Adelaide,great place to grow up,but does it provide children a better future???

[sduffy]

Just been discussing this recently with friends.On a personal note our daughter is hoping to study at Uni and seems to hold the view that she will leave SA after uni to either work abroad, or go interstate,as she believes from friends at school who have older brothers and sisters that for certain professional careers that there are just not the career prospects here.

 

The majority of our aussie friends, their kids have done the same.

 

Just wandered for those who have older kids, have they found good jobs here, or have they had to spread their wings further afield.

 

Interested to hear peoples views.

 

Sue

[snifter]

My husband and his brother both ended up overseas living and working (and that is in the last decade or so). They were both happy in Adelaide but wanted to experience life elsewhere for a while and both then met the people who became their wives and so both ended up staying in their respective countries.

 

Both are now returning to SA/Adelaide with wives and kids.

 

TBH I think its perfectly natural for many to move elsewhere once done with uni or whatever. Happens all over the world. Many kids attend uni in Adelaide as its more the done thing to go to one in the city you live in whereas in the UK you tend to go to one further afield. But same happens here as there. Most kids move on, go where the work is or a place that appeals.

 

Personally I'd never move back to my hometown having left it aged 18 or 19 and gone off to study then travel. Not much to keep me there apart from family and honestly, I can't live my life glued to their apron strings nor would they want me to.

[sduffy]

Dont disagree Snifter,but there is a differance between your child say living in London and you are in Manchester, than you being in Australia and they move back to the UK.

 

I have friends in the Uk whose children even in the current climate have found good jobs ,i cannot say the same for people in Adelaide,that is the reason for my question.

 

It has repercussions in that if people come here thinking that the job prospects for teenagers are better than uk and they find they are not,it could compromise the whole family's prospects of staying here,or splitting families up who do not necessarily want to be living so far apart and the practical and emotional difficulties which may then ensue.

 

I am trying to gauge how people have found the job situation here for late teens ,or graduates so that people coming here have a better idea of the general prospects or difficulties that their children may face.

 

I personally have found that though Adelaide is a sprawling fairly large city,probably on a par in terms of size with say Manchester,in terms of employment prospects it is very similar to trying to get a job in somewhere like Devon or Cornwall. There are very few large employers here particularly multi national type companies.There is a very high percentage of casual workers and people who work for small companies, or individual traders ,who are surely more at risk during a recession.

 

 

 

Sue

[Diane]

My daughter wants to study drama or musical theatre at Uni - she wants to move to either Sydney (first choice), Perth, or Melbourne to do this as Adelaide really doesn't have the same level of course that these other cities have. Mind you, someone living in Brisbane/Darwin/Canberra would be faced with the same choices, so it's not just Adelaide! Can't see either of my kids building a career here in SA tbh (my son who is a little younger wants to do either music journalism or classical performance, and again, bigger cities offer far more scope and opportunity). I think if the kids flee the nest for other cities, we too may well consider eithher travelling or moving elsewhere. Adelaide has been good to us, but..... <where's a 'shrug' emoticon when I need one?>

[Rachiegarlo]

It's also our mindset. We think nothing of driving to the NSW /Vic border for a day trip if we have to, or driving to Melbourne . We hop on planes to weekend away in Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast and think nothing of it. Our young nick off overseas for one, two ....or more years for work and play. Some come back, some stay. It's a plane ride or two away. Many people in the UK experience their kids never moving back home after Uni. Kids need to build their own lives. You moved to Adelaide ( if you have kids) to give them a better life, more options etc. If they use all this to have the courage to up and move somewhere else, build a new life etc they are only building on what you did. My girls are in Europe, with FaceTime, Facebook, IMs etc it doesn't matter how far away they are. I often wake up to little messages on my phone in the morning or even have chats in the car facetimeing them(hands free of course ). If you moved here there are no guarantees for your kids , if you stay in the UK there are no guarantees either. Life is what you make of it, but it helps if you have had a good start, which means you enter adulthood with wide horizons and sense of place no matter where you are in the world.

[jim and adel]

I get that wherever you are your kids could move away when they grow up, but this doesn't explain why SA loses more of its young people interstate than any other state. That this is the case suggests it isn't just about globalisation and the modern ease of moving from place to place, but something about SA itself.

[star123]

Took my daughter 18 long months to secure a part time job here, it was VERY difficult for her, she found part time work alot easier to get back in the UK in fact she had been working since 14 over there, whereas here, it was like banging her head against a very hard brick wall and in alot of cases here in adelaide it seems to be more of the case of who you know and not what you know, she will finish her studies here and go elsewhere, the sad thing is all of her Australian friends say if they are given the opportunity they would leave adelaide in a shot so what does that say??

