Thoughts on moving from England to Florida

[Decisions2023]

Other half wants us to move from England to his home town in Florida. He has family and friends there etc and he can keep the same job. We have a 9 months of baby and the move is making me nervous. The thought of making my child American is making me nervous as it would become his home and all he knows. I'm not sure if I'm thinking rational. We are not well off and the thought of making this big decision on my childs behalf makes me anxious/nervous.

Do you think I would be putting my child at an advantage or disadvantage?

Thanks in advance.

Well said. According to some posters on MN nearly everyone in the USA must spend most of their lives being terrified, badly educated, sick with no hope of treatment, and poor - and yet there are many millions of them who seem to be living their best life.

I sent my DCs to a private (RC) k-8 elementary school ( kids aged 4 to 13/14). Then on to public high school for the final four years. I really liked the American wholistic approach to education. I felt the 'whole child' was centered. You can't do that when the entire focus is exams.

If one parent is a US citizen and satisfied the physical presence test them the child has already “been made an American” just by being born. There is no say in that matter.

If neither of you is a US citizen, how do you propose to be able to live legally in the US?

Indeed! My life is infinitely better here. You couldn’t make me move back to the UK for all the tea in China. I’ve been in the hospital, even the ICU and had major surgery here, and I’m not bankrupt. It’s amazing how many people who’ve never been further than Disney World think they know everything about life here. I suppose they need to find something to fill their time while they wait for ambulances and sit through power outages.

‘My kids know one long bell is fire bell and 5 short bells is lockdown and what to do. Its standard in the UK now.’

rubbish. And any head teacher entertaining these kind of drills needs to give their head a good wobble.
yes teachers need to have emergency plans in place for the highly unlikely event of someone dangerous ( a parent with a court order against contact with their kids for eg) person being on the premises but kids aren’t practicing shooter lockdown drills because we don’t have shooters.

If you're wealthy in the United States and white it's great.

I will say the weather is better in most places! But you also have to deal with more extreme weather like tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, etc

Most US states allow you to carry a gun 'to the supermarket', but in reality (and I lived there for several years and have visited 25 of the 50 states), I've only ever seen a civilian carrying a gun once. Florida is actually NOT an open carry state.

So are there moderate states? Yes there are - and a surprisingly large number of Americans consider themselves politically moderate. But as with anything else, being moderate in your views is hardly a headline grabber, so you don't tend to hear about them. This info from Pew Research shows political afliliation by state Political Ideology by state and, this info from the NYT Tracking the states where abortion is now banned shows what abortion rights exist, by state. Bear in mind, that in the US, right to abortion goes from total ban in the dark red states on the map to abortion permitted up to birth for any reason in the dark green ones, so literally one undesirable extreme to the other.

So, to answer your question in short - it's complicated!

Well, OP, I don’t know how much further forward you feel in your decision making! I hope you can ignore PPs - who don’t give any indication of ever having lived in America - telling you wit absolute certainty that all FL is a big shithole full of druggies, etc. And I write as someone who said earlier I probably would not live in FL given reasonable alternatives. There is a weird correlation between our own troubles here and an increase in anti-American ranting on MN.

FYI we moved back here purposefully and for many years I preferred it, but recently I am debating within myself.

an increase in anti-American ranting on MN.

I'm not sure it's increased - it's just always been bad. MN is rabidly anti-American and has been since I first joined about 12 years ago!

@RoseslnTheHospital we do intruders drills, bomb drills etc at our school

Interesting, @maranella . Any thoughts on why? I find the two countries more similar than different, with big differences to continental European cultures

OP, would Florida be the only option? Or could you consider other states?

No no hard no, no way.

Especially not if you are not well off. Health care is ridiculous cost, education ditto. Life chances if you are not well off are awful. Gun laws really scary. Whatever the minimisers say on here high school shooting doesn't happen in the UK. Could you live with yourself if someone shot your dd?

Plus US is a number one target for terrorism.

I'd still not consider it if well off but a big house with a pool would be nice.

The humidity in florida is awful and with climate change is going toget worse. Stay in the UK where we will be insulated somewhat and not have to deal with drought and climate refugees quite like they will in America

I'm not sure, but any time a poster mentions the possibility of moving to America, a predictable phalanx of posters comes along to rant about guns, school shootings, right-wing politics, cost of healthcare, etc and how no-one could pay them to move to the US and what an awful place it is.

I'm a dual citizen and my whole family is and I have to disagree that the UK and the US are more similar than different. I find them actually very different - but I think the fact that both countries speak a version of English masks a lot of those differences. When you can read the newspapers, billboards, watch the TV in it's original language, etc, you have this false sense of 'sameness', but it's false (IMO) nonetheless. And maybe that's why people love to hate the US? They feel like it SHOULD be more similar to the UK than it actually is.

I lived in Florida and generally enjoyed it, but some things to consider:
no seasons
lack of culture/personality (this is a personal feeling to me! But where I lived it was just highways and malls, no heart)
it is a right wing state, people were very religious- believed in Adam and Eve and and the world being 2000 years old
anti gay, anti Muslim was quite common in Conversation
much more expensive than here, Groceries 3 times as much
you have to drive everywhere, no public transport

pros-
lower taxes
higher pay
lovely weather - If you don’t mind constant sunshine!
people were friendly
more scope (in my career) for progression
lots of eating out, loved the food
great beaches and you can then travel to other states
disney!

