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?

I live in stoke newington - which is always in the news lately. I grow up in London and have never lived anywhere else. I have two young children and I feel very sad that our wonderful city is somewhere that most of my friends are leaving. I don't want to leave as I think London is a fantastic place and offers great resources to children and young people. However I do think about it - it is a very different place compared to when I was a teenager

I am the eldest of 13 cousins - all except 3 live in London. The ones who live in a village havebe.
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dd2 is typing - sorry.

Went to the corner shop an hour ago - on my way back I saw a teenager surounded by 3 others and one of them punched him in the face several times. I didn't have my mobile with me so ran back to the shop - everyone had disappeared by then.

This is an every day occurence for some.

I never thought London was the place for me to bring up children - I have idyllic memories of my childhood in a provincial city where I roamed for miles with my brother all day long... Now I'm in SE London with 2DS's (5 & 3) and contend with daily dog poo on the walk to school...cars going 60 in a 20mph area... similar to other places, I'm sure. However with headlines of seemingly random shootings and stabbings around where I live (New Cross) I am increasingly worried for the boys safety as they grow up: but I can't shield them too much - it is their environment and they will have to learn to live in it and be aware

How sad Mercy. The normalisation of violence is just horrible.

i was born and lived in london all my life i was in brixton and my dh came from croydon when we met and married first thing we did was move away
live in a rural part of the country now my dc cycle everywhere we take loads of lovely walks its a great place to be
i have had to visit london to to family commitments and it always seems dirty crowded and my dc hate it there.
where i live everyone had to sign a letter stating that we would respect each other
no violence
no loud music no swearing outside no mess no bins out no loitering the list is endless
maybe a bit over the top you might think yes it might be
we have our own policing here its a safe place to be
kinda of a bubble some people have said and not real
we have local parks and the teenagers hang in them but if asked to stop swearing they do we do not get abuse here we all wanted a nice place to live and trust me we have to pay to live here,but we all strived for the same enviroment and got it
live in london again absloutely no chance

Have just read OP. I live in a part of London where relatively high numbers of of teenagers have been stabbed and there have been several murders in the last couple of years.

TBH my 14 year old son chooses not to hang around outside ever. I am very glad about this as I think this is a streetwise judgement of his.

He has not been kept off the streets by us - he used to play out with his friends from the age of 5 or so - not too far away, just down our road which is quiet. Then, around the age of 10 or so, he stopped wanting to play out it as he found it boring.

Later, when he went to secondary school and saw incidences of teenage gang behaviour, he found the idea of hanging around outside too risky.

He avoids local gangs and as he is not in one, feels vulnerable. He has already had his mobile phone taken off him in a local park (on a sunny day at 6 pm) with a threat of mugging. Now, he will only go out to play football or cricket in the parks if he has arranged to meet a few good friends - he would never just turn up by himself and join in a match.

Wierdly, my 8 year old in a way is safer IMO. He plays out in our street - just a few houses away, with a group of neighbouring children around the ages of 7 - 12. He loves this and there have been no problems with crime or gangs. I think there's a good chance he too will stop wanting to play out when he reached secondary school age.p

TBH, I think teenagers are more at risk here. This is how my oldest son sees it, anyway.

Have just read OP. I live in a part of London where relatively high numbers of of teenagers have been stabbed and there have been several murders in the last couple of years.

TBH my 14 year old son chooses not to hang around outside ever. I am very glad about this as I think this is a streetwise judgement of his.

He has not been kept off the streets by us - he used to play out with his friends from the age of 5 or so - not too far away, just down our road which is quiet. Then, around the age of 10 or so, he stopped wanting to play out it as he found it boring.

Later, when he went to secondary school and saw incidences of teenage gang behaviour, he found the idea of hanging around outside too risky.

He avoids local gangs and as he is not in one, feels vulnerable. He has already had his mobile phone taken off him in a local park (on a sunny day at 6 pm) with a threat of mugging. Now, he will only go out to play football or cricket in the parks if he has arranged to meet a few good friends - he would never just turn up by himself and join in a match.

Wierdly, my 8 year old in a way is safer IMO. He plays out in our street - just a few houses away, with a group of neighbouring children around the ages of 7 - 12. He loves this and there have been no problems with crime or gangs. I think there's a good chance he too will stop wanting to play out when he reached secondary school age.p

TBH, I think teenagers are more at risk here. This is how my oldest son sees it, anyway.

