To ask friends to stop posting pictures of their children outside

[Fruitteatime]

I feel sick to my stomach every time I see photos of friends children enjoying their gardens. Just feel so guilty that dd and ds don't have the same chance to be outside as we live in a flat. I'm really worried for my mental health and theirs. I normally don't care because I felt we had a good balance between getting out and about and being at home.

I absolutely appreciate that this is preferable to having covid or overwhelming the nhs. I'd really like to know how I can shake this feeling though and what I can do to help my children.

MamaBear, have a look at the graph. The blue and orange section is flats. The yellow section is houses. More people live in flats than houses in Germany, not only in towns.

it depends what you'Re thinking of with flats. I live in a village in Germany (under 1,000) people. And mostly it's farms. But there are a lot of houses which are divided into flats, usually occupied by members of the same family, but clearly separate households. That's true in a lot of Germany. It's not just 10 story concrete jungles.

Houses are becoming more popular, but in the cities that's never going to change.

I have lived in Germany and in France, and away from the main cities, it's blatantly untrue that "most people live in flats"

But they do. Sorry.

I do think that different definitions might come into play, though. In Germany a block of flats or building divided into flats is called a "Mehrfamilienhaus", which translates to "Multiple-families-house", and in fact it's very common for these to be built in a similar setup to a UK semi-detached house, except that the one building at first glance looks like one house, and is very clearly designed (as the exterior etc) to be one building. But it will be two halves, with each one a separate dwelling. Often set up like a Maisonette, but sometimes set up side by side.

For example, look at the floorplan here. WE1 and WE2 denote the two separate houses.

www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/115601614

Three stacked on top of each other:

www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/116645816

You will find these even rurally whereas square, boxy blocks of flats are not built outside of towns generally.

And yes, our flat in a concrete 60s block is more spacious and airy inside than most (2 up 2 down) houses I've lived in in the UK.