@maranella I agree the US and UK are actually very different. We’re far more socialist here than we realise and certainly have more in common with our EU neighbours.
in the US people openly used to tell me they didn’t want Muslims in the area, no migrants, in a way that was FAR more right wing and vocal than here.
There is also a genuine belief that you need to work harder and anyone can achieve anything (the American dream), which is great and ambitious, but means the welfare state is shit, so a lot more homelessness and people in horrific debt.
Same with schools and health care, a story of haves and have nots.
I also found it is a lot less nanny state, land isn’t owned by everyone do you can do a lot more of what you want! Go hiking, camping anywhere. No helmets on motorbikes, it just felt a bit more ‘free’ and I’m struggling to articulate that! But also a lot more ‘you’re on your own’ than in an EU country.
It did indeed feel really different.

Interesting, @maranella . I am from the continent, married to a Brit, so I am focussed more on the contrasts with home.

The UK and America are far more individualistic societies than most continental societies and the UK seems to me to have become more so in recent years.

I love what the NHS once was and see it as ethically superior to the US model, but that model is better for the poor than many Brits give it credit for, and the reality is that for many insured, it has long offered better routine care than the NHS. At this point I don’t know whether the American refusal to move towards a national health system looks stupid or smart - leaving ethics aside, focusing on logistics - as long as Obamacare holds. But it may not. Then again, what will happen to the NHS?

The violence is worse but really not that much, when adjusted for size. The gun laws in America are disgusting but the probability they will affect your family’s life is almost nil. See also: knife crime in the UK. Different weapons.

In many other ways I find the differences somewhat superficial. Unthinking/ intolerant religious adherence vs unthinking/intolerant class adherence, similar levels of racial prejudice with some different targets, etc. These are the two countries with the greatest multicultural cuisines. America is somewhat more meritocratic, but not as much as they would have you believe. They have better customer service! I prefer the British SOH.

Yes, I agree @GyozaGuiting. The UK is very socialist, as is much of Europe, and that is an essential difference between the US and European countries. In the US, if you want to get ahead, you need to work hard and it's difficult to find anyone who disagrees with that. And you can rise from lowly beginnings to the top in one generation, because of that ethos and the lack of a class system. In the US, you make a shitload of money, it doesn't matter if you were homeless at birth - you can join the elite.

The histories, geographies, administrative and political systems are completely different too. Even the way English is used - my DH and I have frequently misunderstood or been misunderstood - and supposedly we all speak English.

Great points about America being more individualistic, @GyozaGuiting and @maranella . I agree with both of you about that, and about its pros and cons. Although after the AIBU thread about answering the door the other day I would say that British Mumsnetters are pretty assertive about controlling their own destinies, or at least choosing exactly when to answer their own doors. My lovely American neighbourhoods always had friendlier vibes (not that I did much spontaneous knocking).

I really disagree that much about the UK is socialist, or that there is much of a safety net any more. Possibly in theory, but not in practice. I accept your anecdotes about religious intolerance in America. I have also seen plenty. But I had to stop using a lovely hair stylist in a progressive area of one of our major cities because in a group conversation she and some Yummy Mummies started to bemoan the mere teaching of Islam in RE at our local primary. Many similar examples. Prejudice is more subtle in the Great British Middle Class, but it is rampant

I love seeing this kind of nuanced debate @poetryandwine - so rare on MN when it comes to the US!

This is true The gun laws in America are disgusting but the probability they will affect your family’s life is almost nil. See also: knife crime in the UK. Different weapons. Gun violence is very unlikely to touch your life, as a Brit moving to or travelling within the US, because much of it is confined to poor areas and related to drugs/gangs, as with knife crime here in the UK.

As for ignorant thinking - there is no shortage of that in any country. Go to Italy, France, Spain, Germany or any other country you can think of - many of them places that MNers consider nothing short of the holy grail - and you'll find ignorance, racism and xenophobia by the bucket-load. But most MNers don't speak those languages and British media doesn't them in anything like the detail it covers the US - so it remains hidden.

Oh, @maranella I agree with you completely that racism and ignorance are everywhere. In no way do I mean to suggest that the continental countries are superior - except, at present, in the health care realm; my family is fine so far but the statistics are Third World. Just different. So I see similarities (between Britain and America) where you see differences. Fascinating!

I an disappointed that Americans have trouble with your use of English. Wonder what that’s about?

I really disagree that much about the UK is socialist, or that there is much of a safety net any more.

The issue with socialism is that in the UK (and Europe), it's generally seen as a force for good - raising up the poorest members of society, ensuring they don't become homeless, providing a decent standard of healthcare and education for all, providing financial support when people find themselves unemployed, etc. But in the US, socialism is generally seen as bad thing - something that takes money from hard-working people and hands it to the feckless who simply don't work hard enough. That's why there will never be an NHS in the USA. In the US, 'the NHS' is literally a byword for crappy, substandard healthcare.

Socialism is quite literally a dirty word in the US - a word that is bandied about in a negative fashion to spread fear to voters ahead of elections. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, for instance, were both accused of being socialists and it puts the kind of fear in the hearts of many Americans that the words communism or Marxism do in this country.

I agree with you about the American view, @maranella . But, sadly, no longer about the British reality. The Trussell Trust has statistics (linked on an AIBU thread, I think Is the UK on its knees) showing that about 3.2% of either the English or the British population used food banks on at least three days in 2021-22. Some safety net.

In socialist countries (although to be fair, most countries like the UK are on quasi-socialist and not truly socialist, more capitalist than socialist) you can rise to the top too, but in America those that are left behind get poorer and poorer. Any civilised society has to care about it's underprivileged people. Otherwise the countrary is run by barbarians. When a country cares more about the individual than the collective, it's lost it's moral and humanity compass. I say this as an ex-conservative who saw the effects of triple down economics and a lack of health care.

The problem with America is that it's conservative party the Republican party is so deeply, intensely, and radically far right extremist that the Democrats look more conservative than Labour. Even the US's so-called left wing party, the Democrats, would be considered conservative in my country.