Rockstar08

After living in the USA for 6 years and becoming a citizen, I am thinking of taking my family back to the UK.

Our circumstances have changed, my family has a new addition, my newborn son is 3 months old. I have applied for an received consular registration and a passport for him. His future is my every thought.

My reasons are as follows.

For the past 4 years, the family has just managed to keep afloat financially, we almost lost our home but managed to get an adjustment. Our home is underwater by 40%. Each year health care gets more expensive, along with inflation means I have been earning less year on year. Our financial future does not look optimistic.

Healthcare in the USA isn't up to the same standard as the UK, it seems that doctors and hospitals are more interested in rapping your insurance policy than providing quality care. Am sick of switching doctors and getting medical bills.

Schools in the USA are not up to the same standard as in the UK, I live in the southwest, I hear horror stories about guns in schools, teachers that don't want to teach, and just sit on their tenure, and low levels of literacy that bring the class standards down. We cannot afford to do the after school programs ( $600+/month football etc ) let alone send him to a private school.

After weighing the amount of salary I would have left, living in the USA vs. the UK work out around the same, for my salary range. Employment is not really a concern, as I am well established in my career.

Opinions? What would you do?

Sally Redux

I agree with you on the whole, if you can find employment back there and live in a reasonable school catchment area, although of course there is economic uncertainty in the UK too.

DeanUK2US

Things aren't too pretty here (in the UK) where I am at present. There is a looming second recession and the PM and his cabinet have no idea what to do about it. I'm hoping to leave again before long.

Have you thought of moving to another State?

Bob

This, probably cheaper than moving to the UK, especially the way the economy is at the moment.

Though all depends on what the careers are I'd suppose and the likelihood of finding decent jobs in your fields.

Congrats on the little one though!

fatbrit

You'd be hard-pressed to be 40% underwater in your home. Just about to buy a rather spiffy property in northern AZ for a tad over $200k. It last sold 5 years ago for over $500k.

SanDiegogirl

With a family to support I would not move until I had a job to go to. Too many horror stories on the forums about people who thought it would be NO problem for them getting a job only to find some 6 months later they are doing entry level jobs for minimal wage - or even worse only part time

A "bird in the hand etc etc " comes to mind/

Mummy in the foothills

Once kids come along you do what you have to do to make a decent life for them. If moving is what it takes to do what you feel you need to do then make your plans and go for it.
I had planned on being here forever even with homesickness and depression on occasion, but the kids have changed out plans and so we will be moving back in the next 18-24 months or so.

Rockstar08

I guess I am one of the lucky ones, I work from home and can be anywhere there's a broadband connection. Its really more a question of exchange rates, as I get paid in USD, rather than finding another job. At least I could transition without being out of work, if not stay working for my US employer.

A bird in the hand is exactly right, because there's nothing to push me out the door right now, but to be honest I don't like to be forced into anything, so I wouldn't be any happier if there was, and feeling like your on a tight rope with no safety is not good either.

Right now keeping our options open seems like the way to go.

Homeiswheretheheartis

I am in a slightly different position to most on here. Ive been here 3 months, my husband works for the goverment so we are still employed as if we were back home. We are also only here for 2 years. I hope this means I can give upto date info on the UK.

I'm guessing your main concern is your new born (congrats), e.g education and general way of life for your child. I have two children, girl and boy, to add one of my children has educational special needs and the other is on the gifted register. So I have good experience of the education system:-)

Firstly, general way of life in UK, for my kids we live in a smallish town in Lincolnshire (fab house prices), my kids aged 8 and 10 are able to play outside by themselves. Traffic and road sizes here, mean its impossible. Locally we have football clubs, swimming, cricket, rugby etc, all within 10 to 20 mins max away. Costs range from £100 a year to swimming at council centres approx £3.50 a lesson:-) My kids primary did after school no cost football, table tennis, tag rugby, athletics.

Here the elementary (and they go to one of the top listed) do no after school activities:-(. We cannot afford the football as the cheapest being $100 ever 8 weeks to $1000 PLUS (yes true) a year. Swimming is costing me $120 for 8 lessons at YMCA! I have also found the Brownies and cubs are poorly organized and do not match back home.

