To ask your experience of moving to a rural location with children/ teens

[MumEeeee]

Dh and I are always tempted to move out the city. We grew up in villages, but not in the UK.

Friends keep saying to us how difficult it would be. We’d be driving them everywhere/ no facilities etc.

My experience of village life was that people didn’t leave that much, maybe one a week to the nearest town. There was a bus. One friend says I’m idealistic and what I remember has changed or doesn’t exist anymore. She’s a Londoner born and bred though…

So, if you made the move from
the city to a very rural location with teens and children- how did they take it?

Thanks

But @mountainsunsets those career opportunities are all still limited. You say there's loads of jobs that can be done outside cities, but likewise there's loads of jobs which can't. Even if there is one big business in a town which has those kinds of jobs, career possibilities are still limited to that one employer, unless they relocate. Alternatively, the OP could move to a rural location within commuting distance of a decent city, so their DC's career opportunities are not as limited if they want to stay close to family. The OP can make the decision that they feel is right for their family, with the caveat that if they decide to move to a rural location that is not reasonably close to a reasonable sized city, that they are limiting their DC's choices. They're more likely to have to make a decision between the career they want and staying close to family, so it's a consideration.

Yes but @Frances658 those points apply to city living too**

For example, you can choose to base your family in (or near) a city for, but then what happens if your children leave home and can't afford to live there as adults? Or what happens if they want a career that's not compatible with city living so have no choice but to move away from home to follow their dreams etc.

Villages within commutable distance of big cities are generally expensive and not really what I'd consider rural anyway, but that's probably a debate for another thread.

Ultimately, you can "what if your child wants x instead" about every single parenting choice someone makes, surely? Some families clearly love rural living, others prefer city life.

Luckily we're not all the same and as adults, our kids are free to move and make their own choices if they want to live elsewhere.

I get the impression that the OP is living in a city already, so a rural location closeish to a city may well be fine for them. Then if their DCs want to work in finance/advertising/media/engineering etc all those options are open to them without the need to move away. All the career opportunities in a rural location are still there, they can work with animals/agriculture/hairdressing/retail/a trade etc if they want to too. Or be an teacher/accountant/doctor. Yes the OP may not be able to afford to live in a rural location close to a city, but if they can, they might want to, for the better career opportunities.

When we moved out of London to a small city the estate agent said a common path was the Londoners bought in the middle of nowhere then 2 years later moved to the small city. He saw it over and over again. Great for him I guess!

Just a note- two of my adult children moved abroad before the age of 20, and that’s living in a city! You can’t predict that one.

Reading through answers, we are homeboys/ outdoorsy to a large degree. Not into dance clubs etc.

Probably my ‘rural’ isn’t Scottish highlands but something nearish a town.

Regarding posts about locals, we have non UK accents. I’ve found it easier previously moving between cities as we don’t fit a stereotype of posh/ southern/ down from London or whatever the clash is- you’re a bit outside with good English but not an accent to be placed.

I actually feel I end up restricting my children a bit being in a city and not in an affluent bit- particularly my sons. There is knife crime, muggings etc, buses kick everyone off for incidents often. It’s not that simple to just roam around. Also the cost barrier to most activities means they are either rare or inaccessible and in reality teens also just hang around a lot. I tutor and most the boys seem to game in their rooms for a social life.

Moved to small village when DD was 13. She hated it, went to uni at the first opportunity and never came back. Her younger brother thought it was ok though.

You're on the Ukrainian thread if I remember correctly OP. So I was wondering what your expectations of rural life in the UK would be if you're comparing to the Ukraine? Maybe you could do a temporary house swap with someone in a village to see what you thought?

That’s why I’m asking, my expectations may be different. For example the village I grew up in has no large bus company or state transport, but there are frequent private minibuses between the villages with little variation on price. You can still go to wait at the bus stop anytime- this isn’t a thing in the UK! To the best of my knowledge there aren’t private minibuses usually.

Also, we left decades ago- we are talking about the past ourselves. Things have changed everywhere.

