pommybird

If you read my post propery I didn't say the report was mumbo jumbo - I said the BBC's exploitation and sensationalism of the report was an example of 'media mumbo jumbo' - there are plenty of surveys and reports done by other organisations' that are not 'promoted' in the press because they paint the UK in a positive light and are not 'newsworthy'.

The fact remains that the media in the UK are intent in running the country down at present and seek out to focus on negative reports such as this UNICEF info in an attempt to substantiate their 'story'. It paints an unbalanced picture of what is going on in this country!

pommybird

Tracey - you just can't cover every single eventuality and 'what if' - you've just got to take the plunge either way and stick to it - what if you do make the wrong decision - that's what life is all about - ups and downs, experiences and learning from our mistakes - I know it's hard but try to stop worrying yourself to death, go with your gut feeling and just see what happens.....good luck!

kris maynard

Its soooooooooooo hard knowing what to do for the best!!! If its wrong you go back!!!

it will be fine

Take care
kris xx

king kong

Good luck on living in Australia and you may well be eating some of those words ,as drug taking and drug supplying in senior schools is rife .Knifiings are a regular part of daily life and to be honest its no safer here to let your kids out to play than it is in the uk .
Statistically australia especially west australia are more violent than the uk per head of population .
T he one thing i can agree wiith is the dog shit ,we only have the dry stuff here as opposed to the rain soaked sloppy fresh stuff .

king kong

I have lived in both countries while the kids where young and to be honest there is no difference .
I noticed here though in australia the parents dont seem to let there kids down the park like we used to ,but once kids saw our kids more came out .
Everything has to more organised here with football ,karate etc so in the end all the parents do is drive the kids around every bloody evening instead of letting them out with all the kids in the neighbourhood .
My lads always played out here and the UK and we never worried ,we never wanted a couple of insular overweight kids who never knew how to interact .
I suppose at the end of the day as probably said a millon times but if your going to live in Belfast,glasgow,manchester ,liverpool,birmingham ,london your kids are going to grow up tough and street wise and will get used to violence just like any city in the world. Good luck with your decision .

Machiavelli

Great Post

TraceyW

You know what? I thank you all so much for taking the trouble to reply to my inane wafflings. I appreciate everyone's opinions so much and try to digest them all.

Like I said, February will be the final make or break decision time in this household. I have swung to and fro for years about this, debating, discussing, weighing up pro's and con's but it always always boils down to the same thing, I have never, and don't think I will ever, feel like Perth is my home.

So, February it is then. Do we move to a Devon village, or find somewhere else in Oz to try again?

Thanks again guys. Give yourselves a pat on the back for just being really nice people.

Machiavelli

My kids are little, I think that the best place for them to be now is here in Australia. When they are ready for "secondary" school I will look at the situation agian.

For now, this is the best place for them to be. In 10 years it may not. If that's the case, I'll sell up and move to wherever in the world will be the best place for them.

we make decisions based on the information we have. That's the best that we can do.

We will do whatever we have to, to make our kids lives the best they can be at any precise moment in time.

Maybe we will make mistakes, but we will have done what we thought was right at the time.

Machiavelli

[QUOTE=Machiavelli;5659837] myself!!


We make decisions based on the information we have. That's the best that we can do.

We will do whatever we have to, to make our kids lives the best they can be at any precise moment in time.

Maybe we will make mistakes, but we will have done what we thought was right at the time.

Whatever you decide to do, right now, is the best decision you can make for your kids

LouiseD

1) Thanks for the lecture but if you re-read my post:

One of the things that I found really creepy and weird about Australia was that I never saw children playing out. I'm so used to hearing them playing out having fun on their own in the UK

- you will see that I made reference to my experiences. House-hunting in many Melbourne suburbs, walking our dogs in many parks, I didn't see any children out playing on their own. I saw kids in parks with their parents but never out on their own. But then maybe I wasn't looking in the right subs or parks

2) I'm truly enlightened now - thanks again

3) When has stating what one has saw/felt ever been generalising Personally it doesn't affect me anyway - my kids had a fab outdoor life in the UK and are now enjoying life here as young adults.

4) Thanks for showing me a nice way of answering a post - makes you feel quite assertive and authoritative hey

SoJohn

The UK isn't so bad. Every country has problems and when you are a native you do tend to notice them more. In Spain some people are so blinkered to the problems around them. They don't speak Spanish so they don't watch the news, therefore there is no crime! hehe

The bad thing about the UK is property prices. To get in those nice areas you really have to shop around carefully.

ShozInOz

It's hard for anyone to be objective about this, not least because children are concerned! My personal view is that I would prefer not to bring up my child in the UK, but would far prefer the UK to some other English speaking countries/states. The problems I have with the UK as a parent are:
1. The weather means you are stuck indoors much more. Now Australia can get hot but I have never felt as trapped indoors. Without children, or with much older children, maybe not so bad, but with small children it is a pain in the arse. Of course you can get wrapped up, and also soaked, with a toddler walking at a snails pace.. We've done it. It's no fun.
2. Secondary schools are often of pretty poor quality compared to primary schools. Great primary schools where I live. Once they reach secondary schools - different story (often bored in first year or two if they came from a good primary).
3. I sense a general social deterioration in the UK that I never senses in Sydney. This is harder to pin down. I put a lot of the blame on a lack of investment in children (not formal education as such), by Governments.
4. We just find the UK an incredibly stressful place to live with children. This is just a straight comparison with Sydney. Stressful, and no fun.
5. I believe there is a big problem with risk taking (sexual, drugs, violence) among British kids. Sure, all kids take risks, but here it seems to be on a different level. This is borne out as a key finding in the UNICEF report.

