Nu-Shooz

I like Birmingham, it was a nice change to go shopping there. The clubs at the time i went were great.
What i did notice there, were alot of black people. Not that it bothered me, i come from a very very multi-cultural city

cricket1again

Birmingham has got better since it got The Bullring shopping centre plus it does have the NEC. As a shopping area, it's good. As a place to live, it's a city so as with all cities, it has it's problems which don't look crash hot when they're featured in a TV programme representing the UK. It's bad enough that the world thinks that the Brits favourite traditional meal is tikka marsala!

rabsody

Nothing at all.

northernbird

I agree, I think the way 'the pack' have descended on Ezzie is awful.

Pollyana

Nothing wrong with either you or Ezzie telling it as it is. There's room on BE for both sides, as always. Just maybe try and be a little less personal with some of your comments.....

Fleaflyfloflum

Pack?? I am part of no pack and never will be.

I have given my honest and open opinion on the comments she has made. I have not been abusive and if i think she is talking from her backside I have a perfect right to say so. Whether others agree or disagree is up to them.

I just find it hard to believe all this crap has been bestowed upon her kids in such a short space of time without any input on their part. I am not saying Ezzie is lying, but maybe she ought to question the entirity of some of the situations as she was not personally there. As for the son being in a pub with a group of 15yr olds who were drinking, I jolly well hope if this is the case that this boy will "do the right thing" as the aussies always say, and go to the police station and make a statement about it so that the pub landlord is made accountable, and also informed that he has hoards of under age drinkers in his establishment. Same goes for the restaurant.

There have been 17 pages written here. I even posted that i enjoyed reading her posts earlier on, but i will not accept someone trying to give the imression that their teenagers are angels and everyones elses children are trying to poison them.
I have raised my kids and gone through the teenage phase with them. Teenagers by their very nature slip up, make mistakes, tell the odd lie and often make fools of themselves. It is part of growing up! Anyone who truly believes their children are not experimenting, pushing boundaries, manipulating certain situations using things to their advantage is, at best, niave!!
I dont really know what happened in all these situations, but neither does Ezzie! Of course the kids can be telling the whole truth. I just find some of it a little far fetched. Especially when they are saying they are caught up in situations where all the others are doing bad things but they sat back and werent??

northernbird

I can't argue with any of that.

rabsody

Me neither. Kids will be kids and to think that one's own little darling is somehow different to the others is quite naive (not saying that's what Ezzie was doing). However maybe it is the case that drugs could be more prevalent in one country's teen culture than the other (I'd say pot is more prevalent in Aus for instance IMHO). Or that kids dabble in drinking earlier, or that kids are more into performing arts or morris dancing or are more academic; whatever the case may be! Those are the bits that I am interested in as they are coming from an 'outsider' looking in.

Grayling

Of course kids don't drink in Australia

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...21/2426329.htm

G

rabsody

I can honestly say I've never seen underage drinking here in Australia .....

Grayling

That's because the kids are too busy making daisy chains or helping old ladies across the road

Nu-Shooz

Oh for god sake, teenagers are teenagers, do they want us parents to know everything they get up to behind our backs we would be very nieve if we thought they didn't do absolutely anything wrong lol.

Grayling

I think some of the people on this site must have led very sheltered lives.

I was a teenager over 40 years ago.

Some of the things we did we did would have made our parents hair curl

G

Nu-Shooz

That's just it though isn't it, we try to learn them from our mistakes. If things go wrong it's always the other kids fault

I have been to hell and back with my daughter, i used to think it was always the other kids fault, leading her astray (here in Perth)..now i realise it was her all along, wanting to do her own thing. She has called me an hypocrite loads of times, i know she is right

ezzie

Well, I guess this thread had to descend in personal attacks at some point and not suprising it was from the same three people who bring every other thread down.

I've enjoyed all comments up to this point and have even enjoyed writing it (even though it's a bit of an effort to get up early to do so on these dark mornings). I know a lot of people...and mostly those who just read, rather than comment are getting something out of it. It's been great to hear different perspectives and totally brilliant to hear that what we're experiencing isn't necessary the picture everywhere in Britain.

I've always enjoyed hearing things 'as they are' from many individuals perspective, but making innane judgmental comments that I should 'go back to Australia' is destroying everything I hoped this thread would provide.

I would have thought by now that it was obvious that we love England, we're just pretty disappointed with some aspects of it. I would imagine that there's not many of us who could say otherwise. We, like many, want to return to the UK and are just sussing it all out - how feasible it is, how wise a move it would be and, importantly, where to move.

We love this village and I would not hesitate to live here, but my comments about the teens stand. If anyone's seen the film 'Hot Fuzz', well there's an awful lot of similarities there! What concerns me is that should we stay here in this village, whilst there's a lovely group of kids, how on earth would a teen who doesn't smoke or drink socialise when all the social events are based around getting smashed? I certainly did much the same when younger, but there was always a significant no. of groups who didn't. I'm not really seeing this at the moment in this area. If ever there was a place to run a youth group - this is it I reckon.

Anyhow, I really haven't the energy for putting up with personal attacks made under the guise of 'I've a right to say what I like'. I can either carry on writing or just leave this thread to fall into a list of vitriole like many before have. I'm just peed off because it's always the same few vocal posters that do this time and again.

I do thank everyone else who have brought such valued and interesting comments to this thread though - I've really enjoyed reading them, discussing ideas from them with my family and having a chuckle over some of the humour that can still be found even though we're all wrestling with difficult issues over where we want to be, or for some, not being able to be where we know we want to be.