Move to US is an option- am I mad?

[Tryingtohelp12]

We’ve had the opportunity to move to the US with my dh job. Are we mad to consider it?
I feel like we are stuck in a bit of a rut and in the future we will regret not taking more risks. we have 2 (about to be 3) children who would be aged 5,2 and newborn.
pros
great for long term career for dh
experience
change
increase standard of living in terms of salary

cons
young children being away from extended family
limit on my ‘career’ as I couldn’t work as we’d have no family support - I’m honestly not super passionate about work
reliant on husband/husbands job

Are we mad for considering it?

Ask DH'S company to pay for you to have a taster week. If they want him.out there they will likely do it. My DH'S company did this and it made me feel strongly that we could make it work plus I loved the look of the area. Before that I was very unsure.

In terms of risk I would say go for it! We have had the most amazing / transformative 4 years of our lives and while some things have definitely been hard, the benefits have far out weighed them. We have had experiences we never dreamed we would have here.

I don't know anything much about Tennesse though and every state is so different in terms of lifestyle and culture. So you need to get a feel for the place first.

Tennessee is beautiful. If you do go, make sure to visit the Great Smoky Mountains. My concerns would be a bit different than most British, although I'm also an immigrant to the USA. If you move here, you need to keep rabies in the back of your mind. Not something to panic about, but people on mumsnet seem to be very relaxed about handling stray cats and so on. You cannot do that in the USA. It's not a big deal (rabies infections in humans are very rare) but something to be aware of. If you are bitten or scratched by an animal you don't know, or wake up with a bat flying around the room, you need to get rabies vaccines.

You may need to use insect repellant if you spend much time outside during certain parts of the year, because of lyme disease and mosquito borne diseases like West Nile virus. You also need to learn to identify poison ivy and I guess also poison oak. You need to learn how to be bear safe and to identify any local snakes and spiders, especially when hiking. Again, this doesn't mean panicking, but just adjusting how you do things and being aware of your surroundings.

Also be prepared for extreme weather. Extreme heat in the summer, very intense thunderstorms at certain times of year, and the odd tornado and so on. Fortunately, with cell phones, you can get weather radar in advance, so you can modify your plans based on that, set your phone to get emergency alerts for thunderstorms and tornadoes and so on. Keep a supply of emergency water in the car and switch it out periodically.

Unlike some others say here, yes, you do have to worry about guns, but not so much about being shot at the mall. But if you go hiking, many hiking areas allow game hunting with guns, so that is something you have to pay attention to. Some areas prohibit hunting on Sundays so see if your area does that; if it does, then Sundays should be safe to hike. (The deference to hunters here drives me nuts. What about the rest of us who want to hike in peace? Although some hunters are subsistence hunters, most are just hunting for sport)

I'm making it sound terrifying but actually it's fantastic. I think it would be a great experience, for a few years. There are many beautiful places in the USA and lots of fun things to do. But it's not a tame country, even in places that try to look like quaint English towns. Deep down, the USA is a very wild place.

But with young children, especially one who will be a babe in arms, I would caution against it. It’s an isolating time for many women even when they don’t move. But going to another country when you take your brood from two (the number of hands you have) to three, all really young and in need of attention just does not seem like the right time. You won’t just be losing family support, you’ll be going somewhere you don’t know the system and have no friends to help and, since you won’t be working, you won’t have immediate access to a group of peers to make friends with. I think it would be a huge strain on you as a family and on your relationships and it will almost certainly be you that pays the price.

I know it's been awhile since you posted OP but I wanted to echo my experience of the above. You and your DH might be a tight unit and you would be expecting him to be enough company for now. However you may find that as the new person and the out-of-towner at work, his colleagues will be very welcoming and he'll be invited to all sorts of social things. This is more likely if there are a lot of expats working there. The social things may not include you, or you may not be able to go because of all the kids, and you might find yourself alone more than you expected to be, as he will feel pressure to go to these things and fit in to the culture.

Target is very pricey. I've never paid prices like that for groceries.

I moved to the US from Uk 2 years ago with 2 school going kids and here my take:

1. Almost everything is more expensive than the UK (and i was used to live in Surrey, which was already expensive)
2. Standard of education (and everything else for that matter) is LOW. Cursive hand writing is a challenge for many school kids here, so is reading time from a manual clock.
3. Food quality isn’t good either.
4. Many things that we take for granted aren’t available in the US for example grocery from the ‘corner shop’, Foot paths to walk, roundabouts to drive signal free, being able to catch a budget airline and explore different countries and cultures just few hrs away …..and last but not least the ‘common sense’.
5. Strange sports and not much connection to the rest of the world.
6. Everything feels dumbed down somehow.

Yes i ve a bigger house and a bigger car but i dont expect to be able to find ppl who can hold a intellectually meaningful conversation.

More than anything i feel guilty that i ve done my kids a disservice to put them into the American education system.

@BlauVogel

My American friends want to move to the Uk
for all the reasons you list - when can you come home? Or move to a blue city with multiple universities perhaps?

It's just for a couple of years or so? Go and try it. You can always come back.

A couple of years will fly by. And family can come and visit no bother.

A short adventure for you all.

Sounds like it's an assignment in which you will keep all your Uk benefits. Go and enjoy. We came back after a 5 year assignment and had the best time. Make the most of the travel and have an amazing time.

I am in Chicago, which is already a liberal city with good universities still i find the general levels of media, conversations and intellect lacking.

For me it seems that the move is permanent, so no coming back to the UK. Also the standard of things (and job market) is going down hill in the UK, so not sure what will it be like in 10-15 years.

