Brendan P

My wife (a US citizen) and I live in Kingston on Thames in the UK. I have recently got my greencard and my employer has offered me a job working in North Carolina. I've lived/worked at Ersnt & Young in the US for 2 years in NYC. I was single then, had a lot of fun, met my wife and we moved to the UK so she could experience living abroad. Now though I have two children, a two year old and a 3 week old and if we move we'll likely be in the US for many years if not permanently (particulary if we sell our UK house - hmmmm) I'm now getting a bit nervous, as we like it here but we're frustrated by the the fact that £400k only buys a two bed house in a nice road, or the fact that you can't drive across London without budgeting 3 hours, or the ridiculous business of trying to get your child into a school. i.e. turning up at a church before the school year starts and pretending you believe in god and getting your child baptised, or the passive aggressive daily encounters you can get e.g people in supermarkets pushing / shoving trollesy, or people letting their dogs crap everywhere and not picking it up, or weaving in and out of parked cars to drive down the street and have people glare at you if you don't give way, or yobs not leashing their pit bull type dogs etc, or people ignorning the 20mph speed limits, the hit and miss service in bars/restaurants. Against that though we have good friends here, there are local places like Richmond Park, the River Thames and being able to walk places etc are wonderful. I'm wondering what those who have left the UK make of the US. Is it really a better quality of life, or is it a case of the grass is always greener.

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

What do you call better? It's horses for courses mate, some love it, some hate it. Before taking on the bible belt I would spend a good few weeks down there to get a feel for the place, see if you even want to try and like it. London and NYC are as you can imagine, a world apart from what you're proposing. If you do go, just dont burn bridges.

AmerLisa

You've lived here previously for two years, what was your take on it? Or do you want to know how it would be with a family living here?

I might add, what does your wife want to do? How has she settled in the UK? Family, close in the UK or the US?

I certainly agree with Toots on this one, it can be two different worlds. And no right or wrong answer either.

bevinva

still a bit poorly

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

BigDavyG

If you are both happy and settled in the UK why move ??

HighSpeedGrandma

Is the USA better?

That is definitely a loaded question. Depends on exactly what you are looking for.
You mention being stuck in traffic, people not obeying speed limits, et al.
Well, over here you have people driving and not having any road skills whatsoever, they overtake you in whatever lane they feel like or worse, sit in the so called 'fast lane' doing 50 miles per hour and cause huge big tail backs, or you have others weaving in and out of any lane, all whilst eating their McDonalds, putting on their make-up, talking on their cell phones and shaving. And that's just the women.

You can buy a nice house, but the HOA (Home Owners Assocation) usually has a list of rules as to what you can do with it, or what colour you can paint, what plants you can plant, whether you can hang out washing or not, when you move your trash, what you can park in your driveway etc. Now you can always get a place without a HOA, but that can lead to other problems.
Plus the $500k you put into your house means you are buying usually plywood covered in plastic siding. Forget it if it's windy...you have to hang on to your furniture...and the house, to stop it fallling down.

The whole world comes to a standstill for yellow school buses, which for you with 2 small ones is good, but for those of us without small kids, can add and extra half hour on your journey to work. School buses stop at every rail road crossing and if you get stuck behind one, forget it. Not a bad thing for those with kids of course, but if, like me, you grew up dodging traffic just to get to school, you can't understand the fuss. Just get across the flipping track...

Yobs? Don't have too many of those, well, where I am anyway, but you are surrounded by guns, hunting, and extremely large people wandering around, usually wearing spandex and it is NOT a pretty sight.

Now, I don't know specifically what you want out of life, but whatever side you ARE on the grass usually ends up being greener on the other one.
The TV is crap over here, in my experience, very prudish people in the bible belt, who make sure no one is ever allowed to show a butt or such like on tv, not that you want to see that, but if you want your kids to grow up believing every person has little fuzzy squares instead of body parts this is the place to be.

Hope I have helped....

another bloody yank

For chrissakes, how much dogshit can there be ove there? Everybody bitches about dogshit... I have this image of people slogging through a foot and a half of it to cross a street...

another bloody yank

Sorry, forgot to answer the question.

Yes, the USA is unquestionably better.

Ray

Completely irrelevant ,,,but I had my boat moored at Canbury Gardens ....
very pleasant .....

robin1234

You make a very good point here, shows you've thought it through more than many people. When you move over with young children, then you can find yourself unable to return until retirement ... with the ties of children in a school system, etc. OK, in fact your children are young, so you have a window of four or five years when you can move back without too much disruption. But, as you also suggest, once you've sold your UK house you could be stuck in the US on that score.

Then, you list some frustrations with the UK. Obviously, you need to ask yourself, are these all fundamental flaws with the UK, or just superficial annoyances? Some of your annoyances are traffic-related. At least in the UK you have the option to use public transport, or (often) walk to shops and services, while in the USA you may HAVE to use the car.

Yeah, the dogshit...

bevinva

Does the UK still have white dogshit? Only seen it here once.

robin1234

Amazing, I was going to mention that too. We must have been thinking about it at the same moment...
Doesn't that happen when all the contents leach out, just leaving the white .. whatever.. I mean, it doesn't start out white, does it??

Ridski

Last time I was there, yes. And according to Adam McKay, who co-wrote and directed Step Brothers where there is a scene featuring white dog shit, it only exists here on the east coast. Very strange.

Tarkak9

When it rains like cats and dogs thats when there is a propensity for a crap load of dogshit.

R'mond - Jagger lives there... sometimes.