DH's parents moved from the centre of a small town to a rural location several miles from the town when he was 10. He definitely resented it, and has always been adamant he/we wouldn't do the same.

We moved from London to said small town when our kids were babies. We're a five-minute walk from the town centre, and a 20 minute train trip from our nearest (small!) city. Kids are teens now and definitely benefit from being able to get to places on foot, and many of their friends live locally too. But...they're definitely at an age where they feel the lack of opportunity that being close to a big city would offer them. I grew up in a city and there are lots of experiences that I had (e.g., going to gigs/french films at the cinema/popular chain restaurants) that they just won't. Personally, I wouldn't move further 'out' than you are until they're grown.

It doesn't have to be one extreme to the other though? What's wrong with living on the outskirts of a town, or in a village with a train station?

I grew up in an isolated hamlet, with no bus service other than the school bus. Most kids nearby went to private school, were really up themselves and enjoyed riding and killing things.
As a teenager I walked, cycled, hitchhiked and got lifts with older lad everywhere until I learned to drive was never home at weekends - got myself into some rather dodgy situations in my determination to have some kind of social life. To pay the occasional £20 taxi fare I worked in a country pub where all the braying members of the local hunt hung out.

I'll be honest, it was a miserable experience and the inability to just pop out and see friends made it very difficult to cement friendships, especially as I'd come from a primary school with only two girls in my year.

We now live in a lovely, well served village ( the bus company isn't going anywhere anytime soon) but I know I'll inevitably have to do some ferrying around once kids are older. My eldest found it tough at her rural secondary though, especially once her close knit group of primary friends inevitably started branching out. She's currently living abroad with her father during term time - ostensibly to study learn the language for a couple of years, but I know she loves the city she's staying in and the opportunities it offers (gigs, sports, malls, parks, great transport etc) and I wouldn't blame her if she wants to stay.😭

There is a degree of antisocial behaviour from bored teenagers around here and if I had my way we'd move to a small city or a nearby town which is well served by two railway stations.

Unless you're into horses, farming, blasting living creatures out of the sky or pursuing them to their deaths, I honestly wouldn't live in the sticks!

I’d certainly be happy with a train station nearby! It doesn’t have to be extreme.

We’ve just moved from a city to a rural location with my daughter who’s 13 years old.
I grew up rurally, my husband has always lived in the city as has my daughter.
We all love it.
The nearest bus service is in a village 2.5 miles from our house which goes regularly to the nearest city which is 7 miles away.
I asked my daughter what she thought to living here as I was worried she’d be bored, but she feels there’s so much more to do here. She enjoys walking though and is often out and about walking in the woods.
She will walk to the village and meet friends there or I give her a lift, she’s also walked to the village then caught the bus to the city before.
The area we used to live in was getting rough and gangs of youths were going round attacking other children. It reached the point where we were worried about my daughters safety every time she left the house .
My daughter is so much happier out here.
There is more driving to do- definitely. However she’s joined local groups in the village which save on mileage and we also
lift share a lot.
I think a lot of it depends on your children. My daughter is happy walking for hours and taking photos of wildlife, so it suits her fine.

Fine so long as you can afford to pay for their driving lessons etc as soon as they're 17 so they can get out and about.

This works really well for us, the countryside is a 5/10 minute walk in one direction and shops and cafes (independent and chain) 5/10 minutes in the other. DD had more freedom earlier than her city friends, and I think more of a community, but there is a train station and Uber to get out.

Unless you're into horses, farming, blasting living creatures out of the sky or pursuing them to their deaths, I honestly wouldn't live in the sticks!

Blimey, what a narrow-minded view of rural living you have 😳

We live 8 kms from the local station and to facilitate their social lives I do up to 3 trips to the station a day. If you don't they only have a virtual social life.

Even in a village where they have friends everyone tends to be a bit far flung along dangerous roads.

Based on 20+ years of teaching in a rural secondary school I wouldn’t move teens to the countryside.

