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

I think you were in SW15 as well - we did the opposite, moved from abroad to the UK four years ago and I thought I would never get over leaving my beloved foreign home but at least London has plenty of compensations in the form of old friends etc.

I've always lived in cities, really not sure whether I would enjoy a small community, feel quite panicky at the thought. But your photos look amazing, they are inspiring me!

Oops sorry, came out much more of a lengthy rant than intended .

Thanks, anabellapity, I actually know both places pretty well.

My parents and brother and his family live in a rural area, and have a great time, though every trip to see friends from school, or the swimming pool, etc requires Taxi of Mum and Dad. A hospital appt is over an hour's drive. There are plenty of v bored teenagers with little to do, the schools are not at all good, and rural deprivation is in strong evidence. BUT it is easier for luckier families to not be involved in the knock-on effects of rural poverty. In cities, wealthier people are cheek by jowl with inner-city estates.

Rural life is great if you have the resources ( and I don't only mean money - I mean outlook, initiative, inclination for low-tech outdoor fun etc) to enjoy it, city likewise. But both can be hell for those in poverty and with little opportunity.

hatwoman, we are in the north of Norway, it is across the polar circle, so the climate can be quite harsh, especially in winter. Our nearest town is just 15 minutes away by car. My oldest son walks to and from school, it is just a 10 minute walk, and I can walk ds2 to preschool.

hattyyellow - I recognize a lot of your points, especially about the jumble sale! Although, I grew up here, and dh is a big city boy, even I am gettin a feeling of "is this it?" I think at the very latest we will return to London when our oldest is due to start secondary school.....

I love London but we moved away 4 years ago when the dc's were just starting reception and I have never regretted it.
We movde because of the ridiculous house prices and the scholls in the area we could afford to live in were not what I wanted for my children.

I grew up in London adn my school was great but even that area has changed now for the worse.

Me and Dh miss London for ourselves but not for the children.
Although where we have moved to is very hard to find anything to do if we want a day out as there's nothing to do at all really.

I'd love to take them to see the historic sights and the museums etc but then how often would you do that anyway, once or maybe twice and that's it.

When I was a teenager in London we all moaned about how bored we were, we stuck to our local area we didn't take ourselves off to see all the sights (though I really wish we had).

The schools, the sense of community and lower crime make the area we are now in much better for us as we have a family, but I miss London a lot.

Gosh quint what a fantastic experience for your children though! Makes the Wetland Centre look rather tame...We walk to school along the Upper Richmond Road, very grim.

I would prefer to move abroad rather than outside of London but family commitments etc meant that we are in the UK. Everything is a compromise...

Goodness me 2010 that is remote! We spent a year in remote New Zealand several years ago and where we are now does seem busy in comparison - I remember well things like online shopping being a pain.

The local NZ supermarket would take online orders but not deliver them - so I still had to drive for nearly an hour to pick up my groceries!

Interesting that you think you will come back to London. I don't think we will - but am holding out for holidays with the few remaining friends and family we have in central London who haven't jumped ship for the 'burbs. I loved my teenage years in London, the buzz, the clubs, the parties - I can't quite imagine DD's teenage experience will be quite the same...

lol . And I dont want my kids to hang out bored stiff outside the local "Grill", or fastfood joint in their teenage years.

Even though we are far away, we still get friends from London visiting, so that is good. But sadly we dont really have anybody in London with enough space to accommodate us all for a holiday!

We'll have to do a house swap

A mumsnet house swap? What a fantastic idea!

We recently moved out of London for our eldest's final year at primary school. I don't think we would have moved if we had had a good state secondary option on our doorstep but a good school was at least a 45 minute commute away & I didn't want her to do that at the age of 11! We have moved to Bristol and very happy here - feel we have the best of both worlds. You can't beat London for museums, galleries & events tho & we still make regular trips there.

staranise we walk to school along the URR too
Which school?

