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.

I agree. Middle class childhoods in “nice” neighbourhoods seem better there. This summer we have interactions with friends / new neighbours with Canadian / US kids and the kids are noticeably much nicer friendlier and more open and straightforward than dds English friends. Refreshing.

@WilsonandJackie I think you need to get out of London more.

Also you seem weirdly obsessed by school uniform. In fact most kids much prefer wearing uniform to the alternative - having to decide every day on what is suitable, pressure to buy brands, being looked down on or bullied for not being cool enough or wearing the same things all the time .

Dress codes don’t alter that. Although I can see the appeal to well off kids ( and adults ) who are very concerned about clothes and appearance and see school as an opportunity to show off.

There’s no evidence at all that wearing a uniform creates “ clones “ - what a weird thing to write. Do you think that nurses, most HCP, police officers, shop assistants, public transport staff or firefighters are clones of each other or actual human beings with personalities ?

In fact most adults who work where there’s no uniform create their own and wear similar things each day, because it’s easier, cheaper and less stressful.

I’d rather my kids wear uniform in a UK school than be the in US wearing designer clothes, practising gun drills and having armed guards in the corridors.

I love the idea of a stereotypical American family life. The neighbourhood BBQs! Parties for everything (the birth place of the gender reveal! The baby shower!) all the sports and EV activities at school. Debate club. A school newspaper. Class rep. It all sounds such fun.
Americans seem so much more
Generous and willing to celebrate, making the British look miserable by comparison. I love the big Halloween’s, valentines days etc

I love America, visit often and spent time living there in my twenties but I could never bring children up there while they maintain their crazy gun laws. I just couldn't risk my children's lives. It's a mental country where guns are involved and not likely to change so for me that negates any benefits of running clubs/driving licenses.

I feel that when America is massively bigged up by posters who are American or who live there always seem to be talking from a privileged, wealthy, "suburban" (I.e firmly tending to upper middle class in our parlance) background and can't or don't want to know about the issues the less well off face in the states.

There is something weird and unfriendly in English culture I can’t put my finger on it but it’s lacking over there and I really like that.

Dd really noticed it. She has a bitchy group of girls who are her “friends” (going into year 6) none of that mindset in the us kids she has played with this summer. Admit this anecdata

I’m sorry but I disagree. My DH is American and we lived in Florida for a few years when the kids were school age. (Not far from the parkland shooting).
We picked beach house on an exclusive island...and even then the school was rubbish. My kids were being taught things they had learned two years earlier. So we had to put them in a fee paying school to keep them up with their U.K. counterparts. The school shooting thing is grim. I could buy bullet proof backpacks...each classroom had a steel cube shelter the kids could run into.
Opportunity is actually lower due to the cost of university (and it takes 4yrs minimum to get a bachelors degree whereas here in the U.K. it takes 3. It then takes 2 more years to a masters, in U.K. 1 year) the UK Russel Group are = to US Ivy League and you need at least £250k saved up to get your kid into and through Ivy League.
Yes, the lifestyle seems idyllic...we loved being able to just walk out our door and hit the beach or swim in our pool year round. We loved having limes, lemons and oranges in our garden and the house geckos.
But even on our island of a few thousand, a man and woman were shot to death merely getting petrol. Another person was shot and killed only a few blocks away at our local Wal-Mart, and just down the street at a Walgreens a man high on drugs ate off the face of another person. The island was connected to the mainland by a 1.5mile causeway and bridge...every night homeless would drift across the bridge and be fishing for food from it and/or roaming our neighborhoods breaking into vacant homes or basically taking anything not locked up for the night. We had security alarms.
I feel much safer in the U.K. and my kids have better educational opportunities. The kids prefer uniforms because bullying in the US was largely centred on what clothes & shoes you wore.

I'm not crazy about what I've seen of the USA, but there were a few places that seemed quite idyllic. I didn't go that far away, but here in France the teens are much more down-to-earth, polite and industrious than the street corner hoody-wearing ones you describe, which I also remember vividly. Heck, I remember walking along the street in North Shields and a gob of spit landing just in front of me. I have a feeling the UK is particularly bad for yob behaviour (and not everyone grows out of it after the teen years, either). That's one of the reasons why I won't be coming back, another being the way the population buys into populist rhetoric, and there are others I won't list just now.

Going by the movies US teens can be just as bad at bullying and meanness.

Ds has a good set of friends here.

@M0RVEN I went to London once when I was 10.

I have very different view on this. No idea about Canada but I see the way kids are raised in USA to be very restricted. Same in the UK as well. Growing up in the Nordics I feel like in both countries the kids dont have a lot of independence.

My partners parents live somewhere where there are always French teenage students visiting in these big school(?) groups. They speak French and are regularly having to tell those kids off for being rude, vandalism and general poor behaviour. French kids are good in France but outside? They can be yobbos like anyone else.

The whole thing about French vs British parenting is very interesting. Yes, French kids are raised to be very mature and be able to interact seamlessly with adults, but the reasons behind that (such as wife needing to be back to wife and not just mummy so hubby doesn't find a mistress) are not positive in my view.

What you're describing is a middle class sort of lifestyle that isn't available to all children in the USA.

Life in the USA would be worse for me and my DS than it would be here because I am not middle class and I wouldn't have access to working tax credits, NHS healthcare, I would have to live in the poorest areas.