Education, there are schools like any country I would not send my dog to in the UK and here. But in the area I live we had the choice of 4 primary (elementry) schools with Excellent Ofsted reports, we also have Grammer schools, but the high school is so good that people choose sometimes to turn down Grammar places.

The biggest difference I have realised is in UK schools the children learn very open, with the opportunity to explore facts and information, to question and find ways of learning that engage them. Here in the US my children are expected to learn to pass tests only, and to do this they continually bring home the same huge amount of homework, which goes over and over the same maths, and English. As my son is very bright this is not giving him the opportunity to explore learning. I also find it very unsettling that the school has had a college day where the children go to school wearing the colours of the college the want to go to! (no pressure there then).

My daugher has dyslexia and at home in the UK she recieved 30 mins of extra help a day. The UK system varies from school to school and you really need to do all the pushing. Many parents with children of special needs never get the help required:-( My experience of the US is they the school assessed my DD from the first week, they legally have now to provide extra help 30 mins a day for her. So on that side I would say the US school has provided better.

To add as well, my children are 8 and 10, we are not a well off family but they have been to Paris, Spain, Holland and Germany oh and the US:-).

Finally (bet your glad), I have posted a couple of times saying I don't like it here, because I was homesick, thats gone now, so I hope my info is more factual than based on how Im feeling.

Its mad but once you have kids they are all that matter. If you want to know anything else about the education system back in the UK just drop us a line:-)

AmerLisa

I know the YMCA is expensive, but is that $120 your family membership? Swimming lessons are included in the membership (along with gymnastics and a few other things.) If its a family membership, and you and your husband don't use the facilities, you could only have the kids on the membership....

My neighbor has her daughter in fast pitch leagues (girl's softball) they pay a lot of money for the privilege, which I think is ridiculous.

Why not form a Brownie troop yourself? All Girl Scout leaders are volunteers and they are usually parents with busy schedules as well. We are lucky enough to have some great troop leaders for our daughter's troop.

I think (with budget cuts) most schools aren't doing afterschool activities for kids, which is a shame. Although as they get older they may have more options.

njmackem

The only advice I would give is to think long and hard about the decision you make. About 4 years ago I was in your position, I had been in the US for 7 years and my life had gone through some major changes and I decided to return to the UK.

It was without doubt the biggest mistake of my life and took me 3 and a half years to get back to America and the woman I love. If I could talk to myself back then I would definitely tell me to stay.

The UK for the most part is great.... Until you have to live there again, then you start comparing how expensive everything is in comparison to the USA. You have Chav Culture being so pervasive throughout the nation and for me that was enough for me to say no more.

I wish you all the best in your decision making process, one thing though, before you move away from the United States... Have you thought about moving away from the South West into another area within the USA?

USIOMUS

My 2 cents worth...

Every state and every area within every state is very different. We are just outside of Buffalo, NY. The problem here is getting a job, but if you can get one, there are some things I really love about living here. (Assuming you don't mind snow for 4 or 5 months of the year.)

We live in a quiet suburb and my kids can (and do) play happily outside unsupervised. (They are 8 and 13.) There is usually a street hockey game going on a bit further down the street that my son sometimes joins in. The neighborhood is all residential and the streets are very quiet.

House prices are cheap and fairly stable. I doubt anyone is 40% underwater here, because house prices have never risen more than a few percent every few years. That means we won't make any money when we sell our house, but we shouldn't lose money either. We live in a much larger house than we had in the UK and paid a lot less for it.

Yes, the health care costs are an issue. We are lucky that hubby's employer offers a generous scheme, but we still pay out of pocket every time someone sneezes. I do think we have found a good group of doctors that aren't too focused on making money off us.

School taxes are high, but the schools are generally pretty good. I think my kids are getting a better education than they did in the IOM. One thing I quite like is that every student in our district in encouraged in 4th grade to try an instrument and provided with free lessons each week as part of the school curriculum. The free lessons continue throughout high school and give the kids a real chance to experience music without costing us much. (we do have to pay to rent the instrument).

