Raising a toddler in the sticks?

[angelinafordcortina]

Hello all, this is my first post. I hope you can help me! We're looking at buying a house that's quite remote - well, much more remote than we're used to (as we're currently in Milton Keynes!!)

The house is about a mile and a half out of a small village - the village only has a small shop/post office, primary school, pub and church. There are bigger villages next to it with more facilities.

We love the house but one concern is our daughter who is 19 months old. Are we crazy for wanting to move from a really well-served, large town that has everything she could ever possibly need to a remote location where we'll have to drive to get to anything? There's a mums and toddlers group once a week but no near playground or activities. Will her development suffer? What if she gets cabin fever?!! What if we get snowed in?

Does anyone live in a remote place and if so can you reassure me that this isn't crazy (or slap me about the head and tell me that it is!)

If you would like living in the sticks and are sure you would make the best of it, then it will work. If your gut feeling goes against it, don't do it!

What happens if your car breaks down, will you manage?

The village you describe sounds positively metropolitan (we are in Norfolk!).

We are in the centre of a similar-sized (according to amenities) village and love it! Enjoy going to mum and toddlers, go to the library on the day it's open and if it all gets a bit boring, we just jump in the car and go to the nature reserve. There's more to do here and it's far easier to access than when we were in East London and dependent on the train or the car to get anywhere.

A friend lives about half a mile out of the village in a beautiful farmhouse. She and her son walk the dogs and he's pretty 'free range' - I'd say his development has only benefitted from all the space and open air.

FWIW- I am a child psychologist and have worked in both really rural and urban areas and I'd say that being part of a community, having a routine and having space to play, whereever this is, it more important than the actual location (met lots of rural parents who never did anything with their children, but then lots of urban ones like that too!)

Thanks guys, your calm rational answers really help a lot!

Just to explain, we have been planning this for quite a while and have finally found somewhere we like enough to put an offer in but I think we're having a case of cold feet - a sudden panic thinking "are we really going to do this?" It's such a huge change...

A mile and a half isn't a long walk with a buggy even if the car breaks down.

a mile and a half could be very far if, like here, there are no pavements along a good number of roads.

No pavement outside of towns is the norm here, too.

A friend who left crowded London for her idea of rural idyll... confessed recently that her children have nowhere to play close to home precisely because they live in the country. In London there were many public parks; in the countryside, the land is mostly agricultural factory floor and very off limits.

It's a BIG deal if the car breaks down or if your finances are so stretched that running 2 cars becomes difficult. I know mothers in local school-less villages who don't drive a bus is laid on to get their DC to school 2 miles away, but makes for big headaches if their DC are struck ill and need early picking up from school a mile and a half along busy road without pavement and with a vomitting small child you need to walk the whole way is a huge headache. Difficult to go see their DC's Nativity play or chat to a teacher -- etc. And any sort of preschool was out of the question in one case.

We are out in the sticks with a young child, no bus route, miles from the shops, the nearest nursery is a few miles away, etc.

We have been snowed in, no electric or phone but it was an unusually savage winter and you just cope (sort of).

We would start stocking up in September and try to be as organised as possible in case winter came early. Food and fuel are priorities.

There are no children of a similar age nearby us so we spend all day with our young son but he will be going to the nearest nursery next month. If the road gets bad then we don't go anywhere.

It will be quite a change for you but one which has many positives too.

I live in the sticks and have made freinds with other Mums. We just get together a lot and have days out with the children.

Sometimes you will have to drive a way to get to a play place. Sometimes we go round each others houses.

Everyone in the same boat really.

We moved back to the sticks with a new baby and a 21 month old.There is no shop,school or anything here,apart from a village hall,pub and church.We have never looked back,plenty of fields to play in,brooks to fish in,trees to climb.Everyone knows the dcs and looks out for them and consequently they have far more freedom than they would have elsewhere.Our best investment was a huuuge freezer,which we stock with extra bread, milk and other basics as it is a 12 mile round trip to the nearest shops.

My dcs love it here and would hate to move to a town.

We live on the edge of a small village in Wales. The village has a village hall, school, church, chapel, small pub, post office and shop. There is a small playground there, looked after by a voluntary committee. The nearest (small) town is 5 miles away, but the nearest big town (Tesco, M&S, Asda etc) is over an hour away.

Compared to where I grew up this village is quite busy! I grew up on a farm in a tiny hamlet miles from anywhere.

I was determined that my DC would have the same kind of childhood that I enjoyed, with the freedom to play in the countryside. I would personally hate to bring up children in a city or town, regardless of how many facilities there were!

small villages are fab for bringing up children - they have so much freedom to run around and be children!

Get in touch with the local sure start children's centre and ask them what outreach sessions they run, I think most children's centres in rural areas have some stuff that they do for children - my local one is 8 miles away but they visit my actual village once every three weeks or so and they run sessions in the next village along two, three times a week.

Wow, there's been an explosion of replies - thanks everyone! It really helps.

We still haven't put in an offer (still umming and ahhing) but it helps to hear from others who live in remote places. Of course, I know that people live very happily in such places but it still is a big comfort to hear from real people.

We're fairly self-sufficient as we work from home and don't go out much where we are now (except to walk the dog and take dd to different places) so I feel that we would be happy there.

Thanks for the suggestion about sure start squonk - I will try that. There is a primary school in the village so I should think there'll be quite a few other children locally that she could play with.

Apparently though the farmer who owns the fields that surrounds the house we want doesn't let anyone walk across them so we would even have to go out in the car to walk the dog! Which sounds a bit absurd in the country! We could walk along the road but the current owners say people drive along there very fast and there's not much of a verge.

yup, that sounds typical to me, Angelina!
That's why I live in a town .

INteresting thread - often think I would like to move somewhere rural, but it's concerns like those stated by ragged that put me off and make me think London isn't so bad after all.... let us know what you decide, OP!

I grew up in a rural village, surrounded by rolling countryside but to be honest not much of it was that accessible as it was farmed land, as someone previously pointed out.

I would also point out that your DC will not be a toddler for that long, so it would be a very good idea to see what provisions there are for teen-aged children. Where I was there was pretty much nowt, so lots of hanging around trying to get alcohol and cigarettes was how I spent my youth! There is a high incidence of drug-taking where I grew up also. I'm not saying that this is true of all rural places, but it is worth consideration.

You don't want to have to get in the car to walk the dog sorry that would be mad. Did happen to a friend of mine that they found there was nowhere to walk the dog she moved back to the suburbs. Find a village with a large village green or common land to walk the dog along. We are looking for a large village or small town.