Do you raise your children in London? Are you scared?

[novadandypowder]

With all the news reports of shootings and stabbings, my DH mentioned to me last night that he's having second thoughts about raising our 2 dc's in London. We've both lived here for over 10 years and have a dd 2.7 and ds 15mnths. I would like to think my DH is over-reacting, and I do love this city most of the time, but I must admit, I'm a bit scared now too.

How do you feel about it?

Yes and slightly, but not enough to stop us doing what we want.

We moved back to London from a place that many people would consider idyllic for raising children. But as a family we are all just too urban. The benefits of bringing children up in London far outweigh the problems.

DaddyJ is right - when you think how many people live here it is pretty safe.

Also, it does drive me mad when people fall into the trap of thinking rural or suburban life is automatically safer for children. It isn't.

In 2007 3090 children were killed or seriously injured on the roads in the UK (121 died) and of that total figure only 331 were in London. Of course, that horrifying statistic only makes the news once a year when the figures come out, and a story in local papers. If a child was being stabbed every third day it would be much bigger news, but road deaths are just somehow accepted.

I grew up in a semi-rural area and dangerous driving, drugs, petty-crime, teenage pregnancy were all just as much a problem as they are in bits of London; to be honest, much LESS of that happens in our part of London than where I grew up.

People need to look coldly at the facts before they panic and move out. The grass isn't always greener.

Ooh Perkin, I live near you! and you're right - just drive down to Beckenham on a Friday night to see the lager louts at laarge!
I feel safe where I live with my primary-age children. We love London (especially our bit ) and have no plans to move, but I am quite worried, particularly for my DS, when he is a teenager - it's so easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We are moving out of London because of the school situation, rather than the crime situation. I grew up in a small village and know very well that shit happens everywhere.

But I am also getting older and I am tired of the constant fights down our high street, the having to allow an hour or more to get anywhere because of the shitty traffic, the alcoholics wandering down the road throwing random bottles at mothers walking their children to school, the pollution, the lack of space, the impossibility of public transport with kids...

I still love London in a funny love-hate way but it's just not for me any more.

We are moving out of London because of space - I'm pregnant and we can't afford to get somewhere bigger here. DH can relocate, so it makes sense. But I will miss the fantastic museums etc when my children get bigger, the ones that they are too young for/not born yet at the moment.

I am intending to move out of West London as and when I am able to sell my property.

There are a number of reasons partly neighbourhood, partly a need to be closer to dd's GPs and partly due to worrying about dd growing up in such a violent environment.

I grew up in a village and yes we were rowdy and drank a lot. There were some drugs but not the class A stuff that is easily available now.

My niece and nephew have lived in London their entire lives. I know that they get up to a great deal more than I ever did at 14 and 16yrs.

IMO, my niece and nephew are every bit as wayward as those kids hanging around the centre of the market town. They're just doing it in places like Hampstead Heath and Kensington Gardens or at one of their many friends' houses.

My brother and the other parents of these kids seem to be really laid back and relaxed about it all.

I am probably being very niave about parenting teens but I don't intend to be letting dd wander around the streets of wherever we are living in the middle of the night.

Not that these horrible events don't happen at any time during the day or night.

We moved out of London last summer when I was expecting DTs and DS1 was 18 months. It was partly as we couldn't afford a big enough house in the part of London we were living, and partly that we didn't want our DCs growing up there. Even in Putney, where we were, which is a "nice" area, there was plenty of crime. We are now in Winchester and I feel far happier about my DCs growing up here .

I was born and bred in London and lived there for 32 years. All my family are still there and I do love it, but am glad we moved (just wish my family would come too...).

Yes and not really. Or not yet. I worry more about them being hit by a car. If we'd move out of London, it would be for quality of life, larger house/garden, a more relaxed lifestyle.