On the plus side:
1. We have access to relatives, though they are all some hours away. Still, we can see them of a weekend if we are prepared to brave the traffic/airports. If family are on your doorstep, and you get on, this must be a big plus.
2. There are lots of very good primary schools. Both my sister and sister in law are primary teachers and give a good picture of primary education in Britain. Secondary is a different issue - but also in Australia.

This is just our personal experience. The key thing really is where you live. From my point of view, money is a far bigger contributor to quality of life than it is in much of Australia. If you have it, it makes a bigger difference here. But I'd like to see the playing field levelled somewhat. I would like to see the Government invest far more in children, even if this means reducing focus on the academic side of education.

rabsody

As much as I would like to say the UK is the best option for bringing up the kids, one of the main reasons I've resigned myself to staying here is for the kids (11 and 8).

We must be one of the lucky ones as my two are always out playing in the street (close to the house mind) as we have kids up along the street they can pop in to see. We're close to the school so they can walk every day and they both really enjoy school. Academically I have had my concerns, some of the teachers have been pretty slack (others have been excellent) and I recently read on here from a Qld teacher that there is no standardisation in marks across the state, which is highly disturbing. However, my two are both confident, happy, active kids. Sure we still play computer games and watch tv at home but it's balanced with outdoor activity. I found being cooped up for months on end with little ones during winter in UK absolutely horrid. Not good for them, and not good for you!

In comparison to their UK mates they seem a lot less grown up, which is great as far as I'm concerned, I think they have a lot less pressure on them. Primary schools in UK seem great, but high schools locally to my family are horrible if you don't get into grammar school. The binge drinking that I remember getting into myself at a young age appears to be even worse now and just doesn't seem as bad here (again, just my experience, I know Ice,pot and so on is rampant). Distinct lack of big groups of kids hanging on street corners (bar the city that is). It also seems cool to be the big rebel and not to do well over there.

The main things I dislike are:

• the blinkered world view. They're not exactly taught much about anywhere else in the world (we make sure we do that). Most Aussies kids never travel outside of the country and so, like yanks, grow up to perpetuate this "best in the world" business.
  
• the sporting obsession. Sometimes I think this is more valued than academic achievement in this country, and that's very sad IMO.
  
• the lack of family. thankfully they have my ex's side (aussies) but it's a crying shame they have missed on the relationship with my family.
  
  
  • Overall, I think they have a better quality of life here at this stage in their life. Ideally I would like to return to UK when they are uni age.

northernbird

Excellent post and pretty much mirrors my thinking (apart from the Uni bit as I don't know at this stage if my kids will want to go to Uni)

brits1

I get really fed up with listening to people go on about how bad life is back home in Britain...it does cause a let of stress to people who might not have been back home for years and are thinking of doing so. Well Ihave been lucky to have had our sons eductated for a while in England (they were 8 and 5 when they arrived here in Aus)...they were more advanced than children in their years here in Aus....all our families live back home in England and not one of our nephew and nieces have been "mugged...harrassed...do drugs" they all have really good education and jobs...and are either buying their own homes or have bought their own homes....I don't know of any of our families that have had a home invasion etc...our families live in two different areas in the suburbs around Manchester and both are very nice areas....I can walk from our old house to my dads....a nice 15/20 min walk, there are no bins in the area but you will not see any rubbish or "dog dirt"...we have a lovely park with "dog bins" which appear to be used as we did not tread in anything whilst playing football in the park.....why do I know this?...because on our last visit I had to make sure I was not living in "dream world" as that was how I was meant to feel when I arrived back in Perth after our first visit by people who had not been home for years....I went arround looking at the state of parks...schools...(our two local primary schools still have a brilliant rating even after all these years) etc and we found nothing bad...now I am not saying that it is like that everywhere in the U.K ofcourse there are "rough" areas there is in every country..even here in Aus....they tend to look worse as well because they are old....a lot of buildings in Aus are still what I would call "new" so they do not look as bad..but give them a few years and they will!!! we went to a MacDonalds on our last visit (07) and it was not in the greatest of areas but was okay...but what my sons noticed was that even the people who did not look to have a great deal of money...tidied up after themselves and held open doors for other people...now you do not get that here in Perth...and drugs...a friend of my son who has just come out from a "rough" part of Nottingham said that it's easier to get drugs here in Perth than back home!!! and knives at schools...yes they have them...and yes they are sent home...but they are back in school in a few weeks!!!! and we live in a nice area!!!! I have been chased with a knife during daylight hours just for my bag...and nobody helped...and that was here in a nice area....in a shop car park...
I might sound anti Aus...but I see it as it's nice here and some people love it and thats great...I would never knock the place but when people keep going on about how bad the U.K is to here then I get on my high horse.....it might all depend on where you live, it might not...there are some good areas in what some people would never put their pinky toes in....both here and in Aus...all we know is that weighing everything up we are heading home next year...because that's where we all want to be....it's swings and roundabouts....we have better weather here in Aus....but you can go around the parks here and most of them are empty!!!! I live across from a lovely park which never really gets used...never in Winter and in Summer just a few..but with two dog bins is it dog dirt free.....not a chance!!!
Oh and stress at school...wait until your children reach year 10 here in Aus....after years of not seeming to do a lot of work...they are inundated with work...years 11 and 12 get worse...your first proper exam is year 11 for tee's if your child is clever enough....and they don't really know whats hit them....I think Aus has the highest drop out rate for children in years 10 etc per population than other Westernised Countries....they are not use to pressure.....is that good...not really not when you want your child to have a certificate to say they have acutally learnt something after 10,11,12 years at school.
Jackie