Reasons you wouldn’t move to US

[Preiu]

Dh has been offered a job in the US. The increase in salary would put us into a completely different wealth bracket but I really don’t want to move.

• fear of home invasion with guns
• school shooting - guns in general I guess
• American exceptionalism attitude annoys me
• Being away from family
• Not having Europe on doorstep

Can I ask if you have any other reasons

Regarding healthcare: 1 anecdote and 1 fact.

Colleagues visiting from the US. 1 collapsed taking a hit to the head in a busy city area. What my US colleagues were amazed by:

• off duty doctor came over to help, administered care and waited with them in a very caring way (sure this happens in US too without doctor insurance issues)
• they were allowed in the ambulance with him
• there were no gun checks at A&E
• diagnostics done without asking for insurance/payment
• he was to be discharged under supervision but they permitted him to stay overnight as not safe on his own
• they sorted all the paperwork for him to fly home after a few days
• guess there was a bill at some point

Private in the US might be quick on diagnostics and treatment - but they are major over prescribers. This has been written about loads.

No, it isn’t my impression (from living there 15 years) that any one is one-zillionth as terrified of school shootings as some of the Brits on this thread. Yes there are active shooter drills but they are more like fire drills, not the first order of business. And care is taken to make them like a game for the primary pupils

This is not a lack of preparedness

I just don't like the fake smiley-smiley that seems very common in America. The need to self promote and appear perfect. The rows of identical shining teeth everywhere. I like wry British people with bad teeth and breath that smells slightly of cheese and onion crisps.

Speaking of which, I'd also not move because of food. American chocolate is abominable. They don't know how to make cake, it's all out of packets.

Can you get your DH to get a job in France instead? I'd love to live in France. Good food and the people don't pretend to give a shit about things they don't give a shit about.

Oh and also the patronising attitude to British people. You get lots of 'you're adorable' and attempts at a British accent.

The exceptionalism. It's ingrained

Guns. Dead kids being acceptable collateral damage to the right to having a gun. The way gun sales spike after a shooting because people are worried the govt is going to 'take our guns' Not how to stop this very regular occurrence but 'what about me?' A few 'prayers and thoughts' and it's put away until the next time.
Then again, like someone said, just make sure you'll be in one of the 'better states' and you'll be fine 🙄
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/charts-and-maps

Health care. The US spends more money and has worse health outcomes than other industrialised nations. You generally don't have good health care without having a good job or paying A LOT of money for it.

Workers rights. There is no 'right' to paid leave. Employers can decide.
Patrons are expected to tip to fill the gap because employers can legally pay next to nothing in certain industries.

Institutional racism is prevalent in just about every aspect of life in the US. It is so pervasive and you can see how invisible it is to those who aren't affected in this thread. There are states where slavery, civil rights and suffrage have been removed from schools. "That's ok though because that's not my state"

Trump. The fact that a man like that was ever elected and is STILL idolised by so many beggars belief. Someone who was so easily able to make covert racism misogyny, ableism, sexism somehow acceptable and empower his followers to be loud and overt. Allowing that damage and continuing to do so? Cannot fathom.

OP, aside from the very real aspect of gun culture in the US, you will be fine because you will be in that 'group' that will have the benefits necessary to live a good life in the US. So most of the negative things being posted won't affect your family 🤷‍♀️

I'm laughing at the sugar in bread thing. All bread has to have sugar in it, otherwise the yeast won't rise
Oh, and this is such a strange response to the fact that bread in the US has FAR more sugar and preservatives than anywhere else. It's like all those posts extolling the fresh produce available. I have no doubt about the availability and the deliciousness but it doesn't change that food standards are lower and the US is the biggest consumer of ultra processed food.
Not sure it's anything that would influence anyones choice to live there or not, it just is which makes that response even weirder.

i can assure you that this is not the first thing we do. I work on a US school and we did one on October and then squeezed the last few in at the end of the second semester.
I will also add that whilst I in no way defend the attitude the guns, they are not ‘active shooter drills’ but stay in place drills. We actually did one dor
real
at the start
the year as a staff member was taken seriously ill and we needed to give her privacy and keep
kods in their classroom.

Ah, bless your heart.

And the funny thing is -- it's not meant to be patronising! They sincerely think British accents are adorable. No matter which kind of accent.

It's one thing to hate the guns etc but the sneering and thinking Americans are "fake" is another thing. It's different manners, the same way Americans think the British are reserved and we both think the Dutch are blunt.

You don't need sugar in bread and you can buy it without. It's the cheap sandwich white that has sugar, which is unfortunate. Also, PFAS are in British food as well as American. The US is obviously going to be the largest consumer of ultra-processed foods as we are the 3rd largest country in the world and wealthier than the two larger ones. The UK isn't that far behind the US, incidentally, in terms of percentage of calories. (Surprisingly, when I checked, the other country at the top of the European league table was Sweden. Italy and Romania are at the bottom.) That said, there's real questions about how "ultra processed" is defined and their effects on health. The real issue is affordability.

