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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask you to tell me the bad things about living in America?

412 replies

Witchofzog · 25/05/2020 20:18

Ever since I was a child I thought I would live in America. Any visits I have made there reinforced how much I love it there (I am aware a holiday is not real life) but for various reasons it never happenned. I am now early forties with a mild heart condition and I am aware it is probably too late for me now.

I went to uni with a lovely woman who has literally got the life I wanted. She now lives in a sunny state with her husband who is handsome AND kind and has made lots of friends out there. And I am both happy for her and envious as hell. I know comparison is the thief of joy but today I have been unhealthily fixated on how her life compares to mine and I find mine sadly lacking. I will pick myself up tomorrow, re-evaluate and am already thinking of what I can do to make my own life better but still I feel sad that I never achieved my dream.

Please be kind. My uni friend is beautiful inside and out and she deserves everything she has - and she worked hard for it. But I really need to snap out of this somehow hence asking for the bad things about living stateside. I am aware my spectacles may be rose tinted so some perspective would be really helpful

OP posts:
YouJustDoYou · 26/05/2020 21:25

For us it was the racism. Dh is non white and in the first MONTH in the us had more racist incidents than in 20 YEARS of living in the UK.

elp30 · 26/05/2020 21:33

@SweetMarmalade

I have a wooden fence around my backyard and I live in Texas.
The houses in my hometown in far west Texas have rock wall fences.

I did live in a suburb of Atlanta and those didn't have them and I will have to admit that I didn't like that at all.

To ask you to tell me the bad things about living in America?
To ask you to tell me the bad things about living in America?
SweetMarmalade · 26/05/2020 21:45

@elp30 love your pictures, especially that Texan blue sky and Palm trees! Grin

I wouldn’t like the open garden aspect although I’d love a front porch, especially on a warm summer’s evening drinking a G&T.

MissConductUS · 26/05/2020 21:52

Backyard fences are much more common than front yard fences here. I guess for us the backyard is closer to the UK concept of a garden.

I don't have either, but where I live there are few stray dogs or marauding children to keep out. Smile

pallisers · 26/05/2020 23:43

Please tell me about gardens. Why are they not fenced in like ours are? At least the ones I’ve seen on tv documentaries etc, except for the Beverley Hills Mansions etc.

Most people's back gardens are fenced in. But it isn't usual to fence in your front garden. When we moved into our house it had a low white picket fence in the front - put in by the last owners who were English. We eventually took it out and that day most of our neighbours stopped by to say how nice it looked to see all the front gardens (well they said yards) in an unbroken line. When I walk up my street, I see my neighbours gardens and mine and they are lovely all together not fenced in.

Kote · 27/05/2020 00:15

This thread has been really interesting to read. I just moved to the US at the beginning of March with DH who had a company transfer (I am on an L2/spouse visa). We are planning to stay for 1.5-2 years and use it as an opportunity to travel more than anything else.

Our move hasn't been the greatest timing for obvious reasons and so we haven't been able to fully immerse ourselves into the culture etc. But so far these are my observations (Seattle based):

Pros:

  • beautiful scenery and nature; we live close to lakes in the city and mountains are also nearby. There is so much diversity in nature from state to state.
  • everything is so spread out and spacious, UK is claustrophobic in comparison
  • more relaxed way of life (at least it seems that way); we are in a big city but there is no rushing about and crowds of people (even in the pre-covid days according to DH)
  • salary equivalent is much higher than in the UK

Cons:

  • homelessness is the most prominent negative IMO. It is shocking and frightening to see in some parts of town. I have only been here 3 months but it has already become the norm to see people having psychotic episodes in the street, walking around with bare feet, walking straight into the middle of a busy road with oncoming traffic, campsites outside of supermarkets etc. It seems like people are so used to seeing this that they just turn a blind eye to it and pretend it isn't happening.
  • public transport is really lacking. It's not so bad with buses in the city but pretty difficult to go anywhere outside without a car. As we are only living here temporarily we don't want to buy a car so have to rely on rentals even if we just want to go to the nearest Walmart.
  • almost everything is A LOT more expensive than at home (the only thing we have found to be much cheaper is fuel) though the higher salary does balance it to an extent.
  • there are 'hidden' fees everywhere. Prices are displayed pre-tax so you don't know the full total until you're about to pay. E.g. we looked at getting some concert tickets and the final price with all the admin, service, tax fees added was double the advertised price.
  • tipping culture
  • TV is awful. You have to pay for any package (no freeview) and all you get is channels full of ads. The guy who came to install our internet told us a 1 hour sports game could be 4 hours long on TV because of all the ads.

