If you were to emigrate for a better life, schools, bringing up family etc where would it be?

[seshi]

Just out of interest is anyone else starting to think that the UK isn't the greatest place to bring up children and thinking of moving abroad. If so what places spring to mind? And why? Has anyone already moved and regreted it? Or loving it?

ve been poor in NZ and poor here.
at least in nz you have free lovely beaches and places to go like swimming pools that are affirdable.
but we live in a nice village in lincs... We are happy here but nz does crop up in our covsrrstions.

NZ is lovely but too quiet and to far from the UK for me

We recently moved from London to a secondary city in America.

What many of you say is true - we have a lovely big house (5x size of our London flat for approx same cost), a beautiful garden, good school, safe and clean city, reasonable climate, etc. Life is more affordable here, though not as much as I would have thought due to necessity of owning/insuring a car rather than being able to walk or use public transport. Also, having private health insurance is important and if not provided by work, it can be very expensive.

People here are generally very nice, but incredibly insular - they don't know and don't much care about world events, and there isn't much opportunity for exposure to/tolerance of people from other countries and cultures (except those from Mexico).

In many ways, our quality of life is much better, but I sometimes worry about dd growing up with a parochial outlook/attitude due to influence of her local peers. Is that a concern for anyone else?

YES earlybird! I have 2 dds and am scared that they will turn into Adelaide Stepford women, thinking that Adelaide is the best place on the planet (having never left that is). I meet a lot of women like this and have to restrain myself from shouting about London/Paris/New York/Rome etc etc like a madwoman.

We moved to Germany last year and apart from the archaic school system there's a lot going for it. We can afford a much bigger house in a really nice area (compared to the pokey Victorian terrace we had in a rough area of SE London). Kids are actively encouraged to be more independent here, it's quite normal for 6/7 year olds to walk to school alone and they play outside with friends a lot more than in London. It reminds me a lot of my childhood when parents were nowhere near as paranoid as they are now.

At times I do miss London though.

How upsetting for you geekgirl! That's awful. She's just lovely. I expect it was all about costs (healthcare etc). How did they express it though - they would not accept your family due to dd's disability? Did they come right out and put that in writing?

Have you tried NZ, you can move from NZ to Australia without great difficulty later on once you have the papers.

I grew up in Canada and choose to live in the UK.

I live in beautiful part of the country though ,I love it here and would never move back despite the downfalls.

Grass isn't always greener ime.

we're in the queue for canada already - but may have geekgirl's problem as dd2 also has a disability. it always makes me a bit that brits with disabilities aren't allowed to leave the country...
we lived in canada for 2 1/2 years and it was truly awesome... have also lived in germany but only with tiny baby, so would love the opportunity to see the country from a school-age perspective!

I agree with Earlybird.

We have just moved back to the UK after two years in Canada. It is not really a forward looking or liberal place. We lived in the suburbs of a big city, but it felt parochial and insular. Attitudes are conservative (with a small c) and I found it one of the most conformist places I have lived. People were superficially friendly but actually very rooted in their own lives with little interest in new things, ideas or people. It is a bit of a cultural desert. I got invited to three lots of bible study, a cookie swap and no book groups in the time I lived there.

I quite accept that I am a very urban Londoner and that suburban Canadian life was unlikely to suit me, but it goes further than that. Canada is a low wage/high tax economy, so unless you can buy a house outright, the cost of living is high (I have gone on about this on another thread previously). Unless you are on a very good expat package you will not feel better off.

If what you want is open spaces (outside the suburbs), lots of consumer choice, a huge carbon footprint and winter sports, Canada is fab. There are very good things about the school system in some respects. But it really isn't some idyllic destination.

lulu-I totally agree with you

cyteen - some good friends of ours were turned down when they wanted to move to Australia because their youngest child had an on-going kidney problem. I was a bit shocked too.

yes, I discovered that I have to have a thorough medical check before being allowed to emigrate - I should be ok, only problem is an ongoing back/pelvis thing which I deal with via an osteopath anyway, but I was a bit shocked at the sort of things that could exclude you. Especially as the Australians all have to have medical insurance anyway (according to my DH and MIL)

I think that one of the things that I will really miss is the proximity to Europe; luckily DH loves France and Italy too so we would probably make sure that when we come back to visit in the uK we fit in a week in Europe somewhere too

taipo, where in germany are you? we are thinking of germany/switzerland too- mainly because of dh's job...

thanks!

We are in SW Germany, very near the French border and on the northern edge of the Black Forest. Do you know whereabouts you would move to?

beforesunrise, I was hoping to return to the UK this year with family but any job offers we got didn't pay well enough compared to Germany and the cost of living here isn't as high as in the UK - yet!

thumbwitch - your DH and MIL are incorrect - not all australians have to have medical insurance. Our family of 5 does not have it. Health system here runs along the lines of NHS.

Unfortunately the govt discriminates on the basis that if you are going to be a drain ( for want of a better term) on the health system and require long term on going medical care - that could be accessed by an aussie patient then you usually are denied a visa.

You see there's a not so little part of me that secretely wishes I could just upsticks and move overseas, I think it's my job that's stopping me. Lots of client interface therefore a need to speak the lingo. PLus the fact that if I don't like it I'd just hsve to come back again and my job again doesn't sufer fools gladly so would be very difficult to get to the same level, plus now I have the dcs.
Secretely I'd like to become a ski bunny or work for the UN or emigrate to France/Canada and become a SAHM or travel the world for a couple of years (although that would be exhausting with my bunch) or be married to some rich banker type bloke and let his job pay for us to go all over the place while I stay at home and spend the loot (not likely with the credit crunch) and speak about 8 languages. I'd also sometimes like to be a Euro type person with long dyed blonde hair, a great tan and sunglasses who speaks about 6 languages and doesn't seem to really need a wage to live but spends a lot of time 'studying' in romantic cities like Paris.
There you go.....

Basically I'm a worrier... I'm too worried about health insurance to go to the US. I know you can get it with your job but what happens if you loose your job?

Vancouver, Canada

well in germany it would be dusseldorf...

beforeSunrise
Ohhh, come to Düsseldorf, it is lovely here.

Seriously, I have lived in a few diffenent towns and counties in Germany and we LOVE it here.

The only reason we are leaving is that DH has a new job in Geneva and everyone says that it is fantastic there too.

well our possibilities wd be dusseldorf or zurich... the main thing that scares me about dus is the language anf not being able to find a job (i am not sahm material i am afraid). otoh, i suppose in terms of housing etc we'd have a much better life there than either london or zurich...

You should find it easier to learn German in Düsseldorf than in Zurich, Swiss German is

Germany is not ideal for a working mum, I must admit. The childcare is pretty dismal.

Düsseldorf is great for living though, a fantastic town with flair. Very close to other good towns, Cologne is only 30 mins away. And under an hour to Holland and Belgium. There is loads to do and see in the area.

thanks mmlindt. i think that in zurich i could get by and work even before i learn the language (i am an italian native speaker and speak v good french, so i know 2 out of 3 of the swiss languages plus english), whereas i am not so sure in dusseldorf... moreover my field is finance (banking in particular) which i am not sure is so well developed in dusseldorf...

in any case we need some job offers for dh to come through- he is going to zurich tomorrow for an interview, so we will see

LOL, lululemonrefuser, I promise you that not all of Canada is as you describe! Several cities have vibrant literary/arts/political scenes. But completely agree, suburban Canada is absolutely not somewhere I'd EVER chose to live, despite (or because of?) having spent many years there.