Is this a true assessment of rural life or am I being a bit of a dick?!

[Rurrrala]

I live in a lovely village. I grew up in a rural location so this what I am used to. But… I spent ten years on the outskirts of a city and I miss it.

Everyone keeps saying rural life is better for kids and I do think that might be true. But I find it a bit backward! In terms of mindsets. Even those who are apparently more educated as quite narrow minded (in my experience). It’s shocked me a bit moving so far out of a city, I never thought that there was so much difference.

I am being told by everyone (ie family!) that I will regret a move to a busier place and that it’s unfair on dc who now have an idyllic life that is quiet and calm. It’s making me second guess myself. I know nowhere is perfect but I feel like life is so quiet and a bit empty here.

Quite a bit of pearl clutching, OP.
You will get 50% of posters saying “we are country mice and love it” and 50% saying “town mice rock”. It’s obviously best to live in a location where you can feel happy-enough and settled. But first, it sounds like you should broaden your mind.

Seriously?

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/nobody-is-allowed-to-question-anything-we-do-say-country-folk-20241209253162

"I live in a lovely village. I grew up in a rural location so this what I am used to. But… I spent ten years on the outskirts of a city and I miss it."

There's a lot to tease out there!

I think what you need to concentrate on is - do you miss living on the outskirts of a city, the WHERE, or do you miss the life you had THEN?

You've lived rural, you've lived suburbs, you're living village - all at different times, different life stages. It's impossible to compare them as like for like. There is no comparison between your preferences in childhood, your preferences in young single adulthood, your preferences as a mother of small children, your preferences as a mother of teens, your preferences as an empty-nester, your preferences as a retired person. Each life stage has different needs, different wants.

Think deeply about what your current and future needs are. Your hankering after the outskirts of a city might just be nostalgia for the life you had then. (Or it might not - but you need to give it some thought either way.)

But I find it a bit backward! In terms of mindsets.

I think it is where you live rather than rural living.

A lot of people living in our village are incomers, as we are.

I'm from the London area originally and came here via Leeds, and I don't find people any more narrow minded here.

In fact, it is my London relatives who are more narrow minded because they think that anyone living outside the M25 is a backward yokel.

No go on. Answer that poster's (@wellington77 ) question. What is wrong with NOT being left wing? Are people not allowed to have differing views to the left?

Or are you one of those irksome and tedious 'left wing opinions are the only correct ones, and anyone who disagrees is a racist, bigoted, Daily Mail reading POS?!' type of people? 🙄

This. ^ Re; what as a few posters have said - some people have found more racism and bigotry and narrow mindedness in people who live in urban areas/cities, that they have in the rural areas. My village is the same. The POC and same sex couples we have here say they have been accepted WAY more here, than in any urban areas/cities they lived.

.

I agree that it is pretty tough for my teenage son to be reliant on me to get about at times. He uses our crappy bus service when he can. But it's all he (and his brother) know and it's all most of their friends know. It's not like my son is a lone soul living an epically shit life seeing all his peers living fantastic city lives.

I collected 3 of them after an evening football match last week. It meant a 2 hour round trip for me (another parent did the drop), which including dropping his 2 friends in even more isolated villages than ours.

Once he's got to town (by crappy bus or me) he's perfectly independent and mature, I don't think it's stunted his growth and development.

Its very much an echo chamber. People with narrow minded views end up thinknig the same way and give each other confirmation bias. So (usually) the ones with the biggest gobs and the most bigotted views are the ones who dont want strangers in the village, dont like "all the immigrants", try to cut out those who are "not our type", whilst cheerfully accepting the very rich Indian couple who bought one of the biggest houses in the village.....because money. There is a village near me like that, thankfully I only ran the pub and never lived there but I have stayed friends with some of the (sane) residents and its still very much like that. Most of the residents who dont think like that stay away from the pub now and do their own thing, so the pub is like a recruiting ground for the BNP some nights.

The fucking UPROAR when the local almost bankrupt hotel was used for refugees (or "illegals" as the locals incorrectly call them) was something else.

I always planned to retire to a village. Then I worked for 15 years in a village in the SE. I decided to retire to a big city. Reasons? Dreadful public transport, few amenities, no cultural stuff like theatres, museums and art galleries, and no privacy - everyone knew everyone’s business.

