Spanglish future family in London!

[TJE88]

Hi there, I was wondering if anyone might have the time to chat: I'm an English guy with a Spanish (Galician) partner and we have been talking about having children - we live in London and we aren't quite sure about whether we would prefer to have our family in the UK or Spain.

Lots of things to consider as the pace and general quality of life is almost certainly more attractive in Spain, but my partner and I probably have better career prospects here and do put a lot of value in certain British and Spanish traits (which can be very different).

The niños would have grandparents in both England and Spain. It would be really nice to hear from anyone with similar experiences, where you ended up and why, etc.

Many thanks,
Tom

Hola Tom!

My partner and I are in a somewhat similar situation as his family is in Spain and we live in Scotland; however, my family is in Canada. We've visited Spain and his family oh so many times over the past ten years and I can firmly say that I would not want to move my family to Spain permanently (as that would mean moving to Madrid) for a number of reasons: jobs (the pay for what we do is so much better in the UK), family (I do love them, but I want some distance between my family and the relatives), quality of life (we live in a small fishing village. Imagine our shock at anonymity and rudeness endemic to large cities like Madrid).

This isn't to say that you can't up sticks for a few months at a time and go and stay with your suegros in Galicia. Give the kids some proper Spanish (or Galician) immersion.

The more I think about it, the more I think that what we have up in Scotland is what you're looking for in Galicia: a calmer, quieter pace of life in a smaller city/town. Maybe it's not so much Spain v. UK, as town v. The Big City?

Either way, best of luck!