[Rachiegarlo]

Perhaps it is Jim but Adelaide is still a great place to bring up a family. Where they end up when they're grown is another matter. Adelaide/SA is a smaller population than the Eastern states and so depending which field of work, your child wishes to enter, the available positions in this state may well be filled already or that work doesn't exist here at all.

[Lazy Cow]

Good thread!

 

Not sure what anyone could / should do with the answers though.

 

Like most, if not all, posters on here we migrated bearing the kids' needs in mind. Not for the kids as we lived in a great place in the UK, but definitely with their needs, present and future, in mind. Family life here has been great; totally love it but now they are getting to the age when it's over to them.

 

I believe people move where their field of work is, particularly the young. Young people have heads full of dreams, no real ties and can go wherever best fits them. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't come back - look at Snifter's OH and BIL and I'm sure there are many others - SA will always be a part of them. Whether they will have created new ties elsewhere or simply choose not to return is down to them.

 

I don't think we can predict where our kids will end up...let's face it, I bet our parents didn't!...so I will just go with the flow, live my life with my DH and always have a home for my kids to come back to, if they choose. I might follow them, I might not, but whatever hapoens I'm glad we came here.

 

LC

[Guest Guest12727]

Good thread!

 

I believe people move where their field of work is, particularly the young. Young people have heads full of dreams, no real ties and can go wherever best fits them. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't come back - look at Snifter's OH and BIL and I'm sure there are many others - SA will always be a part of them. Whether they will have created new ties elsewhere or simply choose not to return is down to them.

LC

 

I am one of those, born and raised in Adelaide, left as a young adult for 14yrs, but came back with OH/family. I didn't leave for work, I left a good job to go away, but wanted other experiences, and am lucky to be in a field which is in demand pretty well everywhere, so have always had work when I wanted or needed it. I am one of 7 children, 4 still in SA, 3 are in other states. None of them left SA specifically for work, but for other reasons - weather, partner etc.

 

When I worked in London, I worked with people from all over the place. Many had moved to my places of work for their first job or for promotion. They came from Ireland, all over UK, Europe, Sth America - and then there were the Aussies and Kiwis.

 

Whether young adults move on will depend on many things - ability to find work only one of them. There are many jobs that are in demand in SA and some that aren't. Worth considering when choosing what to do at Uni if staying in Adelaide is important. No matter where you are, being flexible always helps your work prospects.

[Guest Guest12727]

Given the recent discussion in this thread and others I thought this an interesting article addressing the issue of how Adelaide is perceived by other states - modern day reality or based on times gone by? The article is about recent furore started by a complaint to the media by the Mother of a Flinders Uni Drama student who objected to nudity in their plays.

 

For the full article see http://indaily.com.au/opinion/2013/08/26/nudity-turmoil-damages-adelaides-brand/

 

Nudity turmoil damages Adelaide’s brand

(excerpt)

But this takes us to the real loser in all this: Adelaide. Talking with friends and colleagues interstate – and the phone calls and the emails have not stopped coming – it is invariably the same response: “that’s Adelaide”. Meaning, it’s a narrow, moralistic town, where Alan Seymour’s One Day of the Year was once refused production and Bobby Helpmann was spat on in the street for wearing suede shoes.

 

Having lived in Adelaide a year now, my view is the opposite. It’s an open, dynamic city with a rich and varied population and life. Culturally, it boxes well above its weight and Flinders Drama Department is one of the drivers of that, churning out a stream of successful actors, directors and writers, among them the current Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company, the CEO of the Festival Centre, and the last winner of the Patrick White Playwright Award.

 

Flinders Drama is one of South Australia’s best assets. It is not beyond criticism – who is? – but it did not deserve trashing in a cruel and careless way. This kind of brouhaha, built on nothing and going nowhere, is a retrograde step and whoever advised the student’s mother to go to the media in the first place did a disservice not only to her daughter and the university, but to the city and the state as well.

 

Julian Meyrick is Strategic Professor of Creative Arts at Flinders University and was formerly Associate Director and Literary Manager at Melbourne Theatre Company for six years.

Edited August 26, 2013 by Guest12727

[Lily Rainbow]

My kids did primary school in SA,and then we relocated to the UK.Both did their high school here,and went on to find really good jobs.Both are Australian.We lived in a country town when we were in SA,and all but one of their friends have moved either interstate or OS.