dbd33

If you have the choice of one person staying at home in Canada and don't have that choice in the UK for financial reasons, doesn't that mean that you're financially better off in Canada?

iaink

I think we would have more in the bank in the UK, two incomes minus child care costs, but there would maybe not be much in it. By the time the kids are older and my OH goes to work again, then we will probably be ahead here, but thats a little way off yet.

kate 17

I'll tell you about my kids. They are both very clever and have done well, both have now got good degrees. None of their many cousins went to university. that in it's self has set them up for life.

My daughter say's to me, that she is glad that she wasn't brought up in the Uk because she knows she would have been bullied at school She was a quiet girl with her head always in a book, totally uninterested in anything her peers were interested in...She pulled the head off Barbie and little pony had it's tail cut off Her social skills were lacking even though her academic perfomance was stellar. In high school she was put into what's called the IB program, where she was so happy, because all the kids in that program were as geeky as she was. In a comprehensive British school I don't think she would have survived.

My son was more well rounded, he was clever.but also very social. He would have done well in the UK.

Most of their cousins, not geeks by the way, but the girls being very pretty have been really badly beaten up....hospitalised in fact. I couldn't bear the thought of that happening to my kids. They also were not subject to a drink and drug culture that the UK has in the schools. Here the kids seem to be kids longer.

dbd33

Mine were subject to a "drink and drug" culture in their Canadian school. Fortunately, they were prepared for that by the drink and drug culture at home.

Souvy

You haven't met my relatives.

canadian_bacon_boy

Well one of the key reasons for our move to Canada was that change in too many social areas within the UK has been negative.

The UK is a class led country whereas in Canada cutural differences defines social sectors. This can greatly limit what and how you do things.

I have worked hard to limit my working class roots and I have educated myself to a degree level.

Life is good for my children in the UK, we live in a very middle class white area. But uncontrolled immigration, crime, socially acceptable levels of violence and social diversification have started to bleed into villages and small towns and this changes your persective of the future.

We are not worried about our childrens lives now in the UK but what opportunities and quality of life will be available to them within the UK in 10-20 years based upon projected progression of the issues listed above.

But I also accept it is not an exact science and I could be complaining from Canada to you in ten years about how wrong I was in my decision.

Right hear, right now it feels right and there is risk in every chance you take.

Atlantic Xpat

Soft drug use seems endemic in Canadian schools. I don't have the same connection to UK schools but is it the same?

Atlantic Xpat

Canada is very much lead by a 'how much you have' culture which is as abhorent as a class structure. I mean if you can't afford to do hockey, have an I phone, the right clothes etc, how does your child fit in at school?

The whole class thing is perpetuated by people who consider themselves working class, or are proud of their working class roots to the extent that it becomes a chip on their shoulder. Class has played no role in my upbringing or work experience in the UK. It's simply something I've never considered. Perhaps that's a middle class perpsective on life? Is your education to degree level any more laudable than my own?

iaink

My family was already spread all over the UK, we didnt see each other very often, usually at my parents for easter or christmas, that kind of thing, so for us there was not the constant day to day contact with family anyway.

If anything moving means we now see them for a week or two at a time now, someone seems to come over every year, and the day to day contact with uncles and aunts and cousins etc has been taken up by close friends here who now carry honorary uncle and aunt titles, although to be fair many of those are people that my (canadian) wife has known for years. I do miss those seasonal gatherings of family though... obviously gathering for a funeral is not the same kind of thing!

Its definitely something to think about when doing the pro and con list for making the move.

iaink

Have you actually looked at the ethnic make up of Canada?

If you are looking for a white homeland then maybe you should think again!

Maybe I am misinterpreting your motivation

fledermaus

In this small town 'safe' Ontario area I've seen a teenage girl with a black eye after someone threw stones at her. Police called to deal with teenage girls fighting. Kids standing smoking outside their school. The drug dealer parks along the snowmobile trail in the early evening. The garbage bin on that trail is often full of empty beer bottles and the railway bridge on the trail is covered with racist graffiti along with a few penis sketches.

Atlantic Xpat

Or to sum up; 'Shit happens everywhere'.

dbd33

I doubt these are issues in rural Manitoba. Take lots of coats.

fledermaus

I thank you for your erudition.

iaink

Good lord, garbage in the garbage cans, you might have to explain that idea to those in the UK unused to the concept

My kids made $4 at the weekend returning all the bottles they collected on a recent walk in the woods, they were well chuffed...my wife, not so much! Shes old school canadian and was appalled at the lack of conscience of those that left them there in the first place...