But you get attitudes like that in more urban areas as well @PyongyangKipperbang

Urban areas have more people and experience just by definition, so there is more diversity of thought.

But one can be lonely anywhere

I could have told you all that w/o you having to work in a village for 15 years!
Working rather than living there would have meant you missed out on the sense of community you can feel, which can be a big positive for some.

My car is essential to enable me to do cultural things, and I do envy my older sister who (now her kids are older) is out and about (30 mins from central London) doing tonnes of stuff.

I don't feel my privacy is being compromised. Neighbours look out for each other (bring bins in, let them know if they've left their car door open, bring in parcels, notifying each other of building works, feeding pets etc), but at least from my POV there is no overstepping of personal boundaries.

You do, but you can also ignore them and find people with other views, because it's a bigger place. In a small community you have to either get along or have bust-ups that everyone gossips about.

Ah, yeah, cultural life in the countryside...

A few months ago DH and drove for 25 mins on very quiet roads, parked on a playing field, and went to a concert in a most beautiful church. The performers regularly tour internationally (Italy, France, the US) and are incredibly well-known within their particular niche. The acoustics and setting were perfect for the music.

By complete chance we bumped into friends in the audience so had a nice chat in the interval. Afterwards we were able to congratulate the performers, stroll out to the car 100 yards away and drive home down the same quiet roads.

We've been to excellent productions a similar distance away at a decent theatre.

But yeah, complete cultural wasteland...

I've lived in Bristol, London (and its suburbs) and NYC, and in two very small villages at opposite ends of Cornwall (plus other places) in the adult part of my 68 years. I have not found people closed-minded anywhere, but it is a matter of fact that transport and services are more costly to provide in thinly populated rural areas, so are somewhat limited. Towns and cities are hubs and offer more choice -- of art, theatres, cinemas, museums and hospitals and everything else, except nature.

Oh, I lived there as well - tied cottage came with the job. Couldn’t go out any further than walking distance if I wanted a drink because there were no buses after 5.30pm, and a taxi to the nearest town was £15 (if there was one available), so an extra £30 on top of the cost of a meal or pub visit. The ‘sense of community’ was intense nosiness and frequent overstepping of boundaries. Gossip was rife, and much of it was salacious or malicious. When a male cousin visited and stayed overnight, one neighbour asked how long I’d been sleeping with him! Apart from infrequent local-ish am dram, the nearest theatres, museums etc were in Oxford, 25 miles away by car or an hour and a half by two buses. I’m sure it works for some people, but it didn’t do it for me.

It sounds like an awful place.

I still get a kick out of theatres / restaurants/ clubs being a brisk 20 min walk or short bus ride with lots of buses up til midnight away. Yet I can do a country walk from my front door. The utter reliance on cars by rural dwellers worries me lots of my parents friends live in the middle of nowhere and are getting to 80.

Where do you live?!

I think I know what you mean op, although i wouldnt have phrased it that wau. I'm a country girl through & through, lived most of my life rurally, but now my friends have settled with families I no longer feel fulfilled by it in the same way.

Living in the countryside doesn't mean everyone you meet is going to have a narrow world view, in fact far from it, but there does tend to be more variety of beliefs, lifestyles, political opinion etc in cities- it has always been the way, and I am missing this variety where I am right now.

This is why I envy the rich who can afford a home in both places! I'm trying to find somewhere inbetween for myself, somewhere I can keep up with settled friends while trying to find something new.

I grew up in the countryside and I had a great time. Lots of outdoor stuff and freedom to roam. As a teenager I was independent and used to cycle to friends houses or the nearest town (4 miles away). I think a lot depends on how vibrant the local area is. In our village there was a pub, youth club, public tennis courts, bell ringing and amateur dramatics, all of which I was involved with.

When the day comes when I can envisage no longer driving I will move somewhere with better public transport.

Yes seriously.

I don’t think you sound like a dick- I grew up very rurally. Describing my childhood now, it definitely sounded “idyllic” but the reality (in my view) was that I did miss out lots of life skills that a bigger city could have offered me. The older I got the more I hated where we lived… I now live on the outskirts of a town and love being near a community and amenities. Even so I still feel my own children are missing out on what a larger, more diverse city could offer them.