ferrying tween kids about when you live rurally

[NurNochKurzDieWeltRetten]

Wondering what's normal. ..

If you live somewhere rural (say a tiny village - no shop, no school, no public transport) and kids are too young to cycle several fairly isolated miles to activities and friends houses in the nearest larger village, do you drive them around pretty much on demand?

I feel it isn't the kids' "fault" we live where we do and pretty much always drive them on request - but friends ring and they ask for immediate lifts at the drop of a hat, which is sometimes annoying especially when timings mean I am going out almost once an hour to drive one child or another somewhere - it's not unusual to do 8 or 10 round trips to one or other of the surrounding villages per day just ferring kids about (each trip being between 3 and 6 miles each way). My youngest is 4 so some of the trips are for him but he always has to be dragged along when taxiing his siblings as DH works 60 miles away so is mostly not home at the relevant times.

Normal par for the course if you live rurally or being a martyr and should say no more and let the kuds suck up the odd missed opportunity to play even though we're "free" at the time and they'd just be moping about at home...?

Is it always your kids going to their friends, or do the friends come to yours sometimes? It does seem a lot, but I don't think there's a single "normal" - if you're happy doing it then fine, if you're not then set some rules and stick to them.

MY OH and I have been having this argument when deciding where to live. He grew up in a village as you described, I grew up in a town.

I think that if you choose to live that rurally, you owe it to your kids to be the taxi as and when they need it. That's why I want to live in a town to have kids. I would resent driving them around at a moments notice but would recognise that it would be my duty.

We live rurally and no, I didn't ferry the kids about like that. I would take them sometimes and other times it didn't fit in with what else was going on so the answer was no. Our next nearest village is half an hour's walk via footpaths and from Year 6 onwards the kids would walk or cycle and I would collect them later.

Also live rural, but never very kids " on demand". They will arrange before hand, and never commit without checking we can do run. This also means that we can fit runs together, maybe one being half hour early ... And another a half later, means that one run covers both.

Also, it is very common here that one parent leaves, and three other collects. This also works for group activities .... So really cuts down running.

Mitz no their friends come to ours - more often in some cases, less in others (one of DD'S closest friend is a quiet only child who finds our house of 3 kids too loud but her mum says she doesn't notice dd is there and is always welcome at theirs...) They also go to walkable neighbors / neighbor kids hang out at ours and play out. But all 3 have different friends so often one or two are elsewhere and I have one or two others at ours. They also all play football for separate teams so those trips include 5 round trips to football training, plus the Kindergarten run (older kids get a school bus). The on demand is to play though obviously.

Silver we share for one child's football training but nobody in our tiny village for the other two. We car pool for matches, but that still involves driving to the village 3 miles away to all meet and swap kids.

There is an even smaller hamlet about a mile away that the older 2 are allowed to ride bikes to but there's nothing there but a tiny playground - it's a reason for a bike ride but that's all. The bigger village with the sports club and a lot of their friends is 3 miles through mainly forest - not happy for them to do thatalone though would be in a group of 3 or 4... doesnt help with getting to friends houses.

Hubert I kind of feel that way too - Igrew up in a small village too and hated it from age 10 or so onwards - but we didn't go to local schools so friends were even further away and parents made it a massive deal if they took us to them just to play - it didn't happen much. I never meant to bring my kids up in a village but we landed here by accident and some things - like the playing out all day in summer - are great. It's why I'm in a quandary now though.

I'm in a small village. We've a very basic bus service (every couple of hours, nothing beyond late afternoon, nothing Sundays or BHs).

My children have never been ferried around. I don't have a car. They coped. It's a small price to pay for living somewhere so beautiful, laid back and crime free. I refuse to be made to feel guilty about it because there are far more important things to factor in when deciding to move somewhere than that.

Toller Benutzername

I would drive them but not to the extent that you are. As much as possible they should use bikes or walk.

Thanks Dorothy :o

We are really too far to walk / cycle, at least alone. There is a cycle path but for more than half the route it's out of sight of the road through the forest - I'm quite relaxed about all sorts of MN nonos but a 12 year old girl was raped and murdered on a similar cycle path about 40 miles from us last year in the early evening - I know it's vanishingly rare (and the guy has been caught and convicted) and aside from that one horrific incident the area is very low crime - it's enough to put me off sending the kids to cycle such an isolated route alone though. I'd let them do it in groups of several, but that isn't a getting to Lucy ' s house to play option, that's a cycle ride for its own sake. To walk it would be even less safe and take the best part of an hour each way.

Of course I could/ should cycle with them in theory, but in practice that's a bugger with a trailing 4 year old and I drive them.

I guess as Mitzi says there is no normal - I am usually happy to do it but this afternoon DD put me on the spot and I ended up doing even moretrips than usual and was a bit hmm maybe I need to so no more... But saying no when I don't have a clashing commitment, it's just that I don't want to go now then again in an hour for another DC, seems just deliberately mean. I did the extra trip and DD did then walk a mile (but from her friends house in one large village, along about 100 meters of pavement between villages and through the large village to the football fields where I was by then with the other DC for DC3 ' S football training) to meet us... so they do walk too - but from or all the way back to our village involves such a lit of very isolated forest cycle path where you might only pass one or two dog walkers - or nobody at some times of day - I'm not happy with a single child doing that alone.

We live rural urban fringe but have always managed to live nowhere near any of DDs friends. She is an only child, and remarkably managed to entertain herself a large amount of the time.

It does sound as if you do a lot of driving. Personally I would refuse random ad hoc requests and only do planned stuff.

But I am a mean caah.

I don't ferry my kids instantly . I'll usually offer two choices - "I can take you in at 11am or 2pm" and let them pick.

Yes I ferry mine about. The roads are too small to cycle and there are no footpathsor verges in places. I like taking them as we chat in the car and I have control over where they go and when but mostly I love the chats