To belive that my children are having a great childhood in London?

[mrsruffallo]

Annoying woman at parent and toddler grouip today.
She was noisily proclaiming her intention to leave London before her child turned 5 as it's an awful place to grow up!
I said if not here, where?
There is so much to do, lovely green spaces, much better than being stuck in the middle of nowhere
Turned into quite a lively discussion

Hat, my boys do a lot of bouldering, indoors and outdoors. It is a brilliant activity, isn't it. Very free and creative.

"I love the defensive way the country lot rush to put down the Londoners."

But it isn't the country people. It is the rest of the country people. Urban, rural, or (as where I live) a mix of both. And making the judgement about where to live on the basis of a comparison between London and the rest of the country is a bit like assessing plumbers, novelists, caterers, and bank managers in terms of their 'not being quantity surveyors'.

Is that just opaque? I fear so.

"I believe there's a lot of attachment to where you were brought up as a child"

Very true. I've done city (well Cardiff so small city) and small town and countryside. Given the choice I'd live in the middle of fields with a village 10mins walk away as I did when I were a lass.

We live in a cheap area of London which has good state schools, and it's a great place to grow up. I would also be very happy to bring DS up in a more rural area, but there is no way DP and I could both work outside London, and we are in a v low paid sector so both need to work.

But London is working out v well for us - we make great use of all the free facilities, parks ec, and lots of theatre shows and other events. There is a fantastic sense of community in our collection of roads, because the school has such a small catchment, all the families know each other, and co-operate on pick ups and childcare etc.

For hols we rent cheap self-catering places in the wilds and spend time doing rural outdoor things, and DS messes around building fires, bouldering, scrambling up hills, trying to catch minnows etc etc.

Thing is really, I think, is that I wasn't brought up here and it may a well be a different country for all I care!

I've done 9 years. Can I have a medal?

To move back would be very hard unless I wish to live in a very small shed.

But...here is nice for my children and I want them to go to a fabulous school near here, so I will put up and shut up.

I SAID IWBNFA.

I live in Bermondsey, always have and hopefully always will (on our current budget). If we win the lottery then maybe move out but until then no way. For all the surrounding areas faults I tend to look at what we have on our doorstep and oppotunities living in London offer the kids growing up

I think the biggest difference between living in London and living in a very remote area is that the child develop independence a lot earlier where we live now (pics on profile)

Thereafter, in London, or any big city, children are taken places and entertained by their parents/carers, whereas here entertainment and exploration is on the doorstep. Even our youngst child have been playing outside pretty much unuspervised since he was three. The kids get up, have breakfast, and go out. In the spring, they explore the waters movement in the stream next to our house, and build dams. They get their bikes and scooters out, and play on them. They explore the woods outside our house looking for signs of spring, such as budding leaves, and little flowers pokeing their "heads" up through the remaining bits of snow. In summer they run everywhere, interested in plants and birds. In winter they play on the sledges on the hill outside the house, the ski, and they skate tirelessly. Us grownups? Well, we ski, skate, whatever with them, or not. But, what we do whatever the season? Picnics and bbq outdoors!

London IS great. When we lived there we had an annual membership to the wetland centre. We used to go there regularly, first a walk around the meandering paths, then the coffee shop for a bite to eat, then the playground.
We were lucky to live in southwest london, near the river, wimbledon common, near richmond park, near the wetland centre, and not far from kew gardens. We made packed lunches on a saturday/sunday morning and took our bikes out to cycle along the river, or in richmond park. Or we went to Hampshire for camping, cycling or just walking in the woods. And yes, we did visit galleries quite a lot too, especially during the winter months!

Having tried both, I can honestly say that neither option is any better than the other. What matters is YOU and what you do with your life.

sounds idyllic quintessential and I can relate to it, growng up in the wilds.

the probs kicked in when I was a teenager..nature lost it's appeal. Cue long boring bus journeys to Stoke or endless badgering of Dad for lifts lured by the promise of underage townie drinking dens and the (minging) potteries shopping centre

Living in Wimbledon and Richmond isn't really London though, is it? OK it has a tube line, or overhead line but I think it's sort of cheating to call it London, as such. In fact I thought they were more Surrey, Supersmashing places though. No wonder you liked it there!

I very much enjoyed living in London when I was younger but once I had children I did move out.
To be honest I wanted more space. A big house, garden and countryside.
I could see that with kids I wouldn't spend my weekends in galleries and theatres etc and that all the stuff I did do, I could pretty much do anywhere.
I do however live close by so can easily get in for business, pleasure.

The criteria for if somewhere is in London or not is the postcode. I know that some people try and claim other defintions, but I don't care about that.
So Wimbleon = London
Richmong, Enfield = Not London

Also, we were spending more time getting out of the city at the weekend so in the end thought we might as well just move.
I would like to guy a place in London, though, for when the kids are older. What the posh french word for a little flat in town? [ignorant emoticon]

"Wimbledon and Richmond isn't really London though, is it?" well it is actually, there are places as 'wild and open' as these all around zones 3 and 4 actually; just not as well known. the population of the actual City of London is pretty small. we have woods with bluebells, lakes, horse riding literally on our doorstep

pied a terre?

