Raising Kids in the US or UK

[usorukcantdecide]

We live in London at the minute. One of us is English, the other is American, but we have both lived in both countries quite a lot, and feel comfortable in each. That said, for one of us England is much better work-wise (and perhaps personality wise) for one and for the other America is much better. That's just the way it is, job-wise.

We have two young kids (one in Reception now) and we really want to decide where we are going to settle down, as the older they get the harder they will be to uproot!

So since we are split on which place we like better, I'm wanting to know what people really think is better for kids. I know, it's vague. But what are the factors -- like schooling, etc? If it helps, the choices are between London and a large city in the Northeast (probably New York or Boston.) Assume living costs are about the same (though we have more for our money in London than NYC, for example) and that we would always strive to live in a place with good public schools.

London feeling really grim at the minute (and the UK in general with Brexit) is pushing this a bit, but hopefully that's just temporary!

Guess I'm thinking: schooling, personality, pressure, guns (!), lifestyle, etc. Politics is terrible in both places. All seem to have pluses and minuses.

Thoughts welcome!

I wonder if you’d do better focussing on the adults? DH and I have the same international mix and he manages much better at work whereas I always stand out as a foreigner...
I think for the whole family UK is better. I know we’d have more disposable income in the U S but we’d see a lot less of each other.

Speaking as an American who moved to the UK, things to consider:
A LOT of American state education can be very poor quality. You must send your child to the local school except if they qualify for something better or you're willing to shell out ($10k+ per year easy) for private.
Insurance is a huge thing. You'll need it to be provided by your employer or you'll pay through the nose. Also, many employers provide indifferent insurance, so you'll need to be on top of your policies or you may find yourself paying out of pocket for care.
Universities and their costs. You'll also want to see what the regulations are for your kids to qualify for UK resident fees.
Leave. OMG holiday time. I worked for a company that gave me 12 days' leave a year. Consider that seriously. You may be able to afford to visit the UK, but only for a week or two per year.
Health care. Don't know if it matters, but if you're considering having more children that REALLY matters and you'll need to do your research. US has no federal mandate for maternity leave and has the highest maternal mortality rate of developed nations.
New York and Boston will be just as polluted and have as many homeless people as London. You may not see them as a tourist, but you will when you're local.
You will have access to lots of weather variation in the US (not to mention the seasons in Boston and New York are FAR more impactful than the mild seasons in Britain). However it is important for people to know about other places. Americans visit Canada and Mexico readily (well, the 40% with passports do) but they don't leave North American too often.
Also, how do you feel about religion? There is a LOT of religiosity in everyday American life. More so in Boston than New York, and the religious communities vary from place to place, so you'll get exposure to Jewish culture, but you'll be cutting back on Muslim and Hindu experiences in day to day life. Boston is a fairly heavily Catholic city, but as long as you stay central that should only impact conversations...
I love my home country but it has its issues. I haven't touched on violence/guns/etc but others have mentioned it. You're the only one who can decide what's right for you, but there is a lot to it. Are your kids excited about it? I would've given my left arm to travel abroad more as a child, but it does mean learning how to be long distance friends, which can often mean leaving people behind...

I'd be looking at what could / would happen if something drastic happened. Something where one or both of you are unable to work.

How much would you need to live on and where would that come from? Insurance? Benefits? How would you live?

Hopefully you will never be in that situation but it's worth thinking and planning for.

Which education system do you prefer? Which would suit your children better?

Which city / county would you be happy for your child/children to go to the cinema or for a pizza without an adult and at what age?

As has already been mentioned annual leave, maternity leave (if you have another child)paternity leave, insurance costs, university costs, opportunities for your children outside school, things like sports and clubs, foreign travel with you or with the school. Do US schools have things like ski trips of D of E?

What hours will you be expected to work? Things might be fine now with small children but as they get older if they need more support with things like homework will you be home in the evening?

I'm an American from Boston and I can't say anyone else's religion ever impacted on my everyday living besides getting Jewish high holidays off at school. Boston is a very diverse city with lots of different faiths. There won't be religion taught in state schools there where you will get that in the UK. Catholic schools in Boston are private schools which presumably you wouldn't choose unless you were Catholic. Most of the people I knew were atheist. The suburbs are no different.

It's a VERY well educated city on the whole and has the most British feel of all American cities. It's has lots and lots of colleges and universities. The choice is pretty mind blowing.

You can be skiing in two hours on the beach in less than that. It's a great city.

Other people's religion doesn't impact my life on a daily basis, either, and I live in the Bible Belt.

