to think the children will hate us if we move to the countryside?

[cranbury]

Two children 3 and 1. We live in a London suburb - great pre-school, good schools lined up. Shops round the corner, buses and train to everywhere. Downside - small garden, difficult to park, very grey and depressing town centre (lots of closed down shops), lots of traffic and noise.

DH wants to switch offices and move to the deepest countryside.

Think that the children will hate it when they are 14+ and I will have to drive them everywhere. Will they?

I stick by my earlier 'yes', but here are some more things to consider:

1. There will be almost no chance of your children getting small jobs in the middle of the country, so all finance will be down to you.

2. There will be almost no proper jobs in the middle of the country, so when your children grow up they will have to leave.

3. Rural drink and drug problems are wildly underplayed - there is nothing else for teens to do.

4. Not all children/teenagers actually enjoy going outside that much. You may have visions of them off playing in streams and with their friends all day, but the chances are they'll be hanging around the house saying they're bored. (OK, that's probably true wherever you live...)

5. As everyone else has said, you will spend your life providing taxi services, either directly or by paying for an actual taxi, or you will spend a lot of time saying no, you can't do that activity because you can't get home after it.

6. To provide the taxi service, your own opportunities for work will be strictly limited.

7. Rural schools can be appalling and the concept of choice will not exist if you are reliant on the council to transport your kids to school: they will go to the school the bus goes to. I think it is Devon which has the lowest per capita spend on education in the country.

Here speaks one who was moved to the depths of Dartmoor at 3 and left at the earliest opportunity...

Well I loved being a teenager in London. I loved hanging out with my mates, taking acid from the age of 14 - then soon after, speed & ecstacy etc. I had a great time. My nice middle class parents hadn't a clue - well not a first anyway.

If I have anything to do with it, DS will NOT be enjoying such pleasures at such a young age! I know such things do exist everywhere, but I do think you grow up quicker in big cities.

This isn't the main reason we're are moving out of London, but it is one of them.

For me, it'a mainly to do with the freedom you get out of the big cities, and the better qualityu of life DS will get growing up in lovely surroundings. We will have a better quality of life - a nice house with a garden for example, instead of a London flat.

Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to have a choice. If we had to stay in London we'd make the best of it, I'm sure. There are lots of opportunities there, certainly.
But I certainly wouldn't deprive DS of a lovely childhood out of the city in because of worry about him being bored when he's a teenager. That's ages away and who know what will happen by then? IMO you need to make the best of the opportunities you have now.

Being within easy access of a city or large town would be the ideal I guess.

Totally agree Gerbil. I moan like hell about the schools in Glouycester (where I live now) but dear god there were no good schools in the whole of the district area of North Devon, where I grew up.

Dd would have gone to an awful school - probably the same as the one I went to, and there is absolutely no choice.

And yes - drink and drugs. A lot of dd's contemporaries in Devon are into drink and drugs - it is not unusual for 14 and 15 year olds to be into cocaine. Because it is classed as 'safe' teens are let out until quite late at night. Cue a load of kids in shelters on coast paths etc absolutely as high as kites.

There is a lot of poverty and deprivation in the countryside - you wouldn;t think it because the view is so beautiful.

Aren't teenagers supposed to hate their parents anyway? So you might as well live where you want and let them hate you for living in a field. It makes a change from the other things they could hate you for.

And meanwhile your children could have fun roaming free at a younger age than city children tend to manage. We didn't move here for that reason but it's been a lovely plus.

We've just moved out of a village to the suburbs of a city as we could how it was for the teens. Our eldest is 11, so with a change to secondary school it made sense to do it now. We are very very happy and now realise that we were quite miserable in a village.

We live in a v pretty village 4 miles from the nearest town where ds goes to school and yes, from ages 12 to 17 either I've given him lifts or pay for taxis if it's an early start. The upside is that we live in a fab detached house in an area of outstanding natural beauty with miles of footpaths and bridleways on the doorstep, and once ds passes his test (he'll start lessons in 18 months) then the driving around is no longer a problem.

To us, personally, we love country life and the driving is a sacrifice we're willing to make. I could never live in London or any inner city.

yes

I grew up in a tiny shitty chechire village. I hated it. I spent my teenage years on the bus. All my mates at 6th form college lived in town. I was a bit wild and voted with my feet by going out for the night then not going home for several days. I HATED it.

I live in a big, urban, industrial, city now with massive problems with crime and social deprivation. However it has theatres, arts festivals, museums, music, more music and yet more music! As well as shops, bars restaurants, parks, LOADS for dcs etc.etc. I love it and will never live in the dreary dull depressing countryside again.

Have we answered your question OP?

I'm as confused as ever, I have to admit, seems it would be best to move to the country when they are tiny then move back to the city. Although my experience of growing up in London is that there were lots of other things to do other than drink and drugs, although some of my classmates did go down that route.

I think there is crucial in-between state between city and country - it's called a town! If you live in the same town that your DD's go to secondary school in, you don't have any of these issues.

I grew up in a village with 9 houses in, then lived in London after Uni, and now live in a slightly bigger village, so it didn't put me off.