In addition there are far more opportunities outside of school for them here. For instance, my 8th grade son (13) does his math at the University at Buffalo. He will graduate high school with 24 UB college credits if he stays in the program. (I think this is a fairly unique program to UB with only a few other programs like it in the US.)

There are after schools clubs at the elementary level that run for about 8 weeks a couple of times a year. They cost around $25 and topics include Spanish, ceramics, karate, etc. The middle school has a bunch of clubs that meet after school (chess, creative writing, Science Bowl, Jazz Band, etc.) and inter mural sports programs that are all free to participate in. (The first year we were here, my son signed himself up for American football...thinking it would be fun to learn to throw the ball and do drills and etc...he had never even held an American football before the first day...well they went straight into game play and his teammates weren't necessarily too excited to have him on their team...he has learned a lot since then...about football and also about not signing up for things if you don't know for sure what you are getting in to!)

Some things are more expensive, but sometimes you get more for your money as well. My son did his swimming lessons in the IOM...for the most part it was older women who stood on the side of the pool and shouted instructions at large groups of kids for twenty minutes at a time. The lessons weren't terribly expensive. My daughter takes lessons here from the local swim club. We paid $90 for 10 lessons recently. The lessons are taught by the high school members of the club. Each group of students is limited to 4 or fewer and the instructors are in the water, working with the kids for half an hour each week. I feel we more than get our money's worth from the lessons here.

Okay...I'll stop now...my point really is that everywhere is different and before you make the expensive move back across the pond, it might be worth checking out some closer (and cheaper) options.

SultanOfSwing

Change the last part to 'I wish I could take my family back to the UK' and I'm right there with you, mate. Been 6 years here myself, USC and all that but it's just not doing it for me here. SWMBO is a bit resistant to a move but I'm going to chip away at her and see if I can change her mind. We were just talking the other day while watching Gladiator how we'd like to go to Rome, and I hinted at how much easier stuff like that would be if we lived closer

But that aside, best of luck to you. If you feel the UK is where you need to be (as I do) and you have the support of your wife et al, you'll make it happen ...

Englishman43

Do you think the fact you had a women in the US whom you loved so much was a big influence ? If she hadn't been in the equation & you'd met someone you felt as strongly about in the UK would that have influenced things ?

I would have to say to all beware the Rose Tinted Glasses syndrome. I've been in the US for 15 years and it's only been the last 3 or so that I've really missed the U.K ( before that I never gave it a 2nd thought and would have NEVER imagined I'd ever miss it ) but I'm certain the Rosy specs are coming in to play and am trying to be as unemotional as possible when trying to decide what to do . Although to the OP you have some compelling reasons to move back for sure.

Bob

This whole thing about after school stuff and costs, yeah, they can and do vary massively.

Next town over, you can sign up for ice hockey and it's something like $120 for 8 weeks, all in. This is geared to under 8 year olds and a bargain.

Most places I know, that might get you the cost of renting the equipment, then you've got to pay to do the activity and then you've got to pay for the ice time on top. Ice skating and hockey can be mad crazy expensive and was surprised to hear it's often much worse up in Maine, where nearly everyone plays it in school.

Though the kids up where MIL teaches in Maine also have a golf club, which I'd never had the chance of doing in the UK. Doesn't happen in MA either, but is amusing about what is big or not depending on where you live.

Swimming is another one. A few towns over, the town pool is free in the summer and lessons for kids under 8 are also free, sign up on a first come basis. Where I used to live, you had to have town beach pass for each kid, about $50 for 6 weeks and then swimming lessons were about $120 a kid. Current town isn't much better....neighbouring town, it's only $5 a person entry to the beach, but then if you don't live in walking distance, parking is an extra $5 so it quickly adds up.

The YMCA around where I live isn't much cheaper either.

The one thing I have noticed, just how much more serious the schools here around where I am are about the sports. You sign up, then you're expected to be there for athletics training at 5:30 in the morning for a couple hours, then practice after school etc. Back when I was a kid, it was more of a mess around after school, kicking a ball about and having a match a few times a week. Maybe it's changed and just as crazy back there these days, but I just can't imagine how any of this can be fun for the kids, if they're expected to do school and all that home work afterwards.