Moving to a very small village?

[Needmorehands]

DH and I are considering moving in with my parents - in the short term they can help with babysitting, and then as they get older (DF turned 70 last year) we can help to look after them.
This means we need a big house (we have 4 DC and another on the way) and obviously prices get more reasonable for more space as you get further away from facilities. We currently live in a small town and have corner shops close enough to the house that I can ask 10yr old DS to nip and buy milk etc
We have a found a house which is big enough and in good condition, and just under a half hour commute to where I work, it has a separate area which my parents can retreat to if/when the kids are being full on, has outside space for DC to play... sounds good.
BUT the small village doesn't even have a grocery shop ( an antique shop I can't see myself visiting!), the church building is for sale and there are 2 pubs! The local primary school is 1/3 the size of the one DC currently attend, which may be better for SEN DD1 and is within walking distance, although slightly further than they are used to. The house is on a bus route, and the village is roughly equi distant from several small towns so I'm sure I can learn to be more organised with online shopping.
My concern is that the kids will hate being so isolated in such a small community - athugh even the primary school has a bus so maybe their classmates parents will consider driving to next village for playdates as the norm? And while DH and I consider being parent taxis to assorted activities as being part and parcel of parenting - are we setting ourselves up for never havin an evening to sit down? Do you have experience of more rural living and can you tell me positive stories please?

I don't live rurally myself, but regularly read on here that teens (on the whole) really hate it.
My Dsis has dc in their 20s, that she still drops off and picks up from places because the trains / buses just don't exists and tazis cost a fortune and they are too far to walk / cycle..... they don't even live particularly rurally.

then, if you are future planning for elderly parents, how far will this take you from hospital appointments (and other clinics / Drs, / opticians etc)? Our bodies weren't really designed to go past "3 score and 10" so the statistical likelihood is that they will need to get a lot more support over the next 10 years or so, even if in good health now.

Your saving grace here will be the bus route, so you & the older DC have access to other towns/ areas but you have the nice house & space & small, hopefully friendly community. Idyllic for the younger kids, & grandparents, yes you do end up being mums taxi but not forever.

Our village has no shop, no,buses, no pubs just a tiny candlelit church. There are times my children were a bit grumpy about isolation but rarely and something else was usually the cause. They had plenty of local friends from neighbouring villages and remain close now they are adults.
We never had problems with teenagers not returning at set time as they were entirely dependent on us until they or their friends passed their driving test.
Socially you might be surprised. There is more going on here than many sizeable towns. Children learned from a young age to join in with adult social activities- drinks parties, suppers, square dance etc. There was never a ‘them and us’ between the generations.
Now they absolutely love bringing friends for weekends with beautiful walks, lots of people they know really well, excellent pubs closeby, access to neighbours tennis courts etc. They’re all 18-26 now.
In fairness the youngest four boarded through much of their teenage years so were able to keep up activities and be with friends.
Primary was never an issue.

If your children board, as mine did, they have a second life at school and are not travelling to see friends all the time in term time. You just have the holidays as s taxi service! Other parents have it every day if the week unless your children have no friends or activities. You have to get the car out to get 1 pt of milk!

I think they will have to like country things. The buses are unlikely to run late. Even in my local large village, they stop at 9. They won’t get to see secondary friends unless you (or your parents) make the effort. You will always be dependent on other parents because you will never split yourself 5 ways. Which child won't get to football or dance or singing club? What about after school clubs?

Are you expecting your parents to do all of this? I would never ever expect this from my mum. It seems very cheeky to say someone needs looking after at 70 and then expect them to live with 5 full on children! I know a few people do this but my DH is 65 and we wouldn’t live with 5 full on children including a new baby: inevitably your parents will be full on baby sitters won’t they? They will also be isolated from people they may want to socialise with.

I live in a tiny settlement and it’s boring for children here. The odd church service hardly makes up for it. Mine went to Lindon as soon as they could! Don’t expect anyone to thank you for this!

Moved her with my three kids thirty years ago. Very small village school less than 40 at the time. No shop. Once a week bus service. Five miles to nearest town. Supermarket about seven miles( more now but about the same distance for large ones) and nearest small shop about three in a three mile radius

The kids all made friends quickly, they had lots of play dates and parties. When old enough everyone cycled to and fro. They absolutely loved living here and one has just bought his second house and it is in the country. Slightly bigger village with a shop and two pubs instead of our one. We're still here. We love it.

I grew up in a tiny village, and I loved it. There were about 20 kids and we spent all our summers together. My village friends are my oldest and best friends even now. The bus was a lifeline, but as we got older we cycled to the nearest town if the buses didn’t suit. I knew most of the adults and there was always someone to help if you fell over or needed a drink! Also always someone to tell your mother they had seen you smoking....

20 kids?? We had about two here! No-one was friendly with anyone. I did find that odd but other children were too young or too old or the parents were too snobby!

It's not just the kids but your parents too. Mine are early 70s and extremely active; they'd find the setting quite isolating if they couldn't even nip out for a paper. As they get older they may be perfectly capable of going for a mooch to the local shop or cafe or supermarket but bus trips on top of those things might be just a bit too much. I'm talking hopefully well into the future btw, my parents would hate the idea of me considering anything a bit much for them!

We live in a rural village, no shop, no pub and no busses!
There are quite a few elderly people here and there is a local dial a bus that they can use, 2 neighbours have recently had operations meaning they cant drive and myself and a few others take them shopping etc, it's just the done thing.

We moved here almost 4 years ago and it was a huge shock to begin with, before I had schools, supermarket and work all within a 15 minute walk. Now however I love it.
For us it is the norm to taxi the kids to neighbouring villages to see their friends.
You just end up being more organised in terms of food shop, milk bread etc but I have been known to ask neighbours to a few slices of bread for pack up!!
I believe there is much more sense of community here but it is important to make the effort with neighbours....well it isn't, you can keep yourself to yourself or make the effort but being further away from things its useful to get along. Little things like people keeping an eye on the place if you are away, the kids knowing who they can call round to if there's a problem.

Things I'd suggest looking into:
Childcare, are there any registered childcare providers?
Class size - we don't have a school in our village, the neighbouring 3 villages all have multiple years in the classes. When my son started there were just 2 year 6's so year 4, 5 and 6 were together....then a teacher went sick so they bundled in the year 3's as well. Less than 20 in a class but I wasn't happy with the teaching so I drove them to a school about 25 minutes away. That's almost 2 hours spent on school run plus petrol costs.
Are there green spaces for playing, we are surrounded by farms but no-where to actually play so always have kids at ours