City childhoods vs. country childhoods...should we move?

[RoRoMommy]

I would like to hear people's experiences growing up, and/or bringing up their children, in the city and the country, and wonder if you could share thoughts/opinions/experiences that might help me weigh the pros and cons of each.

It would also be really helpful if anyone knows of nice country villages within an hour's train ride of the City that have good schools, a vibrant arts community, and decent entertainment/restaurant options.

Background: we live in the City. I grew up in the city. My husband grew up in various places, among them some rural areas where he was able to run around, climb trees, stay out at night without too much concern of foul play or danger, and generally was free to be a rambunctious, energetic little boy. I worry that my own rambunctious, energetic little boy mostly sees animals at the Hackney City Farm, trees that are planted in cement and bugs on Baby Einstein videos.

So I am thinking, maybe we should move out to the country? That said, we both have jobs in the City and this will not change to accomodate a country life. We'd have to be able to commute relatively quickly and easily.

I appreciate your thoughts (even if it's "stop worrying, he'll be fine in the city").

Lotster, we are in Devon. A village just outside Exeter. It has lots of incomers, and we've found it very easy to make friends.

You can CAT me if you want to know, I'd rather not post it.

Village living needn't be totally car-dependent. We use the car far less than when we lived in Manchester, here we both cycle to work and the dds walk to school, whereas in Manchester we needed 2 cars for the job and nursery commutes. But not needing a car was a priority for us, and it's why we live right near a city rather than in some of the lovely villages and towns further out.

Of course, thanks Fennel

greenbeanie - i live where you grew up! it's fab, isn't it. i do wonder what my kids will make of it when they're teens though, as many others have mentioned. but we love it.

I decided when i was in secondary school that commuting stinks and wasn't for me. I had to get the bus ten miles to school every day and hated it. I hated how my home village/small town was dead during the day and everyone went into the city to work - i thought we were all like little ants streaming into the city at 8am and back at 6pm. I remember those thoughts sooo vividly.

In return i promised that i'd either live in the city or live in the country properly (ie. work there too or work from home and only work in the city a couple of days a week max.)

So far i've not changed my mind.

It's funny, cos our dislike of commuting was one of the reasons we moved out of a big city. And the reason I just couldn't live in London.

But this seems to be the opposite for most people on this thread, who put the dislike of commuting seems to be a reason to stay in a big city.

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fennel i've been surprised and interested by that too. we live 'right out' in the country by many people's standards but i drive 20 mins to work (in a small market town) and that's only two days a week, and my husband 25, to the nearest (tiny!) city.
pruners you made me laugh. i used to work on the isle of mull quite regularly and your experience certainly mirrors that of a lot of the kids i met there!

Look at Barnet - you have overground and underground to Moorgate which would work job wise. You are right on the edge of M25 so easy to get around road wise. It takes 30 mins to get to St Albans and 20 mins to Stevenage for the local theatres there. There is a pick your own farm about 10 mins away - lots of of fields and green parks but still within London. I love living here (am from a small town outside Glasgow originally) and had the "idylic" childhood of wandering and playing in the woods. Good schools in Barnet/Herts too.

sounds like you want Wivenhoe.

Largish village on outskirts of Colchester. has its own railway station, or Intercity to L'pool St from Colchester station. Vibrant pub life, nearby Uni of Essex has theatre and small gallery.

Full of students though
I lived ther when studying and loved it.

I am a Londoner and love it, as do my children. But we are going to move next year - but can work from home most of the time. They also love space and running and we can't afford anywhere in London to give them that. Will rethink when teenagers since I like a glass of wine in the evening so don't want to be on driving duty every night.

Believe it or not, London is not an island in a green wilderness populated only by tiny hamlets. We moved out from SE London because we felt so trapped by not being able to get out and north. We did end up in a village, but might very well have gone for a small town. I really miss the diversity of London and in a funny kind of way, the freedom to do what you like and not have to go in the car everywhere.

