ukjoiner

Just sitting here pondering for about the 100th time today my reasons for wanting to move to Australia and asking myself "should I ever expect to be 100% sure my hubby and I are doing the right thing". We have taken the plunge today and booked our first immigration appt with our agency so in two weeks time we should have the "ball rolling".

Just wondered what everyone elses reasons are for wanting to go other than the climate, being with family or work etc? What is drawing you ther?

If you have already moved to Oz were the reasons you went lived up to?

Do you think it is a better place for our children to grow up?

Hope you can share a few thoughts.

Jenny

kporte

To be honest, we were reasonably happy back in Scotland and went for the visa on a bit of a whim. It's turned out really well for us and we have improved our lives considerably.
I do think , however, that it may have had more to do with our mindset and the fact that thrusting a change upon ourselves regarding geographical location, caused a change in attitude and approach.
I could be looking to deeply into this, but suffice to say, so far, it works for us!

ukjoiner

Nothing wrong with a change in attitude! Do you have kids? Is it a better upbringing for young people? I am a young peoples counsellor and have my own 2 girls. My one regret if I didn't leave the UK would be that I hadn't given my kids a different opportunity. But better, I don't know.....? It's a difficult question.

kporte

I can't comment on the kids, we don't have any as yet.
Better is a difficult word, lets stick with different! All down to personal choice. Way better for us, with no question

fairydust300980

I have to say my thoughts on moving to Oz have evolved, it's taken us 6 years to get to this stange, between travelling, buying houses, gettting married and starting a family.
Originally we wanted to live the ozzy life, in the sun with the surf the laid back lifestyle ect, but since then it's been effected by what life our children will or could have, being closer to my sister and her family and what that means, and if we move my mum will follow. And also economically/socially, the way the UK is with jobs immigration and social societies responce to the changes, iv experienced a different side over recent years that i don't want to bring my kids up in and i haven't experienced that in oz and neither has my sister who has 3, and they have had so many opportunities and expreiences that i want us to have too.

Life is life where ever you are it's the experience that makes the difference, but it isn't ideal for everyone. If you don't try it you will never know, and Blighty will always be here if it's not right for you.

Jane and Jason

Hi

I know how you feel, I am constantly going through the 'Is it the right thing to do' scenario. We first applied 6 years ago, and then pulled out for various reasons and I have always had that 'what if ' feeling about it. Then around Christmas time we started talking about it again, mainly brought on by my in-laws spending a month in Oz over that period, and decided to give it another go. We are hoping to head to Brisbane next year some time, and we will embrace whatever Australia gives us. We don't have close family ties here, my mum died 2 years ago, Dad would never stop us following a dream and my in-laws are all for it, saying that they'll come and visit for 6 months at a time(in their own rental, I must add!!). All our family live at least an hour away, so we don't depend on them for childcare or anything.

Life here isn't what it was, we live in a small village with the most foul mouthed kids, and I don't want my boys growing up like that, it seems to be accepted behaviour these days, getting sworn at. Also the schools in our part of Kent are dire, and as I have a child with learning difficulties, I have chosen to home school as the schools can not offer what he needs, I'm hoping Queensland education is going to be better, quite honestly, it couldn't be worse.

Its also the smaller things that annoy me here, like not being able to take photos of my kids at sports events etc, just in case you happen to get someone else child in the picture, or people think you're a perv.

Anyway, all in all, we are just hoping for a different experience living in a different country, we are not looking for England in the sun, anymore than I would move to France or Spain and expect everything to be like England. We are 'glass half full' kind of people and will embrace our new live wholeheartedly, and hope it all works out.

Good luck with your application,

Jane

jad n rich

Dont move to australia to get more help for learning disabilities. Funding shortages are chronic. Dont just hope australian education will be better why would that be? Aussie Media just swooped onto one study that had it rank below Kazakstan, I am being quite serious here.

Many people have come to OZ moaning about what disability funding they got in UK, then found it was way above, over and beyond what they are ever likely to get in OZ.

Read some of the posts on issues like dyslexia, ADD, etc on the search feature if you have any doubt what I am saying. You might also want to serach on medical costs for kids, if your child is seeing specialists, bascially here you pay.

As for pervs, PC, swearing, economic crisis you get all that here too. Move out here for a different experience, but dont expect it to fix anything.

spartacus

Just my opinion, based on my own two, but yes undoubtedly better.

quoll

We came because we were offered a great opportunity and it would be daft not to have taken it up (we were young and adventurous so it was quite natural to do something daft at the time). I dont think either of us thought at the time that we would be here for ever.