(i did a house swap too! With Moondog a couple of years ago)

blu I agree with you about the affluence next to poverty thing in cities. Literally the next street in some areas.

E.g. Whalley Range in Manchester is becoming quite desirable some absoltely beautiful houses and is experiencing the benefits of being within walking distance of Chorlton (leftie, bohemian, delis, organic cafes and the like v pleasant) but the other side of Withington rd there's the notorious Alexandra Park estate which continues to have probs with inner city deprivation and gang culture. Also at night some of the streets are still red light despite the relatively new affluence of the area (think teachers, social workers, lecturers etc.).

however despite my rural upbringing from ges 8-18 I'm a city girl through and through. Living in a shitty, middle class, white, village in Cheshire near to loads of shitty little towns has given me a horror of places like that because of the prejudiced, small minded attitude of the numpties that live there. Strong words you may think but my parents were both from London and were given a hard time by all the small town idiots that lived there, the joys of village life

I love the cultural mix of manchester, the fact it's normal for dd to hear several languages during the course of one day at nursery, that we can have any type of cuisine we fancy at a restaurant no more than half an hour away.

And although I love London in a way M/Cr is even better for us as we're 6 miles out of the city and it only takes us 20 mins to get in. In London I find you can spend an hour+ on public transport trying to get anywhere.

We walk to school through the woods. Deer and badgers scamper up to us and push their damp noses into our hands.

How unhygenic

I have lived in London my entire life. Was born and grew up right in the middle (in Islington) - very urban, lived in an upper floor flat and spent very little time outside. On the plus side, I think the multi-cultural experience and hustle and bustle was a good education.

I now live in Crystal Palace and we have lots of big green spaces to choose from and very family-oriented place so I think it's nice for DS to grow up here. We just bought our house so we'll be here for his childhood. I would like our next move to be somewhere more rural, simply as a change to what I have done up until now but don't imagine this will happen for at aleast 10 years.

The countryside is great for little kids to run about outdoors but every country-dweller I have ever spoken to has agreed that once they hit their teens and wanted pubs and clubs rather than the great outdoors, the countryside lost its appeal

Yes, it is a bugger that there are no pubs and clubs outside of London.

Wereworm, shall we just do shifts on this one?

I don't think that London is any better or worse "than been stuck in the middle of nowhere". Its just different.

I live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by fields. Kids at DD's school come to school on their ponies! I love all the footpaths and outdoor lifestyle.

But we're not too far from cities and museums and can easily go there for the day. I'd say we were in easy (day trip) reach of 7 large cities. All between 1hr and 90mins away and there are loads of museums and galleries that we go to. We're not country bumpkins you know. Nearest city is only 15 mins away and that has a couple of museums.

London is only 90mins away by train for day visits as well.

We've done house swap a few times, though not with MN (contrary to the impression I've given this afternoon, I'm not actually that regular a MNer, it's only because I'm meant to be working this afternoon...). Love hosueswaps, easiest, cheapest holiday possible with small children.

Countess, we're at H, between OLV and St. M. Where are you? I always get a little freaked out coming across an MNer in RL, I like to pretend it is pure imaginatory...

I'm so glad to have moved out of london pre children. We can go there for a day trip for less than £10 every time we want to go to museums. As we don't go to London every day it is more exciting for the children to go to as a holiday treat.

Things I don't miss about London:

• constant noise of car alarms
• the tube
• black snot and general lack of fresh air
• Noisy aircraft landing at 5am
• parking permit zones
• the stress of driving out of it to visit people outside the M25

Then if you have children it costs a fortune to have a house with a garden and the good schools appear to be very oversubscribed.

I would have thought the main benefit of remaining in London would be proximity to jobs and not having a long commute. Having said all this if you have spent most of your life living in a big city and like city life I can see London is a good place to be.

Black snot!

Black snot!

That does render all the other arguments mute, doesn't it? The image of a child sooted up like an age-of-smog housefront?