Where did you move to? Education really varies but having just read a post on Here about state schools vs private in the UK all I could think of were the amazing opportunities that my kids’ state school in the US offers, far more than any UK private school. And I have never had an issue with their academics. Strange sports, like baseball (which sold out stadiums in London last week) NFL (sells out in London) and rhat weird sport of soccer which is getting extremely popular and doesn’t even seem to exist in the UK. Food varies sure but at least IME the food offerings in the US are excellent in a lot of places, especially the fruits and vegetables. I’m sorry you don’t like it but your observations are very odd to me

Have lots of family in TN. The climate and scenery isn't that different from the UK. Rolling green hills, 4 seasons. The food isn't great especially if you're vegetarian. Most people are religious. It isn't a tolerant state for gay people or anyone slightly different. It's not somewhere that has an amazing culture of it's own unless you like hunting/church/horse riding/country music. Not like New York or New Orleans or somewhere coastal. Food prices are quite high. You can't walk anywhere, it's all just driving between malls. One of the main things I don't like is no public right of way, so if you want to walk somewhere, or walk your dog, you have to use a park. National Parks don't let dogs off leads and always feel a bit spooky to me to go out alone in.
I used to really really want to live in the US, but TN is quite a boring state really. And I wouldn't want to live there now as politics are so extreme, worker's rights are terrible. Oh, and you don't have gardens. Even a lot of mansions just have a strip of unfenced green. Not something they prioritise at all.

On education quality - it's just different, is what I would say. I have personally been to both an American school and a British school and several family members have too.

In terms of the education side itself, me and everyone I know who has made the transfer has found that British state schools are further ahead academically - like my 6 year old in a British state school is reading literally the same books as his 9 year old American cousin and both kids are roughly the same intelligence level. But the extra curriculars and facilities will be better in American schools in good school districts.

Where in America, what's the job and what's the package?

Moving to somewhere like, say, Oregon or the north east is totally different from, say, Texas or New York. How are you with gun laws?

And if it's California you're going to, the salary needs to be much, much higher than the UK....

I live in a relatively well off suburb with high median income and mostly professionals and state school of high ratings still my observations hold true (for me atleast) because both of my kids are sailing through the curriculum here, finding it not challenging enough. Things they studied in the uk are being taught here a year later. These are not just my observations, go and google it.

As for the sports, you don’t to take it personally. NFL, baseball, basketball etc are largely confined to the US. Not many ppl outside US play them.

@BlauVogel When were you last in the UK? I've just been in London and the price of everything, especially food, was unbelievable and a lot more than back in the US (North Carolina) even though I agree inflation has had an impact here too.

2021

‘Are you comfortable with your kids going to a school that casually bans perfectly normal books because somebody has decided that Harry Potter is satanic etc.?’

As opposed to threatening to execute the author because she thinks that men are not women, you mean.

I’m glad you said that about Knoxville we may have the opportunity to move there in the next 18 months. We are slightly older so no kids at school or worries about pregnancies.

If it will only be 2-3 years and it will be good career wise then go for it but do not underestimate the toll on you of "young children being away from extended family".
If the move will be more long term, the sacrifice of giving up wider family is a significant one and I am not sure it is worth it.

I managed with four young dcs as no family nearby.

You will be fine.

Ffs. This you need extra family nearby to mange stuff is ludicrous

Cursive writing was on the outs in many schools for a while. Some are bringing it back.

The pace does vary by location. I would say that England, in general, is a little bit obsessed with curriculum pace and being the furthest ahead. I've seen English expats complain about schools being behind in the USA, Canada, NZ, Australia, and parts of Europe. Remember England has one of the earliest starts for formal schooling. There's good and bad to the differences; everyone wants to think their child is bright and academic and headed for the top, but it's not true. Some kids will do better with a slower pace.

Funnily enough a friend had a recent Facebook thread about learning to read an analogue clock -- her DC weren't good at it, mine did have it covered properly.

Food quality: you do need to learn how to shop. I've had top quality food here and I've had garbage. Mass market supermarkets in the USA tend to be mediocre.

I'm another American who reports that as DH and I moved up the ranks in our jobs we've had very liberal vacation time in addition to federal holidays. One employer even offered a paid sabbatical. There are lots of misconceptions about the US on MN, but I think the supposed lack of time off is probably the most repeated.

Someone mentioned that people in the financial sector might be pressured not to take vacation. It has been my experience that people working in the financial sector are required to take vacation time. Among other reasons, it's a fraud prevention measure.

Oooof. If you said somewhere on the West Coast, I’d say go. But Tennessee - oh my gosh, no.
disgusting attitudes toward women and people of other races than white.
awful weather - AWFUL.
horrible traffic If you’re anywhere near Nashville.
Cicadas.
intolerance of anyone different.
forget getting a decent cup of tea while you’re there.

pros: it’ll be inexpensive. That’s about all I can think of. Oh. and there are some lovely trees and waterways.

Newsflash!
The US isn't the UK!

Lol @ 'strange sports'. If that's not parochialism I don't know what is.

Also, I'd choose the 4-way stop over a roundabout any day.

And, budget airlines can take you to NYC, DC, New Orleans, LA, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Savannah, Kansas City, Seattle, Orlando, if you want different cultures a few hours away. Or if you want to leave the country there's the entire Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, Central America.

Don't worry about your kids in the American education system. Plenty of people with an American education end up in the best regarded universities in the world, both state and private, without having to leave the country.

I've turned down chances to move to the US because it's not somewhere I want to live long term or for the rest of my life. I'd maybe consider a couple of years as there are some beautiful national parks I'd love to visit. This would be difficult with three such young children though. What are your goals when you're there? If it's something like seeing some of the country, is this opportunity something you can do when the children are older? They'd get more out of it then too.