I lived in London, north and south all my life until a few years ago when we moved to commuter-ville. If you had asked me this question then I would have said that I wasn't scared. However, now I realise just how much fear was part of daily life, so much so that I didn't even notice it. It was only when we moved that I realised that some people are able to walk to the shops without keeping their eyes open for suspicious looking people. My dh often leaves the car unlocked (he's forgetful) and it's always still there in the morning. When we lived in London we were considered lucky because our burglery was when we were out and that was a 'good' area.

I still miss it though!

i grew up in a notoriously rough part of se london, and now live in a slightly (but not much) nicer part of se london. this kind of thing has been happening for as long as i can remember, i am not really convinced that the crime is much worse than it ever was, it has always happened but it is now reported on much more. i wont be leaving london because of it.

"some people are able to walk to the shops without keeping their eyes open for suspicious looking people"

But do those of you who live in London really do this? I have lived all over London and never have. Maybe I'm foolish?

I love it that it is headline news in the local rag here that someone's shed was broken into. (nothing taken,mind!).Headlines on the Camden New journal were more of the dismembered body in canal variety.

The statistics showing how many young people who have been stabbed and murdered in London alone this year is enough to make any mothers blood run cold, it shakes you to the core. We go to London a few times a year with the kids and while it's fun, diverse, has lots to do, I couldn't contemplate bringing my kids up there or in any city for that matter. We lived in city and had a fab time until our kids were born and that was it for us, we moved. Where we live it's lovely, safe and has a real community spirit. I don't worry about the kids going out as much as I would if I lived in a city, my heart would stop every time they went out of the door. These gangs don't care who they get as long as they get someone, you only have to look on YouTube to see the crap this country is home to, they don't contribute anything to society except grief and violence and it's decent, honest, really great young people like ours that pay the price.

I live in the burbs of SE London - I am concerned at the knife crime that is happening but a friend of mine was murdered (stabbed) when I was 15 so it's not entirely a new thing and I am certainly not scared when I'm out.

My kids are young and I have huge concerns for when they go out when they are bigger but over things like not getting run over (you know how you are invincible when you are a teenager and cross the road sideways looking all blase and confident - until a car hits you and breaks your legs that is).

Anyway, I digress, I am not scared.

helly - our local newspaper's headline last week was "woman gets parking ticket - for parking in the wrong place".

We live in West London and are currently thinking of heading back to the Midlands.

Our DS is pre-school now and to be honest, it wouldn't worry me to stay here for the next 5 years but I don't want him going to secondary school here.

But I think it depends how you were brought up yourself. I was brought up in a large village and, whilst mum and dad ferried me everywhere and it was boring at times, i did mean there was bugger all else to do but my homework and I had sufficient drive to get out of the god forsaken place. My parents are both dead now but I'n sure they would find it hysterical that I would contemplate moving back now.

There are drugs in rural towns but tends to be much more the smoking dope in graveyards than crack pipes in back alleys. There is also knife crime and rough areas but nowhere near to the same degree as London.

I agree about rural road accidents though, that's a whole new area of worry I'm glad I don't have for 15 years.

I don't know what the answer is but I think it is about raising your children where you feel you can protect them. Obviously some will feel better able to do that in the middle of a city, and some out of town.

I think the advantages for outweigh the disadvantages TBH. And the deaths from car accidents was a very good point. I also agree that it depends what part of london you live in. I also think you can teach your kids to be streetwise, as another poster has described.

I have lived in london for 20 years and was brought up in the country. There were several knife fights when i was at school in rural scotland and one of my classmates was killed by a juggernaut when i was 11. In that year one of my classmates became PG.

Since i have been in london, i have not been burgled or mugged. I may have seen the odd used condom and a needle maybe once or twice. I have lived in places varying from bermondsey to chelsea.

I think it is a mistake to imagine that we can protect our children from violence and death just because of where we live. I would rather have all that london has to offer and teach my children how to avoid danger rather than have a totally naive teenager who runs into less predictable dangers in the countryside. remember hungerford? remember dunblane? In addition to the drunks at kicking out time and the huge use of drugs in the countryside.