The villages around the school have drug and antisocial behaviour problems - mostly bored young people - and because it’s an affluent area at the end of a commuter line we have to be extra vigilant for county lines activity. Very sadly so many of our students have access to their own cars, there have been loads of accidents on the rural roads and there is a memorial garden at school with too many plaques 😢

It very much depends on the individual kids in question. Some will love it, others will hate it and leave as soon as humanly possible. I was the latter.

I actually saw more incidences of teenagers drinking/using drugs in the country. There was very much a sense of it being the only thing to do. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen in cities, it does, but I just saw more of it in the country.

I live in a rural village. Local bus is 3 per day (morning, lunchtime and afternoon) but only goes to local larger village and you’d need a second bus to get to town. Supermarket delivers. No fast food delivery but we do have good broadband (bt fibre). Only one mobile network (EE and that’s patchy). There is a school bus to one of the local comps but we send DD to a different one so she has lifts to and from school daily.

Other than that you drive so 8 miles to the dump or a local town. 5 miles to the nearest garage. 10 miles to the local pool. To be honest it’s a pain in the arse and you save your jobs up and try and do them all when you’ve made the effort to leave the valley.

On the plus side the walks are lovely, the countryside is beautiful and it’s a quiet low crime area. DD grew up here and I don’t mind being her taxi but not sure how she’d feel if she was used to being able to just walk out the door and go to town.

I am aware that my post about my experience of being moved to an isolated village by my parents was pretty negative, @mountainsunsets - but that is because it was a very negative experience for me.

I firmly believe my parents chose to move to a village, and chose the house they bought, with little or no thought whatsoever for my sister and I. It fulfilled all their dreams, but took me away from my only good friend, and dumped me somewhere where I did not fit in at all, made almost no friends, and was bullied relentlessly. The few friends I did make all lived miles away, so I couldn't go and see them outside of school - I couldn't get to them via public transport, because of the scarcity of the services and because there's no way my parents would have paid for the fares, and even if dad and the car were at home, he wouldn't have driven me to see my friends or to collect me afterwards.

I was an indoorsy, bookish child, with no interest in or ability at sports, and I was moved to an area that had absolutely nothing for me to do. Basically I spent a lot of time reading, in my bedroom. I was isolated, bored and depressed.

Your town sounds very different - not least because of the public transport links to the nearest big towns.

It is very much about personality - as I said, my personality was in no way suited to the life of the village my parents moved to - which isn't the fault of the village, but is very much the fault of my parents, who didn't stop to think whether I would fit in, and enjoy living there - and who did the sum total of bugger all about it when I didn't fit in, and was bullied and getting more and more miserable and lonely.

I suspect if you asked my mum (dad passed on over 20 years ago), she would say we had an idyllic childhood, in our remote village - but she would be completely wrong. I think she's blanked out me telling her about the bullying, and even back then, I don't think she actually looked at me for long enough to see how unhappy I really was.

It can work, moving kids from an urban area to a rural one - I just think that, as the parents, you have to consider it carefully, and take your children's needs and personalities into account.

The biggest reason why I would never move to a large town or city with teens is safety. I would be worried about drugs, knives and gangs. There is no way I would want my dc being involved even indirectly or inadvertently with such danger and risk. I would keep therm in more not less, because of this.
SIL lives in a large city and she has been stressed out and living on her nerves for years, with so many sleepless nights and they have to restrict their teens movements - everything needs thinking through, how to get home etc. I don’t think they go out as much as they should, as it can be intimidating, so it’s the reverse issue.

I haven’t seen any drug use in any of our villages but I guess it would just be smoking weed at most etc and not drug trafficking and gun crime/gangs. It’s a very different level.

I feel relaxed when my teens go out, I know they are safe, and I don’t have to worry.

You are describing being bullied which would be horrible wherever you lived. Your mother sounds checked out and should have noticed and protected you.

@Festoonlights stop sticking your head in the sand. Drugs (hard drugs!) Is everywhere. Small villages included.

Op. I would advice against it. A teenager could come to resent it. Resent you.
Youll be alienating them.