Not sure about move to USA: advice please

[nicobean]

Hi all, first time poster so please be patient!
My DH is American and homesick. We have lived in the UK for 9 years, moved back after 3 years in the US mainly for me as I was the homesick one then.
Our DC are 4, 2 and 1 month and we do need a bigger house, although we could manage for a few years if we had to. I have always previously been against moving back as I feel I would miss my friends and being in the UK. We would go back to the area DH is from where we have good friends and his lovely family.
Now I'm wondering if the cheap property over there is just too good to miss..we could afford what we need, whereas here we can't. I have said if we did move we wouldn't sell our home here before we were sure it was right for us. Any advice from anyone who's been through similar would be very welcome.

There's other things, too.

My sister has teen daughters.

She and her husband are fairly well-off, the girls go to a great school, her 16-year-old is driving (an SUV . Made me recall that Matthew Wright's 16-year-old nephew was killed in a car accident in Texas a few weeks ago and how many kids at my high school died in auto accidents).

Anyhow, we did one of these, My List of Motherly Worries.

Hers included: school shootings, cults and murder.

I'd forgotten about all those guns.

Of course, plenty of worries here, especially surrounding teen drinking.

But school shootings and cults aren't going to feature on my list.

I do agree, Holly. If you're in your home country, it's impossible to put yourself in the place of someone who is not.

I lived in PA for a couple of years, before having DD. I thought I'd adjusted but I was so happy to get home to England again!

However, one small point re the homesickness - I think that I'd find it less bad nowadays because of the advances in the internet since then, it is a lot easier to keep in touch with people. Also, while I think its really brave to move countries with DC, my perception was that so much American life rotated around kids that you might find you fit in more and form more friendships now you've got them.

Our gun culture can be worrying, can't it?

It really depends on where you are, though. I live in rural Minnesota and everyone I know owns a gun and hunts, yet there has not been one shooting of a person in our area in anyone's memory.

I am Italian and I live in California. I am trying to come back to Europe because I want to be closer to my family. I hate how much Americans like their guns. Still I really don't think that should be your first concern about moving here. I think you can have a nice family life in the US. But a bigger house and a bigger car is not going to make you less homesick. Even if you use Skype with your family every day, it's not the same as seeing your family often. Eating dinner together etc. You are the only one that can know how much you are going to miss your family. It is very painful to see my kids grow up without my family. They don't really know any of my wonderful cousins, they barely know my parents.
Of course if you are lucky enough to be able to come back home at least twice a year maybe you won't feel too homesick.
Good luck

italian mom you are so right about having a bigger house etc won't get rid of homesickness. If having a big house was the only important thing in life we'd be back there already!

Gun culture does scare the heck out of me. Political debate is also so vitriolic and polarised, which as a nice Brit who doesn't like rows I hate.

But I do also feel that I have to be fair to my homesick DH too! It's difficult.

'Political debate is also so vitriolic and polarised, which as a nice Brit who doesn't like rows I hate.'

I HATE how that is going there. Some people simply cannot have a sensible discussion.

That is a difficult decision. Luckily, both my DH and I are Americans living in the U.K. so we're both equally thrilled and homesick at the same time. And hopefully we'll pull the plug equally, as well, when we've decided it's time to head back.

I've only been living in the U.K. for a brief 7 months, but so far I think I've decided that it is a lovely place to raise children...until they're about 13. The bored (and scary!) teenagers I see hanging around the city centre and malls send me running. I'm a woosie, I know, but I don't think that's what I want my son exposed to when he's older.

I'm almost certain we'll be out of here before DS hits secondary school (he's only 3 now)

The truth is that if your husband is also homesick it is only fair that you are the one making the sacrifice next like he is doing now.
The problem that I see is that if you go to the US now you might never go back to the UK. Your kids are going to finish school in the US and they are going to attend University in the US and they are going to marry Americans and have children etc. I don't know if ones your children settle down in the US you are going to want to move back. It's a sticky situation.
I wish I knew what the right thing to do would be.

BrigidC I don't know where you are from but I can tell you that I have the same feelings about teenagers here in the US. They don't hang around the city centre but every time I see them storming out of High School I want to homeschool my kids. Teenagers are scary. And actually the truth is that nowadays there is more drugs and alcohol abuse in Middle School then in High School. It seems to me like it is less noticeable in The US but it is there and because it's more hidden I think it is even more dangerous.
And I live in a lovely place.

BrigidC just out of interest how will that work in terms of curriculum your DS will learn? Won't he learn British history and British spelling etc only to have to go and learn all new stuff at a US secondary school.

Genuinely interested as this is the kind of debate I have with DH all the time!