What's better for children- country or city?

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Vanilla

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Have two under three and this question is going through my mind very much at the moment. We live in a beautiful area, we can walk to the beach and we have a great garden. But we have to drive to the nearest shop. I'm sure loads of people in Dublin can walk to the beach, or take a short bus trip. There are gardens in Dublin too! Although we don't have to worry about living in a 'good' area or 'bad' area.

We both work nearby, my commute time is 5 mins approx (if no cows on road or one of my very slow neighbours), husbands is 20 mins.

But for eg my niece in Dublin is involved in all sorts of activities that just are not available around here- ballet, suzuki violin, team sports. Ok there are some activities available here- surfing, sailing, horse riding- all the outdoors stuff.

I suppose in Dublin to be able to afford a relatively nice house with a garden you may well have to commute a long distance which is a drawback.

But you get all the theatres, museums etc

What's the best compromise? Maybe a small city like Kilkenny or even as big as Galway with a less hectic commute? Or is that possible anymore even in Galway?
 
Living in the countryside is great for kids and they really enjoy it out there until they reach their teens.

It can be tougher on parents who enjoy cultural activities, socalizing etc but with young children how often are you going to get out anyhow?

I'd stay put until they are finished primary school at least.
 
Country by a mile (country of course) - they can take up those other activities when they're old enough to head off to the city!!
It takes all sorts, but I wouldn't change a thing about my country upbringing.

I'd stay put until they are finished primary school at least.
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I would have thought that the teenage years would be the most trying for city dwellers?
 
As someone who grew up in the country, I missed out, or it was much more work for my parents and myself to get to sports, cinema, youth club etc. I also had to get up very early to get the school bus which got me to school an hour early!

I hated living in the country at the time, but actually miss the place now.
 
[Edit: in reply to Glenbhoy's point:] Exactly. A lot of people we know moved out of the city (well, the burbs) when the kids hit 15/16, precisely because they were tormented with constant callers/distractions from study/mischief around the estate.

In the country, nobody can hear you/them scream... :D
 
As per the name I grew up in the country. Ok you have less options regarding clubs and extra activities but looking around city estates there is no way I would want kids of mine growing up in city.
Eventually they will thank you .

BTW Galway is no longer the nice wee city it once was and listen to the traffic reports in the morning.
 
Thats a tough question.

I am a dub and hubby is a culchie....we have thought about moving from Dublin to the country so we could have a bigger garden, easier lifestyle, I could have an vegtable garden :) but when it comes to it I prefer Dublin.

That said it depends on what part of Dublin you live. If its a choice between a long commute and the country then I would choose the country.

We live in a 'good' area in Dublin. Nice quiet cul de sac where the kids can play out the front safely...lots of children around, good facilites re swimming pools, playgrounds etc. We rent our house as we couldn't afford to buy in this area and we felt the commute to work from the area we could afford would kill us.

So if you could afford an area near where you work then I might consider moving but if you had to commute then I would stay put.....
What you have described is most peoples ideal......
 
My city kids are used to walking a lot more than their country cousins who have to get driven everywhere. The city kids have access to all sorts of activities that the country cousins are very jealous of. City kids get themselves to/from school; cousins have choice of school bus/be driven...(guess which happens most often). On the other hand, city kids know far more than is good for them about sex and drugs at very early ages, which puts more of a burden on the parents - but maybe prepares them for life in the city? The 13 yr old came home from school with some joke/rhyme about Popeye the Paedo Man, which was GROSS. (To declare my interest, as we must all do theses days, I'm city born and think I would just DIE in the country.)
 
I hear people say we moved to the Country, fields everywhere for the kids to play kids dont want to play in fields not for to long unless there is a socket for their p3, if u live in the city fields sre not to far away, abit of both is ok, but I want luas close big shops close, etc and if u want to go to the fields then take a nice country drive, most people in dublin who move to the country do because of house prices and they just will not admit to it
 
A big town or small city in the Country is the ideal compromise, it has the best of both worlds. Who wants the smoke and fumes and traffic and problems of Dublin ?
 
Vanilla said:
But for eg my niece in Dublin is involved in all sorts of activities that just are not available around here- ballet, suzuki violin, team sports.
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What's suzuki violin? As opposed to just learning the violin? :confused:
 
CCOVICH said:
As someone who grew up in the country, I missed out, or it was much more work for my parents and myself to get to sports, cinema, youth club etc. I also had to get up very early to get the school bus which got me to school an hour early!

I hated living in the country at the time, but actually miss the place now.
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same story for me, country all the way. Kids won't miss out on anything cause their mates will also be from the country.
 
Just because there are loads of kids activities on it doesn't mean you can get to them. They all seem to be on either saturday morning or after school when you might be working anyway. There will surely be Gaa or community games or a local music teacher somewhere near you.
 
I have four under seven and share Vanilla's concerns. My situation is slightly different: we built in a town (26 pubs, five bookies, two chippers and four chinese take-aways, but no bookshop...............) never intending it to be more than our starter home, but now find to darn handy to consider moving, even though I always intended to have the 'ranch'.

However, I am not yet persuaded that urban (small town) living is all that it is cracked up to be. I think the main drawback of rural living with children is not its impact on the kids. but the burden it places on parents who have to do taxi runs here there and everywhere in the teen years.

I have read more than one article (but have not really researched it ) which suggests that children can suffer from anxiety and stress due to too many extracurricular activities. Certainly, many kids in the 8-15 bracket these days seem to have a heck of a lot of activity planned out for them - I don't think we can just assume that this is a good thing. Most of my teens were spent dossing around with pals, with no obvious ill effects.
 
MOB said:
I think the main drawback of rural living with children is not its impact on the kids. but the burden it places on parents who have to do taxi runs here there and everywhere in the teen years.

I have read more than one article (but have not really researched it ) which suggests that children can suffer from anxiety and stress due to too many extracurricular activities.
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I would share your opinions on both of these, if there is no community spirit in the country to share school runs and taxi-ing kids to and from the GAA centre etc parents can find themselves on the road 24/7 and also very isolated.
Regarding activities, my nieces living in the town are only allowed one extra curricular activitity during the week now as for the first few years of "doing everything" they were physically drained, parents included.
Personally i would prefer the country only if i was moving to an existing village with the shop, pub and school run by locals and say a supermarket less than 15 miles away rather than a new development with little community spirit.
 
I have posted on this before. A few years back Mrs Purple and I were thinking of moving to "the big house in the country". We went to see a few houses in Kildare and nearly bought one. What changed our minds was the isolation for the children and access to our family and social network. At the moment the children can walk to their friends house. In a few years they will be able to cycle to school. When they are teenagers they will be able to get the bus into town, and maybe the LUAS if all the election promises are kept. They have access to swimming pools, GAA and other sports.
At the moment we can go for a walk in the evening and weekends in a great park across the road or on footpaths along the roads, in my experience most country roads are too dangerous for anyone to walk on since drivers travel so much faster on country roads.

When our children are older and are driving or being driven I would be much happier with them driving in Dublin as there in less of a culture of speeding and less opportunity to do so.

We can also get to the sea at the weekends in about 25 minutes and to the mountains in about 10 minutes.

I'm sure there are lots of good reasons for living in the country but these are the reasons that we stuck with Dublin.
 
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