Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

Hi this is my first post, just fancy a complete change from Britain my husband and I are seriously considering the Middle East. I have a young family (5 and 3). I am from a Nursing/Midwifery background (it would appear that the jobs are plentiful for me)
Can anyone shed any light on what I could expect with a young family??

Re: Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

I wouldn't have a young family anywhere else, if i could help it. Schools are good, weather is great for 6 months of the year, but you can swim all year around. OUr compound is relatively safe and we have a pool and tennis court. My children, swim, play tennis, do gymnastics, ride and all within 5 minites. People are friendly, we have loads of friends with kids the same age and babysitting etc is cheap so we can go out alot. Which we do.

Re: Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

it will all depend on how much money you have to spend.... where you end up living, as if you are in an expensive compound right in the thick of things it will be easier to have loads of friends and get involved... if you dont have that opportunity and have to live in a big high rise or way out of town far from your school friends etc then its not as easy. also the amount of disposable income you have left over as its expensive in uae and getting even more then that makes all the difference. so one person's opinion will of course not always be what you will experience. if you have a good company that helps with all the red tape and looks after you then all well and good, not all of them do that, if you are working for an american company they generally look after you much much much better than others do, the fact that you have to pay income tax too. working in the nursing field may be quite a lot of work but its long hard work and i dont think its that well paid, getting the haad is a bit time consuming too.

Re: Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

also getting in a british school with young uns is a bit of a nitemare still.

Re: Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

I don't know anyone, nor have ever met, anyone who didn't get their child into a school. Maybe not their first choice for a year but most have sibling policies.

Try abudhabiwoman.com too as there are a couple of midwives that post on there (or were!).

Re: Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

I have a 5 and 3 year old and they love it

You can expect your Kids to love it here.

You can expect to have an empty wallet whilst they love it

Re: Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

the one midwife you are thinking of has left the country and the other one doesnt post much.

i have known people that have had to wait over a year to get into a school and so have had to keep back into uk etc. but it all depends on what budget you have, where you want to live, where you want to go.

Re: Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

Nail hit squarely on head. Quality of life here is even more directly proportional to your income than it is back home. If you really want to live the expat dream, you need plenty of money.

Re: Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

Thanks so much for all posts really helpful.

My job (either Abu Dhabi or Qatar new government hospitals) would provide accommodation, utilities, 85,000 sterling tax free (appx 530,000 AED) medical, it says schooling fees is also covered but not sure what this means and what else I need to know about this??

Does that sound like a reasonable package and will family of 4 be able to live reasonably well on this?

Re: Middle east with young family, wonderful opportunity or nightmare?
 

most places if they do sch fees have a limit ie 2 children but 20k each or something so you would need to check, of course some will pay "whatever" but its definately changing on that front.