To ask if anyone enjoyed growing up rurally?

[YellowRedwheels1]

I’ve been on MN long enough to know that all the threads about rural living mention how bad it is for teens and how they themselves really resented it etc.

However, I feel like myself and some of my friends must be anomalies then as I absolutely loved it and wouldn’t have wanted to have lived in a town or city.

I guess I’m worried as DC is 6 and currently loves the fact we live rurally, have a big garden for her to charge about in , she horse rides just down the road etc but I’m waiting for the inevitable resentment when she gets to her teenage years and for her to hate the countryside and spend all her adult life living in towns and cities due to being scarred from her time in the countryside!!

I never felt this way though, to be fair we did have a bus service in my village growing up, only 4 a day, one in the morning, one at lunchtime and then coming back one in morning one in evening to the nearest town and city so I wasn’t completely cut off in my teenage years.

Myself and my friends were involved in the YFC, rode horses etc and even now, a lot of them work in agriculture or live rurally. We just weren’t bothered by living in the countryside and it was almost a way of life for us?

These people all have normal jobs in the local towns and cities now that they commute for or a lot WFH, there’s a couple of drs who moved back and work at the local hospital, one is a university lecturer and again, works at the local university. Another a nurse, project manager in tech etc so it’s not like we’re all a load of unskilled/ qualified country bumpkins.

You just don’t ever see this side on MN, it’s nearly always how bad it is for teens and how living rurally is bad for them/ isolating.

Is there anyone else on here who grew up living rurally and enjoyed it?

My parents were not relaxed rural free range parents and tbh I am not particularly active or outdoorsy so no it wasn't some idyllic childhood of wholesome activities, it was sitting inside reading and not going anywhere 😅

DD has far more freedom where we live now in the suburbs than I could have dreamed of at her age (12yo).

Sorry OP - I absolutely hated it, and left for the city as soon as I could at 17

Dh and I both grew up rurally and loved it. I lived in an estate at the edge of a large village, but Dh grew up properly rural on a family farm with no near neighbours. We both enjoyed lots of outdoor pursuits. Hiking, camping, swimming, Dh did a lot of shooting, I rode horses until I was 18 and couldn’t take them with me to uni in the big city.

We did both move to cities for uni, and lived all over the world until 30 ish. Then we moved to the countryside again and that’s where we’ve been since. I have one in secondary school and one in primary. Secondary age one certainly isn’t wishing she lived in a town. Maybe because the towns around here aren’t very exciting. 😂

We do take trips to nearby cities and it’s fun for a day, but that’s about it. We travel a lot as well. But her friends enjoy doing similar things here, hiking, wild camping, going to the beach, swimming pool, swimming at each other’s houses (lots of us have ponds and rivers), climbing, cycling, hanging out, going to the park. No doubt there are some who don’t and just want to go to McDonald’s and an Odeon, but my kid and her friends don’t seem to be super interested. She will have the option to take the train into the city for college if she wants to, which Dh did as well, so that’s only a couple years off anyway.

I grew up rurally. I found it fairly isolating as a I had maybe 1-2 friends a good mile or so walk away - busy roads, little/no pavement. 6 miles to the nearest small town, then a 20 minute train onwards towards a larger, nicer town. Parents would begrudgingly give lifts, but definitely not taxi me around.

In teen years for many there were house parties, wild camping, underage sex, drinking weed and sometimes harder drugs. It probably was boredom.

Another thing is lack of opportunities in rural areas, you can hardly do internship roles when they are so far away and you and graduate jobs are few and far between in a decent commutable distance.

Loved it! As a young adult I lived in London for a few years and couldn't wait to leave. Now been back living rurally for many years and glad my DS grew up somewhere so safe and beautiful.

My teenagers had no problem with it. We would always drive them to where they wanted to go when needed.
They loved being in the country ... and 2 of them met husbands at Young Farmers dos!

The trouble with this thread is that everyone’s definition of ‘rural’ is different. We live in a village which is 15 mins away from a city, so I wouldn’t really count that as rural.

The thing I love about our village is that we can afford a 5-bed detached house with gardens, and there’s no way we could afford anything of that size in a city.

I am reading this thread with interest as we are looking to move out of a city to a more rural location. Will we regret it when the kids are older? Who knows. They're 4 and 2 currently.

If she joins the yfc, she won’t have much time to be bored or complain - it’s the most wonderful movement to be a part of if done right and not just join for the parties

Wow, interesting responses, thanks!

It’s nice to see (a few) that also enjoyed it, makes a change from all the ‘I hated it, moved away as soon as I could and never went back’ posts that you mostly see on rural living threads

I should probably add that of course, I’m willing to play taxi when DC is a teenager and don’t mind picking up at 2am from parties. I’d rather do that and know she’s safe. Should also add, we’re rural but not isolated or very rural. Village has about 400 people, a pub, post office and primary school. No buses though which is a bit of a bummer but you can walk to the nearest big village via footpaths in 25 mins and that has trains and buses running to the nearest city every 30/60 mins up until 11pm so a bit more freedom there!