You can get a fantastic quality of life in almost any other town or city, and yet be minutes from the countryside or even on the edge of town. Somewhere like (off the top of my head) Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds will have plenty of professional high level work opportunies, loads for kids to do and cheaper house prices than London. If I was you I'd find new jobs and then look for a convenient house. Do your employers have any regional offices, that's what I did, got a transfer.

Stay where you are happy. Make the most of where you live. Try to make the most of opportunities for your children where you live.

I was brought up in a town, my DH in a city, we have lived in London, but now live in a rural town.

I hate car travel, so now we pretty much walk everywhere. I miss easy access to facilities and a more multicultural existence.

I love easy access to open space.

Grass is always greener, so expand your existence where you live now.

Commuting is awful, i did it for five years, and am just thankful I never had children during that time.

Hey Blithedance, so so true. I am laughing at some of the places the Londoners call 'country'. I grew up in London commuter belt land just outside the M25 and would never move back there (even if i could afford it).
Now I live on the edge of a moor (well two minutes walk from it) 12 miles from the centre of a verylarge city in the north of England and even nearer to the centre of another city.
I doubt you could really command the salaries and promotion prospects of someone who works in the city of London, if you live in the North, but I don't care. My children have the best of both worlds.

Sorry this will be a long post because close to my heart!
We moved out of london to rural Somerset two years ago and i have a 21 month old daughter, another on the way. Husband is a solicitor in bristol, supposedly a 50 min commute away. I am currently a stay at home mum, so my situation is a bit different from yours - but some points might be useful.
We moved out of London because London solicitors often work very late and we wanted my husband to see his children every day... but it hasn't worked out like that. When you look at a commute, figure out exactly how long it will take! We thought half hour train ride, plus ten minutes each end = 50 min commute. But in practice, if my husband misses the 5.40pm (which he usually does), he has to wait till the 6.40pm which is then often late etc so he rarely gets home before 7.45 or so. He leaves really early in the morning to get a seat on the train. So unless I keep dd awake in the evenings, he sees her the same or less than he probably would have done in the city...
The other thing I would say is that we aren't even in a village, but the middle of nowhere and it can be quite lonely when you have really small smalls who aren't even at school yet. We have to get in the car for everything, even to get a pint of milk, or go for a walk with the dogs because we are in the middle of a shoot.
I am lucky enough to have two really good friends I see about twice a week each, which gives a focus to most weekdays, plus a handful of other friends i see once every couple of weeks. But it can be hard to make friends in the country - particularly if you are working so you don't get to do school runs etc.
We have dogs, chickens etc, the whole rural idyll and it is Hard Work.
ok, so that is the bad stuff (prob made worse by the fact we all have flu at the mo and are stuck here all day).
The good stuff is pretty great, especially in the summer.
once you make friends, you all stick together and really help each other. Primary schools are small, cheap, unpretentious and amazingly good with teachers who really seem to see it as a vocation. Weekends are fab, there is always so much to do (hmm, except that a lot of it is lawn mowing, diy, etc because you have a bigger house with big garden instead of compact london pad). We have a steam train that goes to the sea from our local village, a brilliant farm shop, a little library, small but good theatre in local town 10 mins away, glorious views and walks and I think it is BRILLIANT for children to be shoved out into the garden, rain or shine and told to go and play, rather than having to be 'entertained' by Mummy/Nanny/TV etc. The country children around here definitely seem to be more resourceful when it comes to playing by themselves than some town children I know who are ferried to activities all day long. Seeing my dd splashing in puddles on a walk with the dogs and coming back all rosy cheeked and happy and tired is so great and she loves walking - she hasn't been in a buggy since she was 18 months old.
We also have a much much nicer house than we would have had in London, even with the cut in pay that my husband took by moving to a regional law firm. When people come down and stay for the weekend, the best bit is when they have to get back in their cars to go to london and I come back inside, put another log on the fire and think how lucky we are to be living here while they are getting Sunday night blues.
Anyway, sorry this has been a ramble and a half. And half way through the next sentence I realised my daughter had a temperature of 41.3 which is the highest ever, so this is now about four hours later after complete panic stations, with no car here (husband taken my car to pick something up today)!
To sum up my thoughts, I think town or large village is best for really littles when you are pushing a buggy and need to have adult contact, I think countryside is great for when they are 4 - 10 and probably back in town for teenagers!
If you are commuting to London and have quite a bit of money, then the area around Chenies and Latimer in Buckinghamshire is absolutely gorgeous, feels really rural and yet is on the end of the Metropolitan tube line! (Chorleywood, Little Chalfont, Amersham). Agree you should rent first to get a feel for it.

ohmigod have just seen how long that post was! sorry!

