UK or Canada
 

Hi Guys!!

I am sure this has been asked a thousand times and then some but I would love to hear how you think living and lifestyle in the UK compares to the same in Canada.

If you have children how they found growing up in Canada compared with the UK.

Thank you all in advance :thumbsup:

Re: UK or Canada
 

Vertically....in both.

Re: UK or Canada
 

I think it depends massively on where you are in the UK and/or Canada, just comparing the countries doesn't work imo.

For us personally, the UK is better for our children at the moment, although that may well change in the future, but then we live in a lovely area - I'm sure I'd feel very differently if I was bringing them up in Moss Side.

Re: UK or Canada
 

I am not asking which is better as one mans heaven another mans hell and all that.

just be interesting to know what are the lifestyle differences. Is there a big drinking culture in Canada like there is over here now?

Is there more of a community feel over there? I know some parts of UK still retain that but am asking in a general sense.

Are there any massive cultural differences?

All views and experiences welcome (even the negative ones:wink_smile:)

Re: UK or Canada
 

There are no significant cultural differences between Camden Town and Cabbagetown.

Re: UK or Canada
 

Trouble is, it's all so subjective, and really does vary depending on the area.

Personally, I think that the drinking culture is bigger in the UK, but then I'd say the drugs culture is bigger in Canada and teens seem to do cannabis there rather than down ciders.

IMO, there's more of a community feel in the UK. But again, that's probably because I have almost always lived in villages in the UK which are very friendly and have lots of community stuff going on, plus there's that 'popping in for a cuppa' mentality that I never found in Canada. But then I didn't live rurally in Canada, so it's not comparing like for like.

But the above are generalisations based only on the specific places I've lived in the UK and Canada, and no doubt others will disagree depending on where they live. That's why I think it's a very open ended question, and hard to be specific or give you examples of lifestyle differences.

Re: UK or Canada
 

Three months in and my kids have more freedom than in the UK. (We lived in a small village in West Sussex and now live in a very small town in Nova Scotia)

Previous poster was right about the drugs though. One of my boys is in Grade 12 and he said "they're all doing it quite openly". Slight exaggeration perhaps but it is obviously more common here.
Overall kids seem more respectful. Hoodies are just kids who have hoods on, not thugs as they're always portrayed to be in the UK!

Re: UK or Canada
 

That's it there...all kids who wear hoodies are not thugs, they are just portrayed that way, the media help with that!
I know plenty of polite well mannered teens in the UK. We never had any problems at all when we were there.

The drinking culture has been around forever in the UK. Don't you remember drinking when you were younger? I do.
We look at it different now because we are parents and we don't want our kids ding what we did.

I have found that drugs are very widely used here in Canada. The kids stand around outside the schools and smoke away, you can smell it a mile off!

The knife culture is increasing here also. There was a 17 year old accused of stabbing and killing a man the other day and there was an incident on the local bus with youths using knives. Some kids in my daughters school in grade 11 carry knives and use them when threatened or for threatening.

We brought my eldest here when she was 12 and have had a real rough few years so who knows if it would have been any different in England. I know the friends she left behind are doing really well, either in 6th form or college.

Re: UK or Canada
 

Have to say I was shocked at the level of weed smoking over here and so is my 16 year old. This is one of the reasons why he won't socialise here 'don't want to be hanging around with a load of pot heads'. Within each group he has met so far at school a good proportion smoke weed, he can't get away from it, so he stays in apart from when he goes to the gym with one of the non smokers.

Re: UK or Canada
 

in Canada?

Re: UK or Canada
 

Hi there

We came out to Calgary five years ago now with three kids in tow. Searching for a better life/bigger house/shorter working hours/ etc the usual things.

I would say I don't think there is a big culture of drinking in the UK-from my experience - its more the media displaying pictures of youngsters drunk in city centres. Yes there is drinking in the UK because there are pubs and nightclubs but it tends to get blown out of all proportion when there is no better news that night. Of course you see leeds city centre revellers on the streets in the early hours. I don't know about you but I wouldn't want to be there to watch! not now anyway.

I've been to Calgary's saloons/bars/cafes for a night out with friends but the area of city centres is so much larger than the Uk that you don't really notice drunk behaviour. But the clubs are full anyhow.

People are people wherever you go and I guess beer and wine are sold readily in both countries.

In answer to your question re - sense of community - I would say its good in both countries. Our neighbours on both occasions have been great and kind to us. We may have just have been lucky I'm not sure.

Re: UK or Canada
 

I find the drug culture is bigger than the drink culture, but then the kids drink to excess too given half a chance, it's just not in your face. Drugs are readily available to the kids, with some kids starting in middles school, teen pregnancy is also just as big a problem.

Re: UK or Canada
 

yes Canada

Re: UK or Canada
 

Yep teens drink here but not on street corners. They dreink in the parks at night or in peoples basements. I know this first hand!

Re: UK or Canada
 

I think it is better for people to travel to and live in different countries for the experience and what they have to offer rather than comparing everything with the UK. Diversity is what makes the World interesting.