I think in being here we will serve our purpose of 'experiencing' the country and the positives it has to offer but I don't see us living here any longer than we plan to.

Aretheystillasleepbob · 27/05/2020 00:23

Married to a yank and have lived there and go there a lot. Great country if you have money not so much if you don’t. Beautiful and diverse. But bad stuff includes:

Guns.
The racism
Health care.
Real inequalities between rich & poor
And the races ( we’re amateurs in comparison)
Endless political campaigning.
Lawyers
Guns.
Endless ads for medical stuff on tv
People mentioning god every 5 minutes
Guns.

HateIsNotGood · 27/05/2020 00:27

Too much tempting and tasty food available whenever you might feel a bit 'peckish' - a bit of restraint and you'll be fine.

allfurcoatnoknickers · 27/05/2020 00:38

Here's my AMA: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/AMA/3574465-I-live-in-New-York-City-Ask-Me-Anything?pg=1

Plenty of grousing on there, talking about the unglamorous side of NYC Grin.

@VerbenaGirl I haven't driven in six years! My UK license expired, so I can't even drive when I go back. Never bothered to get a US license, but it looks like we'll be inheriting a car soon, so I'll have to learn.

lydia7986 · 27/05/2020 01:45

Watch the video of a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck till he suffocated. While he screamed that he couldn’t breathe.

Then tell me again how life in the US is so much better than the UK.

Sure, it may be ok for you personally, if you’re white. But how could you bear to live in a society where law enforcement brutalise black men like that on a daily basis?

Where white police officers have no qualms about murdering black men in broad daylight ON CAMERA.

That would never happen in the UK and you know it.

mathanxiety · 27/05/2020 05:11

YYY ^^ It's sickening.

mathanxiety · 27/05/2020 05:13

Please tell me about gardens. Why are they not fenced in like ours are?

Why are British (and Irish) front gardens fenced?

mathanxiety · 27/05/2020 05:24

I imagine there are properties closer to where you can see your neighbours, are these the same type of set up?

I live in a Victorian suburb of a big city where the houses, though mainly detached, are very close together. You can hear and see neighbours constantly. We have no fences in the front and when I first moved here a couple of decades ago chain link was the usual fencing between back gardens and at the alleys that run behind the houses. Wood fencing in the back became popular in the 90s.

You can leave children's toys, bikes, skates, etc out in your unfenced garden overnight and nobody will touch them.

The only places you see fenced-in front gardens in this metropolitan area are very crime-ridden areas where people are afraid of thugs and gang members encroaching on their property and personal safety and home security are threatened.

Gncq · 27/05/2020 06:18

You can't travel anywhere unless you own a car. Public transport is virtually non existent.

American chocolate is disgusting. It's not chocolate. I'm sure that's been mentioned.

Has anyone mentioned the bread? American bread is NOT bread. It's sweet like cake, and fluffy like cotton wool. It's actually similar to Asian bread. Just don't buy it.

Also, Lemonade!
It was a hot day, daytime, we stopped off at a bar all ordered snacks and drinks, and I fancied a shandy. The bar tender had no idea what it was, obviously, I forgot briefly about cultural difference.
I explained "it's lager and Lemonade".
She looked at me really strangely and asked "what ratio?"
"Half and half please"...

Haha I had the strangest drink I've ever ordered! In American bars, lemonade isn't a fizzy clear drink squirted out from a tap, it's the one made from lemons, sugar and still water and kept in a jug.

My lesson was learned.

I'm older now mind you, and can't imagine ordering a shandy even in England.

WaterBubble5 · 27/05/2020 06:56

Shandy.

Didn’t have a problem getting normal none sugary bread either last year.

To ask you to tell me the bad things about living in America?
SweetMarmalade · 27/05/2020 07:09

I’m meaning the back gardens rather than the front. My front garden isn’t fenced.

SweetMarmalade · 27/05/2020 07:09

And the bread sounds gross although I imagine there must be lovely bakeries selling nice bread?

Gncq · 27/05/2020 07:35

I don't know what your picture is supposed to mean. Waterbubble. I do know what shandy is.

Didn’t have a problem getting normal none sugary bread either last year.

You probably can't tell it's sugary because you're used to it.