What about Surrey? Good links to Waterloo and the W&C line to Bank. I am Epsom which is 35mins to Waterloo so an hour door to door for me working in the City.

5mins from the train station is Epsom Downs, Headley, 10mins to Boxhill, Surrey Hills etc. It's a great mix of country living with a decent commute.

I was just going to make a sarky comment about people who move out of London to "live in the country and keep chickens" I'm glad I didn't now because Bees you've really gone for it!

We looked at some houses in the middle of nowhere, I'm so glad we actually ended up in the village so we can walk to school and are in the community a bit.

(Bees have you tried putting your daughter in a tepid bath? We've had that flu it's like the plague)

DH just pointed out (after asking me if I have a life, spending all this time on the internet - he should try being a stay-at-home mummy!) that another problem of having a train commute is that he actually HAS to leave at 5.30 or 6.30pm or whenever to catch the train and consequently leaves jobs unfinished at the end of the day -- not v good for the career.

thank you blithedance, yes did exactly as you suggest, sponged her down in bath with tepid water and another dose of calpol and her temperature actually came down pretty quickly -- the jerking and eyes rolling were a bit scary though - ashamed to say I had a bit of a meltdown! I HATE living middle of nowhere sometimes - we will have to move in a few years and I am definitely campaigning for edge of village...
DH bought me our chickens thinking they would be a nice surprise and something for me to do ?!?!? just a cold walk in the morning out to let them into their run and clear up chicken pooh if you ask me... although Bee (dd) does get v excited to collect the eggs which is sweet!

I grew up in London, and am bringing my dd up here... some major plus points I reckon, one of my favourite is that it is a truly global city. Literally the whole world is here, and I just think it's fantastic that my dd is growing up amidst a whole lot of different cultures. My mum lives in a rural idyll-- peaceful and stunning but it rains a lot and it is so mono-cultural.

Every now and again (usually after UK holiday) DP and I yearn for the countryside idyll - sheep in garden, roses around the door etc. But then remind ourselves that we love London, and are so institutionalised that we probably could not function properly without black cabs and Starbucks.

For us the country dream is probably just a metaphor for wishing that life would be a bit less hectic sometimes, and that we had more time to draw breath and appreciate it as it races by; but we're yet to be convinced that going rural would actually solve that problem.

There is so much in between cottage in middle of deep countryside, and middle of big city. Like little towns, or small cathedral cities, or villages on good transport routes.

What decided us, in Manchester, was that by the time we had small children, we weren't actually going out much at night, we rarely went to the arts cinema I'd loved so much for years, or to the theatre, but we did spend our weekends doing watersports and other outdoor activities and getting out of the city.

(and actually we have an arts cinema I can walk to here anyway, not as good as the Manchester one but a lot better than nothing).

I think the right balance if you are used of city life is a smaller city.....
Otherwise the change is too great. Also it depends if you really want the change and like doing out doors type things.

I grew up in Devon in the middle of no-where and I will echo what others have posted - as a child great lots of outdoors play BUT as a teen-ager rubbish nothing to do lots of ferrying about for parents!

From my own expereinces of where I have lived as an adult - Brighton or nearby is great as most of the towns round there would have what you are looking for nice pubs/art scene etc.
Exeter is pretty good too I live there now.

Oh do you Pippy? I thought you lived in Italy. Or is that another Pippy?

Not me.....Must be another pippy..... Italy would be nice though - better weather (she says in true brit style)!