I am raising my young son in East London (Brick Lane area). London is such a wonderful, vibrant place - we never have a weekend go by where I have no idea what to do. Parks, museums, theatres...it's all there. Plus the chance for him to experience just about any culture you can imagine. HOWEVER. At night I lay awake, the sound of young men shouting threats across the street to each other, bottles being thrown, sirens wailing past the window. It makes me incredibly anxious thinking about how I can equip my son with the skills to avoid violent confrontation. Of course it makes me want to leave London but I work with people from rural areas/small towns outside the M25 and the problems they experience there are not to be sniffed at either: drug abuse and heavy drinking on the weekends is par for the course leading to violent brawls come pub closing time. I don't know what I will do in the future, but I do know we all as parents have a huge responsibility to teach our children how to be a decent human beings, leading to responsible adults.

mummy2luca i agree with you very much

i loved london for the culture and as you say so much to do and see
people have just plained spoiled it
it is our responsibility to teach our children to become responsible people but very hard to do living in a society we do
i was a drugs/alcohol advisor a few years ago but had to give the job up as basically i am just to hard hearted for the job.i see it as self inflicted and thats was that i couldnt help people that wanted an easy way out at our expense
i live in a very different environment now and we have had to pay nearly half million for our house basicaly worked like horsed us both for years to get where we are
my older son whos nearly 20 thinks i coccon my little ones and maybe i do
but whats the right or wrong thing to do
exactly what you said at the end of your post so spot on

but whats so sad is we teach ours to be good it doesnt stop others who havnt had the same teaching affecting or bullying our dc
my boys are just going in sept to a private school as where they are bullying is rife and the answers i get is im sorry these kids have issues its the way they are brought up
what so they have to bully mine?

Funnily enough we divide our time between a tiny rural community and central London and whilst I would rather live in the country, we're not going to move full time because of the children.

They absolutely love having free rein in the country, cycling off on their own and having endless space to do what they like in. However they still love London in terms of all it has to offer, its vibrancy and its diverse population. They get so much out of the museums, theatre and so on. I hate to think of them being teenagers in the country and missing out on that experience in London, particularly given their independence to use the tube.

As for risks, drugs are everywhere and as far as knife crime is concerned, surely far more teenagers die on contry roads than are stabbed in London. 30 or so a year is a tiny number in a city of 6 million.

Disneystar that sounds hellish to me, reminds me of a story I read about a new build estate where you were fined for hanging out your washing as it looked 'messy'. Or 'Celebration' in Florida.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida

Surely children raised in such a 'bubble' will be at a loss when they enter the real world?

I don't mean this as a provocation, I'm just genuinely interested at why you would chose to compromise yourselves financially and what you would think, if say your 20 year old decided to move to Brixton.

And back to the op, I feel London is as safe as anywhere, there is very little unprovoked violence, and it is usually between gangs rather than random.

why does it sound hellish to you?

and what is the real world is it a world where people get stabbed mugged abused or the world where respect in the nicer term is used and responsibility and manners are used

ok its a bit of both but i choose to raise my children in the latter if we go past in the car some whoevers swearing and acting stupid my 7 yr old saw someone throwing a brick through a car in town
he just said to me why,s he doing that how stupid is that and whats the point
exactly 7 yr old charlie if you know the difference a pity the guy didnt
no they are not in a bubble we come into contact daily with all sorts good bad inbetween
i choose to send my dc to a private school
i know celebration well in FL which is why i found this place to live
i want them to have the choice for there own if my 20 yr old wanted to live in brixton id probably laugh and say go ahead but you will find it a different place to here but we all have to make our own decisions in life and choose to do the right thing
i know they way i live isnt everyones vision but its ours

I've raised my ds in hackney - he's now nearly 15 and i'm very proud of how mature, aware, open minded, and sensible he is. it's true that knife crime is a terrible problem but children are still at far greater risk of violence, abuse and accidents within the home and family than on the streets of london. My dd is now four and we are very happy that she will be going to our local school with 40 languages spoken and many different cultural and religious traditions represented (as does our ds who has friends of many races/religions/class backgrounds). I'm from australia so have the option of that kind of lifestyle but am happy to have my kids here. And statistically the rates of teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, alcohol abuse are higher in small communities where there is less for kids to do. That said, when we go on holiday in the country I think how lovely it is. But London gets a worse rap than it deserves, and so do London teenagers.

not all teenagers are bad i have a 19 yrs old ds and 17 ds both work very sensible lads
last week my ds was coming home from work and when he got to the end of the cul de sac he turned his moped of and pushed it to the house it was 11 pm he didnt want to wake anyone
still neighbours complained said typical teenagers and there bikes
next day my son knocked at the moaning minnies doors and stated his case politely and with respect
2 came round to see me to say what a lovely lad he was and how sorry they were for complaining
london teenagers are the same as anywhere good and bad
i used to live in hackney at stephen close
its we just prefer open spaces cleaner air
stuff like that its way to built up for me there,i feel suffocated,but then ppl feel lonely in the country we are all different

if parents are happy for the dc to go to a multicultural school thats there choice its just not mine

I think London gets an unneccessarily bad press. Where we live in SW London is green and clean and so friendly, with loads of parks and commons, we are spoilt for choice for places to go and that's without going to central London to the museums or out to places like Hampton Court. We walk everywhere and the local primaries are excellent. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had teenagers but I'd say I feel safer here than growing up in Newcastle in the 70s.