"we had an annual membership to the wetland centre. We used to go there regularly, first a walk around the meandering paths, then the coffee shop for a bite to eat, then the playground." - yes the wetlands is an amazing resource. shame about the plane noise though!!!

aye - pied a terre.
Thanks.

That's clearly the answer, Litchick! Bi-locational living. We should all come into London for The Season, and withdraw to our country seats for the rest of the year. Why has no one made this obvious point until now!

Ah interesting Quintessential - I think you lived where I live now. We are thinking of moving out because of a mixture of family/schools/bigger house reasons, rather than quality of living.

My main concern is losing all our friends - most people pass through London at some point plus loads of family and school & university friends now live here (even though I grew up 300 miles away) and family and so our life here is very very social.

If we moved to a more rural area - and where we are thinking of is not on the way to anywhere - I would be starting from scratch and I've already done that when we moved abroad. How do you cope with the isolation? Does anyone ever come and visit? How do you stop yourself going mad without having old friends (rathe rhtan say school acquaintances) near by?

I shall spend my Winters in Belravia and the Summers in The Isle of Sky.
Job done.

The thing is though, all this aggressive defending of your own choices is daft.
The woman in the toddler group was daft, but so is the OP for saying that where she lives is 'far better then...'

lawks quint - looks amazing! can i ask where it is? and how far your nearest town/city is? good post btw. i'll defend my (current) spot (esp when under attack )but liked london too (same neck of the woods as you in fact...the fact that we spent more time in richmond park than going to musuems (though we did do quite a lot of that too...and i miss not seeing the Wlidlife photographer of the year competition which had been an annunal must-see)was possibly telling. plus the fact that even though i enjoyed richmond park every trip there was tinged with a sad guttural yearning for real country-side.

I don't think a trip to Magna science museum will evoke a similar deep yearning for the "real" Science Museum.

at the end of the day its intensely personal and often in our hearts/guts rather than our heads.

Don't agree with

"I believe there's a lot of attachment to where you were brought up as a child"

Where I was brought up was mono-cultural white middle-class, parochial, poor public transport, nothing for young people to do other than hang around and drink (now they hang around and do drugs)....

Though many people aspire to live there, with the grammar schools and big houses, etc, I could never face it again.

only londoners would say richmond isn't london. try telling that to someone from the north. they'd just laugh at you.richmond is a london borough. an outer lkondon borough admittedly, but still part of london. london boroughs

staranise - two years down the line, I really miss London and our friends. We had lived over 15 years in London, most of my adult life in fact, so uprooting our family and go so far away was really difficult. The kids love it though, but they also miss London, but maybe not so much as Dh and I!
Uprooting them again, seems too much right now.

We do have a much bigger, warmer and nicer house and a bigger garden, plus the wild just outside. We live at the bottom of the alpine slopes, we have seaviews and beatiful beaches and mountains on our doorstep. However, it does not make up for missing the people we left behind. (Not to mention online shopping and the ease and convenience of life in the uk)

This thread really interests me. I grew up in a nice part of London. Then moved after graduating to a not so nice part of London. We thought at the time it was not a great place to raise kids -now it's actually a fairly okay area with an excellent primary we would qualify for on faith grounds.

I now live in rural Northern England, near where DH grew up. He grew up on a farm and is happy as larry to be back.

There are a lot of things I love about here, but I still miss London daily.

Our kids go to a great state primary here. We have beautiful walking and countryside. The roads are empty. But I do have a feeling of "is this it?".

I scour the local paper looking for a village hall jumble sale at the weekend, because it's something to do. In London, there was always something on - you are constantly stimulated and entertained. You are also part of a massive group of people.

Here you are struggling to fit in and for your kids to fit in because you didn't (a) grow up in this village and go to the local school yourself for generations or (b) grow up in this area and attend a hideously expensive boarding school from which you will only accept fellow ex-classmates to be your friends.

The countryside is hard with kids when they are little. Our DD's range from 1 to 4 and they can only get so far on a walk, aren't very good at cycling, get stroppy on a car journey fo 40mins to our nearest big university town.

I imagine to be fair it would be the same in London though - it would take us a long long while to get in by train and tube to the V&A etc and then home again. And I guess as the kids get older we will be able to enjoy the countryside more.

On a sunny day, when I can drive down empty roads with DD's to a beautiful moor, or park or national trust house - without crowds or hassle- then it's great. When it's the middle of winter and you are a long drive from anywhere it's not so great.

I know childcare wise we would have struggled in London as we have twins and could never have afforded childcare for both or to live on just one salary. Here we have a fantastic childminder who lives up the lane on a farm and whose waiting list is nothing compared to the length of good childminders in London.

I know as well that I see London through rose tinted glasses now. When i do go down it's on holiday, I get a seat on the tube at 3pm instead of trying to force my way on at 5.30pm. We can afford much more property wise than we could in London. And we'd be unlikely to ever go up to town/go out in the evening as we'd be rushing back to pick up the kids.

Sigh, I do miss London though! I guess its an urge to recreate your own childhood as others have said.