale.

I don’t disagree OP
We can’t always cry ‘guns’ and ‘healthcare’ and ignore the very positive aspects you highlight here

I think to some extent it’s down to a
Mono culture . But hey it’s nice for the kids

America is nicer for kids but probably worse for parents who stress about healthcare costs, university costs, gangs, school shootings, job insecurity, etc.

No as relating to the USA especially there is a vulgar and dangerous gun culture. I don't think the level of school or campus shooting are great for young people

Blimey, that's a huge dose of naivety for this early in the morning.

Pretty much any country will seem an amazing place to live when you're only there on holiday for a short burst of time, are insulated from all the work and stresses and worries you have in your ordinary home life, and don't have to deal with or engage with the day to day realities of living in that place!

You know child marriage is legal in America, right? Young girls get married off to adult men to sexually abuse and that's totally legal - and actually defended by many. Where does that feature in the idyllic childhoods you're describing?

Never mind the very real possibility of being shot and killed or maimed whilst at school or walking down the street, or listening to a concert, or filling your car up with fuel.

I can only assume from the fantastical picture you've painted of living in America that you're a white person. I mean, for instance, you've managed to overlook the horrific way the judicial/prison system has been used to stand in the feet of slavery since that was 'abolished'...

I don't know why you would want to move to live in a country with such gross human rights abuses.

Got to agree with minibroncs.

One thing I'll always advocate for though is the American school system (Know somebody is going to bring up school shootings, so am just going to say yes it's awful but a seperate issue. The lack on gun control is the issue there, not the schools). I think chucking kids from a nice "cosy", primary school where they've just gotten used to being the eldest into a huge huge building with 16 year olds is such a shock to our poor kids and probably forces them to grow up instantaneously to cope with it. I like that kids in the US start school a couple of years later. Elementary 6-11 Middle 11-14 and High 14-18 is a much better system IMO.

Well, I live in a tiny town in east sussex. Kids play out, all have pt jobs if they want them at 16 In local shops/pubs/restaurants etc. Minimal chance of being shot. And actual healthcare at the point of need. My db lived in America. Seriously you see terrible sights. Homeless children and parents sleeping on the streets. Fundraisers for families where a child is born with a heart condition.....

Interesting perspectives on here.

I've grown up half my life in Canada and half in the US. Depends on the part of Canada, mine isn't any colder than when I lived in the U.K. University costs were on par in all three countries for me (three degrees) but I have citizenship in all three and pay the local rates. The pp who said their friend in the US paid a lot for his DC to go to university probably chose a private uni or wasn't American and thus his kids would've paid foreign tuition rates which are astronomical in any country.

I agree that the British teens were anti social when I lived abroad and it's just a different culture. Most students I know work from about fifteen part time whilst going to high school. We don't have to have driving lessons so almost everybody drives by sixteen or seventeen. It's very independent. Childhood seems to last longer. I always find it weird reading how an eighteen year old British teenager wouldn't go on holiday with their parents. We totally would here.

Uniforms always freaked me out. The cost is insane to me, too. The stress of A levels and other educational goals also put me off. Going through uni there was also very strange and the students were always stressed out.

I'm sure there are some good sides though. But yes, Canada is generally great. I've lived probably ten years in the US and never come across any gun crime or shootings though so I guess I'm either lucky or a lot of it is sensationalized in the news.

How can the horrific gun crime be sensationalised when it happens in schools. It doesn’t need to be, it’s horrifying as it is.

The stats are high too.

I’d take a uniform any day. Actually they’re handy so it’s not hard.

@minibroncs If you read the last paragraph of my OP you'd see that I wouldn't actually want to move there (much prefer Canada for reasons you mentioned but America was the main topic as that's where I have been). America has so many faults, but I don't think there is anything wrong with discussing a positive aspect that I saw...

Interesting thread, op. I’ve always had an idealised view of childhood in the States thanks to Hollywood and what I’ve seen through the media: wholesome apple pie, camp fires, baseball, cheerleading... and I often wonder what it must be like to live in one of those big wooden fascia houses on a tree lined road where the kids play out in the pine forests and sports courts all day. So no, given that you’ve experienced some of it close up, and the reality sounds the same, YANBU at all to question how much better their childrens’ lives are compared to ours!

However, in my own personal experience I wouldn’t agree with you, because my children’s (and my own for that matter) childhoods in the uk are pretty idyllic: they can easily find work at local cafes, they have both gone through a middle school system here and now attend an excellent leafy comp, they live in a safe village with friends nearby so they hang out together until late either at the local park, the woods, the playing fields, or each other’s houses. They have freedom to roam and can get the bus or train into the nearest towns and cities. They have great experiences travelling to Europe with us on breaks to nearby cities just a couple of hours away!

So I do think in my own experience YABU but I feel that quite possibly YANBU when generalising across the whole of the uk.