Where do YOU want to live, OP? We lived in the city when our dc were tiny and they were quite happy there, in the end we moved somewhere more rural because we wanted to live there, not for the sake of the children at all. Maybe that's why it's worked for us, there was no sense of sacrifice for us, just a sense that we had been living far too long in cities, given that we are both outdoor types who spend a lot of our spare time doing watersports, camping, hanging out in forests, going to the beach, etc.

the dc were fine in the city, they are now fine in a little village. but we are happier here.

I live in a suburb of London in a town centre - so I am already in a townSo it is the countryside or staying where we are.

I don't know if I would like living in the countryside - never really done it, although lived by the sea for a year and loved it. I was caught up in both London tube bombings 7/7 and the failed attempt. Haven't been the same about London ever since, despite growing up with the IRA and London bombings when young.

We have moved from city to village and love it.

I don´t care if my DC get bored by the time they are 16. They should be, so they start planning an escape route (job or uni or course)and don´t hang about until they are 30.

And while they are small, it´s great as there is a great sense of community, lots of friends (mine and theirs) within walking distance.

Teens here often go down to the river to have a BBQ, smoke drink a few beers and swim. Better than hanging around stupid malls.

There are also lots of sports activities, tennis, cricket, football. They can earn bits of cash babysitting or gardening jobs.

And while they are small, they have all this space to play! My boys get muddy, and I am glad they do. We can walk to school. The freedom of that...

The mud doesn´t get me down, as half the time the weather is actually nice. In the country you make the most of long sunny afternoons...

I just love love love it. And if we miss London, we go down for the day ! Tis not far. Always happy to come back here though.

Is a London suburb really a town though? If you lived somewhere like a market town, you would be able to get to the countryside much more easily. Self-contained towns usually have a much better community feel to them.

Deepest countryside is a bit different to living in a village near a town/city, though

I come from proper deep rural parts and I admit every time I hear one of my townie friends talking about 'moving to the country' I think, you wouldn't last five minutes, mate

It's not just things for teens to do/public transport/schools etc, it's attitude really. You have to be a combination of very self-sufficient (to get you through winter for a start) and very extrovert - really 'belonging' to and joining in everything. As another poster said you've got to think whether that's the lifestyle you want. It's certainly not a bed of roses.

I think what people are saying is that there are lots of options in between living in London and living in an isolated house, or in a village of 30 souls with no amenities at all. The "countryside" outside London is not one big amorphous mass, but lots of different large towns, small towns, large villages, small villages, hamlets and houses alone, in which the majority of the population live.

You need to work out what is appealing to you about moving, what you want to avoid (such as having to drive the children everywhere), and then look for somewhere that offers what you need, and weigh it up against where you are now.

Totally depends on where you move to - we moved from London to a village in Hampshire, right on the coast. Very good state and public schools, loads to do, Southampton 20 miles, Bournemouth 12... but a small village with a green and lots of little shops. Loads of people who have moved here from other place so an interesting mix of people to meet. I don't feel like I have moved to the sticks at all...cos I haven't I guess, but I can still step out the door on to the beach, or it's a short drive to the New Forest. More rural places such as Devon are closer for camping. So depends how "countryside" you want.

I grew up in rural Wales and that is completely different and not something I really want now for me or my family, but some people love it!

Domestic goddess where do you live? Thats around the area we are considering.

Well we moved from housing development where DC could have called for friends, etc to middle of nowhere (well, near road, fortunately in snow, but otherwise near nowhere) and I love it.

..and unlike other posters I got through my teenage years without hating my parents for moving (when I was 12) from town to country. I had one friend within walking distance to go out on bikes / her pony with, or climb up the stacks of bales in the barns and hide. Alternatively I was quite happy to sit up a tree/in a hammock with a book. My DC are 7 & 3 so right now they mostly like having room to riot in the garden but there are other children in the village once they are at going-out-on-bikes stage, and it is 3 miles to nearest bus to the "big" (not very) city. I daresay they will hate us at times for living here once they are teenagers, but if we lived in the city/town I am sure they would find other things to hate us for - and as someone else said, we have few worries about them still living at home at 30 - DBs and I left home at 18 to go to Uni and never came back (except me, 18 years later!) - no jobs here, so no point!

ditto shineoncrazydiamond! we live on a smallholding, my kids have loads of space to run around and plenty of fresh air.
I'm not bothered about "never looking good, always having to wear raincoats and wellies" as I make sure mine are from Joules
local teens have plenty to do and we have buses and trains to take them to larger cities if they so desire - many choose not to.
I am a londoner born and bred but would NEVER return. sure there are problems with drink and drugs but isn't there everywhere? we don't have knife crime, gangs or any of the other issues commonly associated with city life.
I'm the happiest ever, my children say they love their life/school/social lives too - and like shineon, I don't look harangued - just content (albeit muddy!)

We are just about to move to a rural market town. We've been doing the house up since october and it's given us a chance to find out what's on. There's loads for children to do as well as places for them to roam a bit more freely. I can't wait to get in there!

couldn't bear to live somewhere where children couldn't play safely outside, with low to no traffic risk - am in a rural market town where it is 5 min walk to fields, woods, opposite of civilisation and 5 min walk to high street

housing estates scare the crap out of me, even those ones where some effort is made to make them look slightly a bit different from one another - the gardens are tiny and square and horrible and the roads are all named after the plants and wildlife that were destroyed to make way for them