I just don't like the whinging that seems very common in the UK, nor the superior attitude that if something isn't British it isn't worth anything. My DM and I used to have a standing joke that you could always tell someone from the UK by the state of their teeth. I don't like the prevailing can't do attitude in the UK, where people don't seem to want to be accountable for anything that's wrong in their life - it's always someone else's fault. I think your class system is beyond ridiculous, and many of your social mores outdated.

I have friends in the UK who sometimes send me chocolate - it's awful stuff. As for all Americans making cake out of packets - how ignorant can you get?

Still, we are all different aren't we (thank goodness)

I have mixed feelings when it comes to that country, as everyone with knowledge of history would. I studied its history in regard to race as their civil rights movement inspired ours in Ireland.

On one hand it has produced so many wonderful things (today alone, i have used heinz ketchup, coca cola (two things I couldn't go without), YouTube, and started to watch The Princess Bride (which I havent seen before)).

The main negative is it is a race based, white settler entity. That's its DNA, the very fabric of its being, and how it came into existence. It is also the global leader of race law (white only citizenship 1790, no race mixing (anti-miscegenation law), white only vote, racial segregation, and white only immigration (until the 1965 immigration act).

The idea of acquiring citizenship there I find repulsive, partaking in one of its race laws. White only citizenship was written into law by george washington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790

Shove your citizenship.

For america to stop being racist, it would need to stop being america. You cannot be a "post racial america" (as Obama put it) while the racist documents ('declaration" and the constitution) are in existence. Only if it rips up its documents, and bulldozes the statues of tyrants who "founded" that entity can it then be a post racial nation.

It dehumanized the Natives as "savages" in the declaration.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/05/facebook-declaration-of-independence-hate-speech

The white settlers (Pioneers) came in and took over their fertile land, there was state sponsored murder against those who fought back, and the remainder were forced into reservations (more on this at the bottom).

Mount Rushmore (the white supremacist monument sculpted by Gutzon Borglum, a klansman), here are quotes from the four on it:

"Blacks are inferior to whites in the endowments of body and mind"

• thomas jefferson, 1785.

"The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life"

• thomas jefferson, 1785.

"I am not, nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. I as much as any man am in favor of the superior position assigned to the white race"

• abraham lincoln, 1858.

george washington wrote about "civilising" the "savage" (the subhuman term for the Natives in the declaration), and like jefferson he also owned 600 slaves, and when they escaped from his plantation he took out adverts in newspapers (enforced by the fugitive slave clause of the constitution, which allows the slaves to be recaptured by their masters). This monster signed it into law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1793

"I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth"

• theodore roosevelt, 1886, four years before the Wounded Knee Massacre (a massacre of mostly old men, women and children in which those who did it were given the "medal of honor". State sponsored murder.)

The pro slavery national anthem, words by a slaveowner francis scott key, contains a verse (third one) which excoriated the slaves for having the audacity to flee their plantations to join the British side as they had been promised freedom for doing so. This verse is no longer sung (ie. Its hidden), and it is cited by black people who don't sing the anthem as the reason why.

This white settler entity earned the respect of Hitler when he wrote in 1928 that it had "gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage"

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler

From just reading your posts OP I think the answer is that you just don't want to go. Nothing to do with any perception you have of the US, you are just making excuses. Have you not seen the UK? We have quite a lot of roads with several fast food restaurants on them. Connectiut and NY State is totally different from any of the weirdo deep south bible belt, and a rich American is more or less immune from all the crap poor Americans have to deal with. But you clearly don't want to go.

The pro slavery national anthem, words by a slaveowner francis scott key, contains a verse (third one) which excoriated the slaves for having the audacity to flee their plantations to join the British side as they had been promised freedom for doing so. This verse is no longer sung (ie. Its hidden), and it is cited by black people who don't sing the anthem as the reason why
I wonder how the Scots feel about the British National anthem?
"Lord grant that Marshal Wade, May by thy mighty aid, Victory bring. May he sedition hush, And like a torrent rush, Rebellious Scots to crush, God Save the King."

The holidays alone.

I'd be checking up on this first. There is no statutory minimum paid leave in the US for vacation or paid public holidays. It's at the discretion of the employer.

I get 30 days paid annual holiday plus Bank Holidays and bridge days. My counterparts in the US office get 11 days and some paid Bank Holidays, but nothing like mine. No way would I consider less holidays.

Can easily bypass that and open a Wise Revolut /other multi currency account.

Guns. You can get them from a vending machine is some states.

Polarised society.

Abortion laws.

The food is very processed.

Many American accents grate on my nerves.