Try looking elsewhere - kids driven everywhere, stressed going from one activity to another not allowed on the streets due to gun and gang violence, kids going without essential medication, everything so expensive, kids living in tents and shacks under the viaduct ... that's in a major us city a few weeks ago ... there's no perfect place to raise kids but the US certainly isn't it unless you are super wealthy.

There is something toxic in the UK during the teen years IMO

Yes. I agree. Maybe toxic is the wrong word but I think there is something culturally wrong with the UK and how kids transition to teens and then adulthood. I think many people in our country suffer with poor self esteem and that begins in the early teen years, where we have anti- social behaviour and teenagers who are rude to adults. American and Canadian are more polite to strangers and that expectation is put on the teens too. I agree a middle school system would be better and a high school system that examines once and ends at age 17/18.

Parents give children too much freedom without the responsibility and there's such an obsession with being cool or popular and having the right materialistic stuff, often facilitated by parents scared to have their child singled out if they say no.

Transition points at age 11 and age 16 don't seem like the right ages to me. A lot of pressure is put on kids to suddenly act more grown up at those ages. More extracurricular in areas other than sports would be good.I suspect the playing out in their neighbourhood is easier in the US and Canada as they have more defined 'areas' if they live in suburbs and towns that were built not as through roads like many towns in the UK.

Having said all that, I wouldn't live in the US and I have Canadian friends with other pressures and issues they are dealing with. But it would be nice to know what exactly it is that makes our kids childhoods in the UK so different.

I wonder if it's because in the USA suburbs they have less of a mixed neighbourhood as there are a lot of ready made estates and plenty of land so people only end up living alongside people in a similar socio economic group with similar politics/values, often in gated communities which feel safer?

In the UK housing seems a little more mixed and maybe communities are more diverse. Terraced and bigger houses were built up alongside each other, a few new builds squeezed in, rented houses, and council estates have a mixed tenure with right to buy etc. So less of a bubble of people the same who are less willing/compatible to mix together socially and more fear of 'others' in the UK?

Not making a judgement as to what is better or worse, just an observation

America’s ikaybif you’re well off, here’s why me and My American wife have chosen the UK for our kids:
Guns - shooter drills in school
Healthcare - astronomical
Racism- huge issue, much worse than here, I don’t want to live in some white picket ideal where there are no POC
Drugs/opioids - massive issue
Education - Middle school and High school are are awful as movies make it seem
College - you need to be seriously wealthy for your kids to go now, so that goes back to inequality for me.
LGBT rights - The US is backwards on so many areas.
Religion- it’s in public life and is used as an excuse for bigotry and racism and homophobia and misogyny
I could go in but won’t..

I grew up in the US and have lots of friends there now. I would say what you’re describing is typical for all or even most. Most 12-14 year olds are probably not outside playing in the summer. There are huge parts of the country that are way too unsafe for that. In fact, there is a childhood obesity crisis in many urban poor communities specifically because kids can’t go outside or have any freedom because the drugs and the violence are so bad. I used to work in those communities and parents kept their kids inside for fear they’d be recruited by gangs.

To an extent, American children probably have a lot more unscheduled summer time because it’s so long and there is so little annual leave. I was home alone running around all summer from about 10 (50 hours a week by myself) because my mum had to work and couldn’t take 3 months off with me. I enjoyed it but I bet it’s very lonely to a lot of children. There are summer camps but there’s much less in the way of family activities in the school holidays because no ones parents can be with them. Kids now play a lot of Fortnite for days on end. It’s not idyllic summers swimming in lakes in the Catskills.

But I think it’s very class based. Everything you describe my dc do here in the UK (when they aren’t in holiday club because we both work and they are too little to be at home). They play in streams and build dens and go camping and play with friends. But we are middle class, live in a nice safe place in the countryside, have the land for them to do it in, etc. Not everyone is that privileged.

You don’t meet up at someone’s house to have coffee, you meet up at a Coffee house to have a coffee. Very different.

This isn’t how it is with us and our social circle. We do a lot of hosting at our house, especially with school mums and friends. Be that coffee, lunch or dinners. If there’s a lot of us we might meet in a cafe, but normally it’s at someone’s house. I guess this might not be the case if you live in a City? 🤔

The coffee house meet ups were very prevalent in both the US and Canada when I worked there over 20 years. I guess it’s even more so now.

Wearing own clothes brings its own set of troubles - who can or can't afford what brand etc. My cousins hate it. They would much rather wear a uniform.

America is a huge country and it really depends on where you live and what your socioeconomic status is

^^This in spades.

Until you get childhood cancer in the US and your parents have to sell their soul to get you chemo

Well mine climb trees, play out and ride bikes.
I wouldnt relocate to the US at all.

Rose coloured glasses, my son is disabled he has a,rare chromosome disorder, as such, im in various Facebook groups for families affected by the same or similar disorders ,a lot of American families complain their health insurance will only pay out so much and even getting blood tests ,which we take for granted in the UK is a struggle ,I don't doubt America is fabulous if you are comfortably off but not so great for less well off people .