Best country to raise children (overseas or UK?)

[LadyCybilCrawley]

Started another thread in wrong place and then found this .....

Ok so we are fortunate to be living abroad at present - but after a recent trip back to the UK to see family we wondered if raising our children in another country was the best thing for them.

We are currently where we are for employment, outdoor lifestyle and quality of life. But does any of that matter if your children miss extended family?? I just don't know what's best anymore and would be really interested if anyone has had similar situation and moved back and if so, what was it like?

Pros and cons?

What am I missing ?

Thanks pupsiecola.

To answer your question; I don't want to be too specific and out myself. But, apart from times when we just travelled with no specific home to go back to, which was a while ago now (and before DCs) (and a lot of fun!), we lived sort of permanently in four different countries (three continents) ... touched base back in UK between times ... over about thirty years. Been back in England a while now.

Lots of people are more well-travelled, some diplomats for instance. And our children only really remember the one country they grew up in apart from UK. I count myself as lucky to have lived the life we did, though ... even if this last summer in particular has reminded me why we chose to come back and live in England. Climate, people, countryside, towns and cities ... it's lovely here! (Apart from the awful etonian government we've got, but that's a different matter.)

LairyPoppins if you are comfortable sharing I'd love to know where you are, I am keeping a spreadsheet of places in Cornwall to consider moving to!

living broad or in U.K if you have kids !?

I lived in London , Knightsbridge for many years and somehow at some point I really loved it .
you can only imagine , you wake up in the morning , opening windows and Harrods is right in front of you, all restaurants and caffe’s welcomes you , you are feeling like at home in each place you go. You have a chat with workers , with shop owners , you feel part of community.
Now I have 2 years old son and 4 years old girl. Over a year ago we have moved to Mediterranean country in Europe because seriously I can’t recognise London any longer .
even having good income you simply getting tired from primitivism.
sorry I am writing too long message , but want to
make it clear …
please count how many places you know where your kids might enjoy and entertain themselves.
playgrounds are so old and dirty , that there’s no pleasure to use them. Or they are made from metal construction , little toddlers easily can harm themselves . Bigger indoor playgrounds are far from central London , until you reach it through the traffic kids don’t want to enjoy anymore because got tired of travelling . Plus they are so overcrowded .
apart couple of south Ken museums and squirrels in the Hyde park , I see no other affordable options for normal families .
let me give an example from experience abroad .
plenty of new investment indoor playgrounds .
spacious , big , themed playgrounds .
kids goes horse riding, tennis playing, sea side 9 months per year , football classes , swimming lessons , outdoor parks with many amusement activities . Family has a dog, kittens , parrots , turtles , rabbits so kids can enjoy their pets . Daily bicycle riding, electric car riding, scooter riding, playing ball. All sounds simple but kids are truly alive and happy. All these activities are extremely cheap . Parents has less stress, kids are more happier . Most importantly they have constant friends . In London people moving from one house to another , changing schools very often too. abroad kids ha so much attention from another people , where in London people are too depressed . Apart wearing trainers and wrinkled clothing I can’t spot anything fashionable here anymore . The only disadvantage is learning perfect English language . But…, but so many kids abroad now speaks super good English only because they watch you tube or English cartoons.
many people don’t want criticism , but please , write me more of it , only then maybe I will start to like London. The other day I spoke with our friend in Knightsbridge who is owning many pubs ,( if not all ) in this neighbourhood. He said I must get rid of them all, because none brings any profit any more . Only electricity expenses reaches 90k annually per one pub. Dear reader , do you understand my point !? It’s so overpriced here but I don’t see anything much in return . Apart connections . That matters so much . Maybe that’s the only one point left I still admire and value . Anyway . Go against me , and write me how to raise kids in London. !? Happy kids . Active kids . Loving kids .

I lived in London many years ago but never with DC but thanks for an interesting point of view.

I lived abroad with children. Moved back to uk when they were tweens. Reasons were to be nearer family and give them a chance to learn their parents culture and own heritage. If they decide to go back (to scandinavia) when adults and I would be delighted. Or they can stay and I would be equally pleased. The positives of abroad, for me, was that they have experienced a different culture and learnt another language. They can carry this their whole lives. But in the end it was a case of diminishing returns. We got less and less out of it, and it came to a critical point in terms of schooling; we had to make a longer term decision one way or the other. We live near family now and see them weekly or biweekly. In almost every practical way, life in the UK is less optimal. Public services, healthcare, transport, traffic... so so so much traffic, noise, pressured work environment, let's not even go into energy prices. However, I do think we feel more relaxed, or 'embedded' now, after only a couple of years, then we ever did in Scandinavia after over a decade. For us, having family close by has been worth it.

We are in California, pretty happy, good schools close to home, local friends, easy access to sport, swimming, good weather, wages are higher, nice clean parks. Beaches, mountains within an hour, amazing national parks less than a day of travel. I like how school is less pressurized and more broad over here and would not run back to the exam factory of gcses and A levels no thanks.

The downsides - I do have the thought about gun crime in school but in London I would worry about knife crime. Healthcare- we have cheap healthcare but of course many don't and I do miss British culture and friends and family. You do make new friends but there is an isolation to being in a different country but I do think our standard of living is so much higher even with the high cost of living here because we get paid so much more, have a more spacious home in a really good neighborhood, schools are so close to home, it is all just so much easier here than say in London where it was much more of a grind looking back. No where is perfect but the US has def given us a better quality of life than we ever could have had in the UK.

This post is from 2014.

@Nothingorthebest where did you move to in the med? I'd love to find a place to raise my daughter which has a lot of activities for her and warmth from people out and about.