I loved it. I do think you need to be prepared to do a lot of driving them around, especially as teens.

Yep! I enjoyed it as others have mentioned horses and dogs and it probably kept us quite young and innocent for a while longer too as it was all quite a wholesome existence.

I was fascinated by city living and loved watching things like sex and the city to get some insight into this other way of life. But it was quite a healthy balance I think. I moved away to a city for uni and then to London for a while and didn’t feel to be at a disadvantage compared to those who had grown up in towns and cities. My parents were very good at giving us lots of life experience though even though we lived rurally so lots of trips to theatres, city breaks, holidays abroad and days out so I didn’t feel like I was lacking in life experience compared to others when I got to uni. I would say though that this isn’t always the case and some of my friends I grew up with had never really left the small town and hadn’t had much life experience so went a bit wild at the first taste of city living when going to uni.

DH, DD and I now live in a city not far from where I grew up and to be honest I probably would rather be in the countryside now that I have a child. Lovely long evenings riding ponies and the simple, slow existence and close-knit communities that I had as a child seems very attractive now! Plus would love the chance for DD to have a pony of her own and a big garden, which would be much harder where we live now.

We moved from London to a very rural county when I was 8 years old. I loved every minute of growing up in the countryside. I had ponies and horses, chickens, cats, dogs, cows, pigs and many other animals. I had plenty of friends and we all used to cycle miles to meet up. Our idea of fun was playing on a friends farm, building dens, swimming in the local river and camp fires and when we got a little older, getting a banger car to rag around the fields. When we all got to 16, we got our moped licenses so that we could get to the local town easier and then on to the train to the local city.
I would have hated growing up in a town or city. I still live in the countryside, still have horses and have a young child and there is no way on this earth I would ever move to a town or city. Even a village would be a push for me as I like being secluded and away from people 😂

If the trains are that frequent, it'll be fine! I think for many people, rural living is being somewhere virtually unserved by public transport or such a long journey as to make it pretty useless. I had an idyllic childhood but didn't particularly enjoy my teens because of a lack of opportunities. Everything - jobs, cinema, sports - was too far away to be properly accessible even if you had a willing parent to give lifts.

I wouldn't want the rural life I had as a kid for my DCs. It was fine but we live in a small town where they can easily go out with their friends now they're older.

My DC, 15 and 18, love it and it's much easier on taxi duties now one of them can drive!! They both love being outdoors and walking. They don't see their friends quite as much as others might but they don't seem remotely bothered, and mobiles/PS4 have made it easy anyway. They've both joined YFC, which I was a member of too, and are getting so much out of it. My DS will definitely not live in a town/city and is on a course which should lead to a rural job. My DD will probably end up working in a city, but wants to live rurally.

I loved it- I would take myself off for walks and write poetry sitting on top of a local cliff.
we all walked everywhere and it felt safe

i now live in a different part of the country, far more remote and love it still. My teenagers see their friend s (I give lifts etc) and it’s safe, there are no gangs / no rough area and no anti social behaviour.

I left a village for London when I was 12. Hated it. Moved back out as soon as I was old enough. Now live in village on outskirts of a small town Still don't like London for more than a few hours

Same here.
I think there is also a great variance in what would be considered rural. I grew up in a very rural area, no young people nearby, no shop, no anything. It was extremely isolating and boring.

Not gonna lie, I’m really jealous. My husband would prefer to be in a city so we compromised and chose a village near the city he works in. We are lucky to have very nice neighbours but the truth is I pine for a house down a private track with a couple of acres of land and no neighbours to complain about the rooster I wish I had crowing at 4 am every day.

I think it would depend on the community and if you had a close group of friends, as a child I'm sure it's wonderful

I loved growing up in the countryside and am now raising my children in the countryside. They are 10 and 8 and want to stay living rurally. Yes I have to drive them everywhere but I don’t mind at all.

Am I the only one who spent teen years camping in friends’ fields with my parents proud of our outdoorsy lifestyle when in reality we were having weekly piss ups passed out in a field? Or dangerously riding off road motorbikes with a dodgy fitting helmet? Young farmers were the worst for underage drinking. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my teenage years but the descriptions here are very different to my experience 😳😬😂

I loved living in a small village (no shop type of small) when I was growing up. My friends all lived in villages too. Parents would give teens a lift between villages, or go back on a friends school bus and be collected later.

We had a 3/4 bus a day bus service to the nearest town. As a teen going out I got the last bus to town or a friends house, then we’d share a taxi home and I’d stay at a friends as I was a lot further out of town than they were! Once I could drive I would often drive on a night out, picking people up and dropping them home.

Wouldn’t change it even if I could, and now live rurally with my teens. I do my best to be available for lifts and to go and collect friends from town so they can come to our house, as I want my teens to have a social life.

Am I the only one who spent teen years camping in friends’ fields with my parents proud of our outdoorsy lifestyle when in reality we were having weekly piss ups passed out in a field

Quite. There’s a reason why village bus shelters all smell of dope.