I live in NY and just answered on your other thread!

I wouldn't assume the living costs in the US are comparable with the UK, they're much higher (in our experience - we live 20 miles north of NYC)

There's no competition for utilities, I find grocery shopping at least 1/3 more expensive, rent / house prices to live in a decent school district are eye watering. And then there's health insurance.

We sat down last week (as we're actually considering a move back to the UK!) and worked out that on a monthly basis we pay ~$1,500 a month in medical, dental and vision insurance contributions, and thats in addition to the first $3000 a year of the excess we have to pay.

Our employer provided insurance is good and they bear ~75% of the cost, and the cost to us is tiered by how much we earn (earn more pay more) but its done relative to salary so its still a chunk, whatever your salary

Gas is cheaper, but the cars do less mpg so it probably works out the same per month

The schooling thing is key - you will find so many variables in quality of schools dependent on where you live (in NY were we are, you're zoned for the local state school for your street, and don't get to move / choose a school anywhere else / out of the district unless there's additional needs)

If you're outside of NYC itself, you need to be looking at the areas where the school districts usually spend a larger % of their budgets on schooling - this (unfortunately) usually directly correlates to the amount of property tax you pay per year, which is in addition to the usual income tax and pays for school and local services like sanitation. To give you an idea, we pay ~$18k a year for ours (and our schools aren't great), next district over with a highly regarded school system for a similar house is upward of ~$28K a year

This really illustrates the misconceptions people have about the US, and how varied it is depending on where you live.

Been in the US 12 years. Education has been stellar. We live in an area with excellent schools and pay $7k a year in property tax (on a $500k house) for the privilege.

My kids have learnt plenty about other countries especially history and economics. They don't have religion forced on them in school as they would do in the UK - no prayers in assembly, no nativity plays, no hymns. My children are well educated as to the history of religions in the world but they don't know the Lords Prayer because they've rarely heard it.

Plenty of US high schoolers I know have got into UK universities recently including Cambridge, Glasgow and Manchester based on their high school grades, SAT or ACT score and AP results. No IB required. At least two that I know of were offered reduced-rate fees to tempt them. I was astonished at how easy it is for a US student to get into Cambridge TBH.

DD was offered scholarships at all the US colleges here that accepted her - some were merit-based and some were need-based. The college she ended up choosing offered her $30k a year need-based scholarship based on our family income of $200k.

We have short and long-term disability policies through work so if we get sick we get 70% of pay for a year then 60% of pay for life.

Neither of us has ever had a job with less than 20 days holiday per year, although they certainly do exist. In my last job I had 33 days a year. DH currently has 25 days a year.

Crime varies according to where you live - where we live there was a burglary on our street a few years ago and it was such a rare event that the police went door to door to tell us we might want to start locking our doors. I haven't locked my cars when parked on my drive in about 12 years now.

Sorry - I did laugh at the question about whether US schools do ski trips. Our school has a ski team that goes skiing every Wednesday after school, and the team takes part in ski meets every weekend. It's subsidised for students who couldn't otherwise afford it.

No, there's no D of E, but there are many many similar programs through Scouts, camps, Civil Air Patrol, ROTC and similar.

If you have insurance paid for through work then your healthcare will be excellent. You won't have to wait long to see a GP or specialists, the care will be joined up and prompt, your test results will arrive in hours. It is expensive but the law governing what insurance has to cover is pretty robust at this point - pre-existing conditions have to be covered and your insurance premium will not be related to your health or prior claims.

The downsides are the lack of maternity leave, the lack of leave in some jobs, the higher cost of living (but pay tends to be higher). Gun control is shockingly lacking.

Yes, Trump is in power. But a lot of government happens at a state level, not federal, so you'll be more affected by who is in power in your state.

The country is crazy in many ways, and wonderful in many ways.

And given your choice of cities OP I would definitely go for Boston over New York. Massachusetts has the highest rated education system in the US, you'd have a great range of in-state college options for your kids when they hit that age, easy access to the beach and skiing, some lovely towns to live in, and if you make sure you live somewhere on a railway into Boston then an easy commute. I would not try to commute into Boston by car.

I’m a big fan of my kids not being shot.

So I’d prefer the UK.

I'm from California and if I could, I'd take the family to San Luis Obispo.

I'd never leave London though for the harsh Northeastern climate, OP.
If you're going to go live in the States, go the west coast, for sure! Though friends of ours (British) who have raised their kids in Boston absolutely loved it and the schools. I'm not sure which part they were in, but obviously, it was a nice part.
But as I mentioned, San Luis Obispo is so beautiful and such a stellar place to raise kids.

price goes up if you have any pre-existing conditions; and sometimes even if you were born outside the US

This is just not true.