Gncq · 27/05/2020 07:36

Others must have mentioned the bread.

knitnerd90 · 27/05/2020 07:45

We have been in the USA 10 years and are probably staying (kids settled in). It does seem to me that quite a few people commenting have not spent much time in the US!

Healthcare yes, a problem. However if you get it through work as most people do the premium is standardised and not based on your health conditions, same for the Obamacare plans. Ideally I'd rather have neither the NHS nor the US system. The problem here is really if you are between jobs, want to strike out on your own, or your company's offering is poorthere's no alternative choice. The actual care--my experiences have been fairly good now that I know the system and know how to act. I have 2 DC with SN and I do think things here went more smoothly than they would have on the NHS where those services have been cut badly.

Racism--it's a problem everywhere, however i have found that many white Brits really underestimate racism in the UK because it's less visible in much of the country.

Guns--depends where you are. There are entirely different gun cultures in different parts of the country.

ChurchsameI laughed at the idea of being hauled off to church. We are non-Christian (and practising) and this has never happened in the major cities we've lived near! In parts of the Plains states and the South, yes. On the West Coast or urban Northeast, no. The very "churchy" culture is tied to white evangelical Protestantism which is stronger in certain parts of the country. (Nonwhite Christianity has its own subcultures that are different)

The food--a lot of it is very good. Supermarket bread is rubbish but British isn't much better in my opinion. You do have to learn how to shop as the major chains are often mediocre.

Cost of living -- I remember when the USA seemed cheap when I first lived here 20 years ago. Not anymore. Utilities can be pricey, Internet is pricey now (monopolies). Housing of course varies hugely across the country though you tend to get more space for the money.

Education--DC are doing very well. Inclusion for SEN is better done here and the public schools can't exclude children because they don't want to put in the resources or the children "can't cope" (they can write a bad IEP... but they can't refuse them). Schools in my area are all done geographically, no worries about applications. Class sizes are smaller than England though this varies a great deal by place.

Colleges vary widely. Some are very cliquey and trade on name, some are quite generic feeling public universities, some are the big public universities with fraternities and football you see on TV. The cost is the issue, though public universities are not as expensive as you might think and often similar to English fees. The problem is the system for loans for tuition isn't as good.

Holidayas with insurance the big issue is that everything is up to your employer. If you have a generous employer you can have quite a decent set of benefits including holiday time. But there's no guarantee of it. You're at their mercy. So if you're in a field where employers are competing for talent and offering fringe benefits the US will work out great for you. I know people in tech who have free health benefitsthey pay nothing towards the premium and only a minimal deductible--and all sorts of other perks. The US is great for them. But be in the wrong sort of job and you get nothing.

I do like the diversity--the US is so different from place to place, from the scenery to the people to the culture. You can have a totally different sort of life depending on exactly where you are. People are generally friendly. I'll pass on Hershey's chocolate but the children are used to it now (and Europeans frown on Cadburys so I can't be too much of a snob).

Troels · 27/05/2020 08:41

If you've ever used Bimbo sliced bread in Spain on holiday thats what cheap bread in the US is. We used to buy Orowheat bread, either seeded bread or potato bread. We also had a bakery in the next town that made authentic italian bread and supplied the local grocery stores with lovely crusty bagette sized loaves, my favorite.

GingerBeverage · 27/05/2020 09:08

I expect that as with any other country, if you're wealthy (nice house or apartment in a good area, huge cars, cleaner/gardener, job with perks) then you'll live a comfortable and pampered existence which will allow you to ignore most or all of the problems that others will face.
So just make sure you're well off and you'll be fine Wink

WaterBubble5 · 27/05/2020 09:25

On the contrary I’m sugar aware and it’s not hard to check labels. Really didn’t struggle to buy decent bread.Confused

begoniapot · 27/05/2020 10:50

@knitnerd90 Why all the nonsensical crossing out?

Very interested in reading what you've put but quite difficult on a phone. Completely unnecessary

zafferana · 27/05/2020 11:26

Haha I had the strangest drink I've ever ordered! In American bars, lemonade isn't a fizzy clear drink squirted out from a tap, it's the one made from lemons, sugar and still water and kept in a jug.

I had a horrible experience with 'cider' too. First Thanksgiving with American ILs. They don't drink alcohol, instead there was a jug of something they called 'apple cider' on the table. Mmm thinks I - I don't mind if I do. Except American apple cider is nothing like British cider, instead it is a fermented, still apple juice ... and it acts as a laxative if you consume more than one glass (or at least - it did with me). I haven't touched the stuff since!