Better life for the kids? No. Worse life for the kids? no, just different.

Both of mine are grown and gone (one back to UK - go figure - for the better opportunities life there offers him!!!). If I consider what my kids have had compared with what my friends' kids of the same age have had then there probably isnt that much to choose between them now as adults. I did despair over the education here and shelled out for private education (I worked in public schools and could see what was going on) and my boys were not impressed by their university education.

I still panic about the one time I didnt quite cover DS1's back with spf30 and he got bad sunburn with a rash of freckles across his back - melanoma is epidemic here whereas you tend not to worry about that so much in UK!

My friends' kids got a better deal with travel too - my boys went all over Aus (and I took them home regularly) but they didnt get to travel to Europe with the school or on holidays and do that sort of thing.

I dont really see anything better about taking a kid away from their extended family either - it's inherently quite isolating and I compare what DS2, who lives in Aus, has against his partner whose family has been here for generations - DS has his parents and that's it for his family here (ok the inlaws do live in Victoria but that's 10 hours away from us) whereas his partner seems to be related to everyone within a 100km radius

I used to think that it was better for my sporty DS2 - he was a swimmer - but even that we could have managed quite well in UK as he trained in UK for a while and swam at Nationals - lots of UK kids doing really well, not that different from Aus except we had more 50m pools.

Personally I think the "better life for the kids" is just an excuse for what is essentially an adult itch for adventure and if that is what you want out of life then go for it but own it for what it is.

spartacus

That is absolutely spot on quoll. If you want to do it, do it. Simple as. Don't over-analyse, or post-rationalise.

Jane and Jason

We are not moving to Australia to get more help for his learning difficulties, I was merely hoping that things might be better there as our local schools offer next to nothing, so couldn't imagine things being much worse. We don't get any disability funding here in the UK as he is not deemed bad enough, so that is not something we have had to take into account and he isn't seeing any specialist other than an annual check up with a paediatrician and the ear, nose and throat consultant, so no big layout there hopefully. He doesn't have a diagnosis such as ADD, Autism, Aspergers etc, he has a unique rearrangement of a chromosone which no-one other than him seems to have.

Also, I am not silly enough to think that swearing etc doesn't happen there, I was referring to one particular child who lives in our village and has take a dislike to me because I stand up for my kids, and he stands outside our house making rude hand gestures and telling me to that I'm an ugly b***ch and why don't I f*** off! No-one else seems to get annoyed by this behaviour, which I certainly think is unacceptable.

So all in all, we just want to experience a different way of life to what we have here, and both our boys are very eager to experience it too, they both love to travel, and are very excited at the prospect of living in Australia, at the end of the day I just want my son to go to a school that will make him feel wanted and accepted rather than a leper.

Thanks,

Jane

ukjoiner

Really interesting and frank response. Thanks very much.

I am more aware perhaps than the average person what our young people encounter in their adolescent years being a young peoples counsellor. As I said, I just want my children to have an opportiunity for it to be different. That would be the one true regret we would have if I didn't go.
Yes, we want to go, obviously, and have an adventure with our family but like most mums and dads, the priority is our children.

Thanks again

ukjoiner

That's right, who are we to say it's better until we get there eh

quoll

Spent a lifetime in that field myself - the world has changed in the last few years and I dont know what you are finding but here we have very high levels of adolescent mental health issues, one of the highest suicide rates amongst adolescents in the world, an epidemic of self harm and an ever younger cohort presenting with psychosis. School counsellors will never be out of a job as other mainstream services continue to narrow the focus of their service intervention - so many kids and so few resources. In the olden days we used to be able to work with the parents of kids with ADHD now no service will touch those kids because they arent needy enough. In order to get our MH crisis team to respond to a school situation, a kid has to be about to jump off the roof or weilding a firearm. It's not been a good change!

FluffieFaerie

We did it just because we could. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be in a position to take such a big adventure and as we're generally risk takers anyway we just did it. Our kid is young enough that it won't affect him much if we decided to go back after 12 months or so. We're not remotely close to our family or friends in the UK and really we wanted to see for ourselves if the grass was greener. It's not, by the way, but we still wouldn't go back even if we could afford to. Life is good here. I'm excited about bringing my kids up in such a healthy positive environment (just need to keep them out of all the fast-food and donut shops).