I lived and worked in London for ten years and loved it. When i became pregnant I was adamant that I would raise my family there because of the diversity and culture.
Then I realised my babies didn't need theatres and restaurants but space and clean air.
It took me a long time to accept our move away but I know it was right for the kids. I still go back often for work and to meet friends and it is getting worse - something I think you notice when you've been away for a while.
The number of mentally ill people wandering around is shocking, the levels of racial tension are ever increasing and the filth...
Why is it getting worse?

not all of london is filthy, yes there is pollution but there are also lots of amazing open spaces, parks, city farms ect. i think its easy to think that londons such a terrible place because of the news coverage, but bad stuff does happen all over the country.

I live in Finchley, North London, and have no plans to move anywhere just yet. to be honest, the only reason we would move away is to buy a house, as the prices round here are SILLY!! There are some very good schools around, there is a good sense of community (even our doctor stops for a chat when we see her on the street!) and the shops/facilities offer everything a young family could want.

I have never seen a fight, or people shooting up/needles on the street or anything else like that. We did have a murder on our road about a month ago - a man stabbed his mother in their home, but that could happen anywhere.

However, my parents live near Bedford - now there is somewhere I would avoid! The whole town centre is a no-drinking zone (on the streets) because of all the fights that regularly happen on a Friday/Saturday night. Also, the village my parents live in has around 500 houses and there have been 4 murders related to drugs gangs in the last 10 years.

I would like dd to grow up in a safe envirnment, but don't see that anywhere these days can be guaranteed safe, so will just do my best to protect her, and educate her about personal safety as she gets older (she is 2 years 5 months now)wherever we are. Ever optimistic!

We are in SW London, and no I am not scared. I'm not sure that knife crime has risen staggeringly over the last few years, altho possibly reporting of it has.

Isn't Nottingham the most violent city in the country (or have i completely made that up - is it burglaries - I will google!)

When I first moved from the lawless plains of Birmingham to work in the Souteast, I lived in a quaint village which was quite picturesque. Two weeks after moving there, a young commuter was raped walking home from work and the attacker was never caught.. That certainly shattered any illusion that I had that anywhere could be really safe.

Remember the woman who was out walking with her son and she was randomly attacked and left paralysed. She lived in so called safe suburbia.

One of my colleagues constantly complains about the gang of yoofs that terrorise his quaint village. They are bored and rich so spend their money on drugs and alcohol.

The crime in London and other large cities are always highlighted but crime in surburbia is always swept under the carpet because Mr and Mrs In-Denial of Acacia Avenue prefer to remain ignorant of what is going on underneath their noses, especially as their beautifully raised off-spring may be involved.

So in answer to OP, I am more scared of raising my sons amongst narrow minded, hateful bigots who glibly blame immigrants for the ills of our society than the rare chance that my sons may end up stabbed to death.

Interesting article

on knife crime 'not increasing' here

We were talking about this last night, DH feeling very stressed by tube journey home and walk through filthy edgy, highstreet. Local incidents seem to have increased (one outside our door last week and then one in the park this week). I still feel relatively safe in London as anywhere - we avoid the bad bits and are cautious generally, but we concluded that its much the same or different but grim problems everywhere - I think I'd like to live in a different time - say 50 years ago - rather than a different place!

well said spokette

Fatbag, 50 years ago was a time of very high crime as well as all the other problems like being blown up in your bed.

After the war, there was a very active black market to bypass the strict rationing system but where did these goods come from? They were stolen. Often violently. Goods and rationing coupons were often stolen, by large organised gangs. And of course there was no shortage of weapons available to help the robbers.

In 1947, police arranged a gun amnesty following the shooting of an innocent man, Mr Antiquis, who had witnessed a violent robbery. In a single day more than 18,000 hand guns and 300 machine guns were handed into police stations.

Statistically, crime is no worse now than it was 50 years ago.