Lax gun laws, unfair wages for hospitality staff, a disgusting president, the death penalty, eye wateringly expensive health care, abortion still banned in some states.

I don't find life in the USA particularly appealing at all.

I think your experience is definitely that of a distinct class in America. The other side of it is what happens to the poorest and most vulnerable kids who don't live in those nice, wealthy suburban places. Take a trip through the poorest areas of Chicago and you'll see a very different childhood.

I like school uniforms!
Our maternity and paternity pay are so much better than the US, and our holiday. So we spend more time with our children. And ours is worse than Finland and Scandinavia! Etc.

Plus so much more part time opportunities so I was able to spend a lot more time with ds's, school pick up, so this kind of thing does make UK family life easier and different from USA.

@makingmammaries there are plenty of parts of France, especially in parts of urban areas, where there are gangs of youths hanging around, avoiding school etc. Again seems to be a MN thing that thinking a nice middle class area in one country is an accurate picture of said whole country.

I spent 4 years living in the US in my late 20s, DH has also lived there & worked there a lot, and we at one point considered moving there short-term with DC. Here is why I decided not to do that:

1. Socially & culturally divided - there's almost no integration. You saw a white MC neighbourhood. Because the poor, disadvantaged, and probably black people all live in a completely different area where they would be afraid to go. The UK is MUCH more socially mixed, both in cities & rural areas.

1. Gun crime. School shootings. Wal-Marts. No fucking way.

1. Education.Quality is much worse than here. US private schools are even more elitist than ours.

1. Superficiality. This is a bit of a generalisation, but I found Americans outwardly friendly, chatty etc - but most never, ever invited you over for dinner, it all felt a bit forced.

1. Narrow-mindedness. Outside the coasts, many have very little awareness or interest in what goes on outside the USA. Only 7% of Americans have a passport.

1. Religion. Much bigger over there. Not my bag at all, but in the US about 50% of people are regular churchgoers.

With apologies to the many lovely American Mumsnetters whom I would not want to offend - this is just my impression, and I'm sure there are many, many exceptions to my examples above.

I've just moved back to the UK after 18 years in Atlanta. My children are so much happier here - far more independence and much happier at school. There is much less pressure and competition here, no shootings and they can get everywhere under their own steam (no sidewalks in much of Atlanta- very much a city made for cars). The UK even has competitive cheer now for my daughter. They still consider themselves Americans but prefer living here for now.

And I know there is a lot of things wrong with our welfare state but at least we have one ,I was watching a documentary about homeless families in the US n you tube they literally had nothing, I know there are homeless families in the UK too,and social.housing is very variable depending on where you live but at least there's a safety net in the UK .

I read a tweet this week from a woman whose son had had an active shooter drill on his first day of preschool, aged 5.

The US rate of fatalities where drink driving is involved is 12 times that of the UK.

Almost 40% of children in the US spend at least one year living in poverty before they turn 18.

Teen pregnancy is 1.5 times more common in the US than in the UK.

There are other metrics as well by which childhood wellbeing can be measured, and in virtually all of them, the US lags behind the UK.

I think a lot of the good you describe also depends on where you live in the UK, and in the US.

I live in a suburban village on the edge of a big city, and round us it's always absolutely chock a block with children on bikes and playing ball games. We are near beach and mountains. It's a hugely safe area. Kids round here are having the kind of childhood you describe in your post.

Conversely, there are children in parts of America (Detroit, for instance) where their communities have been decimated by industrial break down and ensuing poverty. Or Flint, where the water is poisonous. Or parts of the deeply conservative south, where gay kids have to stay closeted for fear of reprisal.

It sounds like the kids of your American friends were having a lovely childhood. But I don't think it's representative of the US as a whole. In general, I believe children are safer and better supported in the UK.

@WilsonandJackie totally disagree about US schooling being a better system. I do like that they stay broader longer before picking a degree subject BUT many parents red shirt kids so you end up with sometimes a 3 year age range in one academic class year. I was in a wealthy city and most chose to private school their kids which perpetuates a huge sense of privilege and it was all so parents could have bragging rights. The public schools are HUGE and kids easily get 'lost' and neglected. I've found our state schools here much more supportive and nurturing. I hated the 'graduation' each year in Atlanta where kids were only celebrated for their academic achievement.

A friend moved to the US a couple of years ago. They live in a very affluent area and have an infinitely better lifestyle than they did in the UK. She felt lonely at first but is blown away by how much better a childhood her kids are getting, so I do think you are right in many ways, OP.

On the other hand, guns.

@isthatapugunicorn EVERYTHING you said. You've hit the nail on the head. All the reasons we left after 18 years. I do miss great restaurants though lol.

There's also a massive drug problem across many parts of the US and increasingly Teens from middle class backgrounds are getting hooked apparently ,I have watched several documentaries on you tube

The kids around here are always out on their bikes, climbing trees, in and out of each other's houses. Lots of the teenagers get part time jobs, and although they can't drive at 16, they're pretty independent getting around because there is plenty of public transport. Most of them have active hobbies of one sort or another e.g. dance, gymnastics, football etc.

As for the school system, we used to have middle schools here (11-14) until around 5 years ago, but thankfully they scrapped them because all of the research suggested that a major transition at the age of 14 was damaging to many kids.

I actually think my dd and her mates are having a pretty nice childhood. They're all great kids and not the stereotypical antisocial teenagers at all.

Ultimately, I think a lot boils down to class, economics and parenting rather than geography.