Re: UK or Canada
 

It all depends on who your kids hang around with or not as the case maybe...

Our girls seem very happy with sleepovers and constant txting/facetime/phone calls with friends. We try to do as much as possible with them, like going to the lake,ski-ing,kayaking and anything else we can find. But.....if we had moved to another place in the UK then we would be trying to look and see all of what there is locally to us, so is it better here or there? Does it matter? If you and your family are happy then thats what counts surely?

Be positive and enjoy eh? :thumbsup:

Re: UK or Canada
 

Drinking overal is less here, but drink driving in much more common..
Drugs are much much easier to come by than in the UK

Weed is a social norm in Canada, almost a right of passage in youth culture , cocaine and other drugs such as crystal meth is frightenly common compared to Europe.

I have two boys, I will make sure by the time they reach their teens their knowledge will rival a pharmacist, it’s so easy get here you can't avoid the exposure all you can do it make sure they understand the risk.

Your deluding yourself if you think you can get your kids to avoid it

Re: UK or Canada
 

I think there's much more of a community feel here, but that's not true of where I was in Quebec before we moved.

Volunteering seems big here.

That's what Tim Hortons is for. :rofl:

Yes, it's hard to get used to that. Same with baseball caps. Everyone (almost) wears them.

I had an appointment to show an apartment to prospective tenants and a car pulled up over the road. Hope it's not them, I was thinking as I looked out and saw them cross the road to the duplex.

It was indeed them. Really nice couple and great tenants.:)

Re: UK or Canada
 

We have a 19 year old and a 21 year old. They're a long way from innocent but neither ever had anything to do with drugs. It's as much as we can do to persuade them to try a drop of wine :blink:. They just don't like it, although the lad doesn't mind the odd beer and she can take a cooler but it'll last all night.

Re: UK or Canada
 

Exactly. It's a bit like saying that all kids in the UK get drunk and hang on street corners each evening.

It may be everywhere, but some choose not to participate.

Re: UK or Canada
 

It didn't mean they would all take up the habit..

But thinking abstinence rather than education will be the solution for drugs, is dangerous bet to play

as you know your self, exposure doesn't mean addiction

Re: UK or Canada
 

It probably depends, then, on what you meant by avoiding it.

You can be in a group of people where a couple smoke (ordinary smoking ;)) and avoid smoking as well.

You can be in a group where a couple might be taking drugs or be about to and avoid it by leaving. That shows disapproval of the others and total avoidance.

So when I said nothing to do with drugs, I meant that literally - not even being there as opposed to just not using.

Re: UK or Canada
 

If your move is about the kid's just make sure you give them the appropriate discipline and they'll be fine on either side of the pond.

Re: UK or Canada
 

My parents didn't know most of what i got up to either ;)

Re: UK or Canada
 

I get a lot of Canadians say to me "why would u want to live here in Canada, when u can live in England" my answer is simply "I've tried that and now i'm trying this" life is wot you make it, all I will say is if u have the opportunity to try it then u should, if it works out then great, if it doesn't then you have tried it!!! there are some dead certs tho......u will see much more snow, you will get a lovely summer, its a great country to raise children, the rest is down to you!!

Re: UK or Canada
 

Parents today are generally a bit more on the ball regarding these things though what with there being more information around.

Re: UK or Canada
 

How so?

Re: UK or Canada
 

With facebook and twitter you can often pretty much find out almost everything your kids are into. They do not seem to have a clue about what is appropriate to put n the internet.

Kids these days are quite happy to share details of their drinking and drugs and other activities.

I do not spend too much time checking on them but from time to time I will check out their profiles.

I have tried to educate them on why they should not put their whole life on the internet but so far they have not heeded my advice.

Recently one of my children's friends approached him to sell drugs through facebook. After a call to the other parent involved and also a discussion with my son and the other boy and their parent about why facebook is not a good place to discuss illegal activities. We managed to get one boy out of the drug trade (for now).

Re: UK or Canada
 

That's probably what the mother of my 17 year old goddaughter thinks - she hasn't got a clue that her daughter blocks her from seeing certain stuff on her page! So she'll get some status updates, but not all, and I suspect I only see about 50% of the stuff she posts as well. It's very easy for teens to keep part of their life hidden away, even with social media sites.

Re: UK or Canada
 

I'm sure you know really. 30 or 40 years ago parents were only looking for signs of boozing - staggering around, hangovers etc - or smoking - the stained fingers, the smell...unless there was a really bad trip that highlighted another issue.:eek:

Now they know to look for so many other things - as opposed to notice them. It's proactive. There's more in the media about drugs and stuff on line; the sort of information not readily available in the past.


-------------------------

Forgot to mention. Just about the most depressing thing about Canada is the existence and acceptance of food banks as the norm rather than having a decent financial support system in place.

Re: UK or Canada
 

Oh i understand that. I was suggesting you'll never know everything your kids do unless they tell you. I'm pretty sure they won't come home telling you they just smoked a joint and fingered/got fingered by a friend in the passenger seat of a car ;).