But no doubt the extortionate house prices will mean we will move out as well eventually and while I love the space and greeness of the country, I can't say I'm looking forward to the lack of diversity and leaving all my friends, the vast majority of whom, from all stages of my life, have moved to London.

Both DH's family and my sister live in rural areas and they all drive so much more than we do, stay in their houses much more, and venture out less. And the traffic's worse where they live in terms of speeding cars and number of fatal accidents.

I have a totally different take on this
I have dds and live in a pretty safe part o London. If I had dss I would feel quite differently, young men are definitely the ones at risk of stabbings etc, a good friend's son was stabbed in the leg in his local park recently by some boys from his school who wanted his ipod and is completely traumatised. That is a horrible prospect for a mother to deal with. But girls seem no more at risk than they would be anywhere in the country.
What worries me about bringing up children in London is the level of wealth in some parts of this city and in our area (a posh one though we're not very rich and have ended up here almost by accident).
I think there's such extraordinary levels of conspicuous consumption and materialism on display in the families round about us, it makes me very worried about what values they are going to grow up with. I'm sure it's the same all over the country but as with everything what you get in London is more extreme.
Fwiw I grew up in a city about an hour from London but at 16 moved to London, so had my sixth form here. The girls who'd grown up in London were so over-protected compared to me, I'd had a lot of freedom to roam around after school on my bike with my mates, stay out until all hours, whereas they had all been ordered to walk straight home from school and stay put with the doors locked. They were a bit of a prim lot, though that also may come down to the kind of schools they were educated in. I hope my dds grow up to be a bit more free spirited but have no intention of moving because my dh needs to be here for work and like many of the above ops I think there are so many fabulous opportunities in this city

"if parents are happy for the dc to go to a multicultural school thats there choice its just not mine"

So it's not London per se, it's just all those nasty 'foreigners'?!

Uncalled for lucicle, Disney is as entitled to her opinion as anyone else.

Personally I like where I live in London but I refuse to send my DS to the local state primary, some of the things that go on there are terrifying - police called regularly etc to a PRIMARY school.

My DS is going to a private catholic school and we are not even catholic. Do I feel ever so slightly guilty personally about this? Yeah a little bit. But my DS's safety is MY concern I really don't care about other people's kids as much, sorry not very PC but it is true. So if I can keep MY little boy safe by using my money then I damn well will.

I am just about done with London, I hale from Sydney and am ready to move my family home. I too have loved the cultural stuff and being able to get everywhere on foot/bus, but for us I just need more space. I don't find London a good place for kids aged 5+, I appreciate others disagree and that's fine.

thank you morloth

when i said that it was meant without malice there are many different cultures that live in the uk now and that doesnt matter a jot to me each person is entitiled to there own opinion
for example my 2 ds went to normal state school they are still there till sept
my 7 yr old cannot understand his teacher,s accent and its very hard for me to
when i questioned why we had a teacher in an english school with this nationality i was told the majority of the pupils were of this culture
thats ok im not going to argue with that
example school trips at this school
music lessons at this school........ok
no trips hardly is not fair to those who cannot afford it
if you are on a benefit you go free if not tough you pay and 80% were of this nationality and we had to pay why?
if they wanted to learn a musical intrument same rules apply
uniform could not be enforced for same reasons
see its not the nast foreigners are you put it
i want the best for my children and i can afford the best so they will get it
private schooling everone is the same trips music after school clubs much safer environment take pride all of them in what they do
my children will not suffer for other familys that have issues as the school put it
please dont make me out to be something im not
i lived in london for 25 years so did my dh for 22 years we grew up there so i have a view
i never had a choice 20 years ago where to send my dd was young and broke
ive worked my butt of over the years to get the life we have now so i know it from both angles
i had to explain myself though i shoudnt of had to please stick to the original post

I have lived in London for 21 years and my DS1 is about to go to secondary school locally.

We live north of Southwark quite near to the river and do have teenage gangs etc but as yet few stabbings although have been a couple of murders.

However where we live is also quite green and very good for cycling.

Things have got worse but tbh even when I moved here in 1987 was always careful about places like Old Kent Rd, Deptford, Walworth and Peckham.

I am very concerned about things but won't be moving.
He and his peers are also quite worried.

Sorry, but it just sounds like you're digging yourself a hole there. And I don't understand half of what you posted, frankly. It's not in sentences.

I went to a private school myself, but I'm pretty sure my parents weren't trying to avoid particular ethnic groups in choosing it.

Your original post was what I originally quoted from. It still sounds a bit dodgy to me.