I'm from California and if I could, I'd take the family to San Luis Obispo.

I visited last year and tried to talk DD into going to college there! What a beautiful place.

I love London apart from the pollution.

Boston I'd seriously consider if I had chance to move back to USA. But I'd probably hate it as much as the others. I really don't want a car-dependent life again, my ecofreak self can't take it. Most of the USA is very anti-intellectual, too, although I realise NEngland bucks that trend.

I grew up in a big California city. High house prices, great food, nice people, fab weather, amazing landscape... drive-by shootings, hovering helicopters most nights, drive everywhere, evangelical views stuffed down your throat.

Now live in the sticks of rural England. I love how innocent my kids are (mostly teens now). It's amazing. They have had minimal exposure to drugs, & materialism. Us parents have no worries about whether guns are locked up in someone's house. Any threat of losing my job does not mean a puzzle about what happens to our medical care.

(Weather aside) Our quality of life is much better than my parents had.

Oh yeah... my parents were astounded when I told them we could shop around for electricity company, to find the best tariff.

East coast buying property is supposed to be a lot like Britain. Buying & selling property is a lot easier in CA.

The lack of gun control would be the deciding factor for me. Children in the UK are not going to have to do drills about having an active shooter on-site.

Oh yeah... my parents were astounded when I told them we could shop around for electricity company, to find the best tariff.

I can shop around between electricity companies for the best tariff here in the US too.

East coast buying property is supposed to be a lot like Britain.

No, it's not.

You don't have to send your kids to the local school in US - not sure where a PP got that from. Most places you can choice into the public school you want, as long as there is room.

I think from OP's position of choosing between London and NYC or Boston, we can assume they have corporate jobs and won't be paying for their own healthcare - at that level the company looks after insurance. So yes, OP will find that healthcare in the US is far better than the NHS, even though it's true that they do lots of unnecessary testing. She won't have any trouble finding a GP, and you can call specialists yourself to make appointments - no need for referrals. I can get a non-emergency GP appointment within a day or two.

(Random link I found on Internet says that) you need to live in a deregulated state to have a choice of electricity company. Problem is, from what I read, the deregulation may be limited in practice. It's not a well-developed system like you have in UK.

California is scarred by a brief experiment in deregulation in 2000-2001 that caused prices to go nuts & utility companies almost went bankrupt.

Screenshots from recent LA Times article.

Also, switching electricity company in my experience (having done it several times in both UK and US) is far easier in the US than in the UK.

Really? I just clicked on a comparison site and clicked a button and it all happened! (Uk) cpuodnt have been any easier!

That's good to hear. I wonder why OFGEM recently brought in a process for compensating people for whom it went wrong then?

A US high school diploma won't get them into university in the UK (unless school offers an IB programme).

This is not true. My dd has several classmates heading to St Andrews etc this year from a private US high school that does not offer the IB.

I live in the Boston area and I think it is incredibly good for rearing children. Communities are very family-oriented. If you live in one of the greater boston area towns (Winchester, Brookline Arlington Newton for example), your children will not have a choice of schools - they will go to their local elementary and then onto the middle and high school unless you go private. But they will get an excellent education (and yes it does include ample reference to the world beyond the US - always amused at this as if people think US children in elementary school should be primarily learning about European history instead of their own) and because most people in the town are in the local schools, it means as a parent you get to know others, you go to the matches etc., schools reach out to parents and families. It is very inclusive. Other than learning about world religions in history/social sciences there is absolutely no religion in the state schools. It is lovely - and they still manage to recognise the holidays people celebrate and do nice concerts in December etc. There is also a huge choice of (expensive except for the catholic schools which are a bargain) private schools.

I've said this before on MN (as have other US-based MNers) and not sure I have ever been believed but I have never seen a gun in my time here (25 years) outside of a police or security person's holster. In 25 years I have never been the victim of any kind of crime big or small. My children worry about the issue of gun control in the US but they don't worry about violence to them from guns. They are also exposed to far less tolerence of alcohol and drunkenness - yeah teens try drinking but there isn't the same "ah well all teens drink, right?" attitude that I see on UK MN and in Ireland.

In the end though, I would probably make this decision based on other things - elderly parents, which lifestyle you genuinely enjoy more, which one of you feels more strongly about living in their own country. Well-off kids reared in Boston or reared in London will have the same level of happy, safe childhood.