Re: UK or Canada
 

Something I noticed - There seems to me more alcoholics in Canada per general ratio of people. Everybody seems to know somebody who has a 'drink problem'. Another observation: In the UK, the alcho's seem to be addicted to cheap cider, wine or spirits. Here they seem to go OTT on beer more. Must take a lot of bottles to get addicted to Bud 3.5% frothy fizz?

Drink driving doesn't seem as socially unacceptable in Canada as it is in The UK. Especially in the rural area's. BC introduced so called tougher impaired driving laws last year. Still soft compared to Europe but to the locals it seemed draconian.

As everyone else has said about the pot & drugs culture in Canada. Its huge. Sadly.

Re: UK or Canada
 

It sounds like Canada has a bad drugs culture, is it as bad as over here?

I know it has been on the up over here with ketmanine, meow meow, mdma amongst others.

Kids were buying so called legal highs such as Ivory Wave (which has now been banned) off the internet, but there have now been so many deaths and kids ending up in hospital that a lot off them have been banned.

I think the way some of the websites got around it such as with Meow Meow was to market it as a fertiliser, which it is :sick:

We are not thinking of moving primarily for my son, its something we are both seriously considering. We are not 100% decided yet, we want to visit first and try and find out as much as we can.

I always think its great to hear from people who have already done it :D

Re: UK or Canada
 

I think it is that heavy drinking is seen as more of a problem in North America. The guy in the UK who can afford to get sozzled every night is not seen as a problem drinker until he runs out of money, gets violent, or gets cirrhosis.

I agree.

The limit is 0.05. Tougher than the UK and many countries in the world. This always seemed a strange one to me as why would someone who ignored the 0.08 limit suddenly decide to take notice of a 0.05 limit? The government/police announced just yesterday that road deaths due to alcohol had dropped by almost half since the introduction of the 0.05 limit. It is hard to argue with that. Whether it is because people who would have had two drinks only had one, other whether it is because people just went out less often remains to be seen.

I am not sure I agree with this. IMO the problem is illegal and unregulated drugs, not the drugs themselves. No one has yet made a convincing argument why a legal, controlled, regulated and taxed cannabis industry would be detrimental to society. Quite the opposite.

Re: UK or Canada
 

One of my children tried to block what I could see on his facebook profile once. That was when I started checking even further.

You can block things on your profile, but often if your friends do not do they same then that information you are trying to hide becomes public knowledge.

I believe that as a parent if I am given reason for concern, I can insist that my child logs into facebook and shows me what they are trying to hide. I have only exercised that right a couple of times.

I am Tech savvy enough to know when I am been blocked, but you are right that not all parents have the same level of knowledge and it is the same with children. The other parent concerned did not have a clue what their child was into.

Many adults have the same false sense of security with their activities on the internet and some have ended up being sacked and frequently passed over for promotion.

M view is if you want to keep something private then do not put it on the internet.

Re: UK or Canada
 

I do not think that the drug culture is any worse in Canada than that in the Uk. I was brought up in London. I was a school governor and expelled many children for dealing drugs and also knew who the drug dealer on my block was (even though i have never been a part of the drug scene).

In London you are fearful of leaving your door open and also of walking late at night by yourself in case you get robbed or attacked.

In Canada I do not have that fear. My door is unlocked most of the time and the streets are safe. There are criminals, but they normally keep their violent activities to themselves.

Re: UK or Canada
 

Drugs are widely available in Canada. Drugs were widely available in the UK in the 90s. I struggle to imagine they are less so now. It is a great generalization but I guess more people use cannabis rather than alcohol to get off their head in Canada compared to the UK, but both are used in both countries.

Re: UK or Canada
 

Take into consideration the cost of activities for your kids when considering a move here. This is one thing we overlooked. Both our kids were swimmers in the UK, one swam in international sport events across Europe. Their swim fees for the year amounted to approx 500 pounds for the both of them which included transport to swim meets etc (mostly funded by local council and lottery sports fund) Over here just for one its $2,550.00 per year plus extra for transport to and from swim meets, some of which are in other provinces which incur flight costs and accommodation. We were told to expect to pay around $4,000 to $5000 each per year when all the swim meets and travel/accommodation were taken into consideration. $10,000 as opposed to 500 pounds!!!
One of the guys who my OH works with forks out $7000 per year for his kid to do ice hockey - he is quite good apparently!
Both my kids were also into music, guitar and flute and were part of many bands and orchestras organised by school and the music service from our local council (costing us 40 pounds per term) I can't find an equivalent here without again costing us mega bucks.
So at the moment my two are not doing much, we have to decide which one they want to do the most as we can't pay for it all like we did in the UK.

Re: UK or Canada
 

If you have a decent income and are attentive to your children there's probably not much of a difference. The only real question will be; do you want to relate to your children or not? If not, Canada, if you do, the UK.

Re: UK or Canada
 

Oink surely you cant say becuase someones parents are foreign born that they will not relate to them?

My husbands mother is French and moved here when she was eighteen and yes she does have some funny habits but then doesn't everybody.:huh:

I dont think he has ever had a problem in relating to her. We have family all over the world and it doesnt ever affect how we are to them or how we get on.