Don't forget the, ""sharia law in Birmingham, white people cannot go in ot the city". I was working in Birmingham at the time.

I'm pale for a white person, the area I was working I was often the only white person in the classroom. And I was fine with that, I love teaching a diverse class.

@knitnerd90 no butter isn't butter. www.epicurious.com/ingredients/difference-between-european-and-american-butter#:~:text=What's%20the%20difference%20between%20American,a%20maximum%20of%2016%25%20water.

I would go for the cultural experience for your family and assuming the financial package was good for a quality of life for them.I would also want to go for my DH if the new position really interested him.
Missing my family would be by far the biggest issue for me. Of course the gun issue and the port of Trump and Trumpism is a worry but it worries Americans too . There will be lots of nice people there and the little corner you are heading for is beautiful and convenient.

I'm laughing at the sugar in bread thing. All bread has to have sugar in it, otherwise the yeast won't rise
^Oh, and this is such a strange response to the fact that bread in the US has FAR more sugar and preservatives than anywhere else. It's like all those posts extolling the fresh produce available. I have no doubt about the availability and the deliciousness but it doesn't change that food standards are lower and the US is the biggest consumer of ultra processed food.
Not sure it's anything that would influence anyones choice to live there or not, it just is which makes that response even weirder.^

its the use of high fructose corn syrup in US that is such a big problem. It’s in foods in U.K. but not to the extent that it’s in almost every supermarket bread in in the USA and was brought in during the 1970s due to fluctuating sugar price. It’s a large part of the obesity issues (the science of how it operates on the liver is the same as alcohol)

HFCS is regulated in Europe but isn’t in USA, which makes a difference to bread, how it reacts in the body and how it tastes

Eh? My reply was only about the assertion that there is sugar in the butter in the US. There isn't. "Butter is butter" -- as in, it's just butter, not anything else added to it, except of course salt if you want. Yes, the FDA has a slightly lower standard for butterfat, but that's not the same question. You can buy higher fat butter if you want, both American and European made. Canada uses the same 80% standard. (Interestingly, the American standards for cheese are higher than the Canadian ones! Everyone likes to make fun of processed cheese products, but as far as the FDA is concerned, that's not cheese. The FDA definition of ice cream is also stricter than the British one. All the cheaper ice creams in the UK that have vegetable oil in them can't be labelled ice cream in the USA; the FDA has minimum milk fat standards.)

The main reason HFCS is more commonly used in the US than the EU is cost. The US produces a lot of corn and less sugar (there's a longstanding issue with sugar tariffs). The real crime, in my opinion, is that it's so cheap it's easy to add sugar to anything. The science on whether it's actually worse for you than straight sugar is not clear, especially since there's different ratios of of glucose to fructose available and the main strength is almost identical to regular sugar. HFCS is allowed in the EU; it's just not nearly as popular.

You’re not scared because it’s normal to you. You are all desensitised to it all.

The rest of the world looks on in horror, honestly. It’s not about being scared. It’s about not feeling comfortable living in a country that does nothing about this. It’s about principles.

I'm not scared about it, I'm holidaying in America later this year.
I'm just appalled that as a country you are so accepting of it.

I don't think your reasons are particularly valid OP, with the exception of the last one (access to Europe). Though the US is a very diverse place with lots of interesting places to visit.

The vast majority of Americans have never had their home invaded or been shot at. My niece is American, she never mentions these concerns.

I'd be more concerned about the politics, especially in terms of people's rights or living in a republican area - but the US is vast and places vary enormously. But mostly I wouldn't want to leave the UK, my family, friends, culture and everything I've ever known. Unless it was a temporary arrangement.

I have been on 3 very different holidays to the US though and enjoyed them immensely.

These would be my reasons:

• the cheese/ bread/ chocolate tastes weird to me
• culture of driving everywhere
• tipping culture seems OTT
• over friendly service people, I know they're just doing there job but I find it creepy
• guns
• school shootings
• more people with extreme beliefs (religion/ politics/ health etc.)
• trump or biden getting elected
• short mat leave
• worker rights in general
• the health care system seems crazy to me
• the massive food portions

Bit if a silly thread. It’s as if you want to be talked out of it. Why are you in not looking at the positives? There are some huge over exaggerations too.

It is a stunningly beautiful country. The people
are lovely and the space, no whining or class system….Perfectly possible to get unprocessed, good food in any supermarket
and re the cake comment l( how ignorant and incorrect), re chocolate there are many other brands we have aside from Hershey….

It was what's commonly known as 'tongue in cheek', but as humour is sorely lacking on this thread I'm not completely surprised that it was apparently too subtle.

As has already been pointed out upthread, not every single brand of bread is stuffed any more full of sugar and preservatives than some of the very unhealthy bread sold in the UK.

All you have to do is R.T.F.L[abel]!