It’s a lot of craic but it’s certainly different.
Here are some things you’ll only get if you’re raising your kids in the country.
1. You have to drive everywhere
Country-living means a LOT of driving, a situation that only gets worse as your children get older. Journeys are made even more fun by getting stuck behind tractors at least twice a day. However, being local means you usually know exactly where he’s going and can count fields patiently in your head.
2. Townies are always asking you if you have to drive everywhere
No, no, not at all…I don’t know what you’re talking about! I love living in the country…it’s so beautiful we walk everywhere *manic laughter*
3. You are your children’s sole form of entertainment
Living the rural dream means that your children will look to you to provide constant sources of entertainment, organise play-dates, and make frequent suggestions about what they should be doing. One day (during a particularly agonising week off school) I got so fed up that I sent all three of them out to cut the grass. With a plastic crayola safety scissors.
4. Giving directions to your house is a total nightmare
Trying to organise play-dates is one thing. Trying to give a townie directions to your house for a play-date is a whole other kind of hell. Mid-conversation you realise that you’re trying to direct someone via field names that only locals know. You end up sounding like a complete bogger who counts in gates instead of kilometres “yeah if you follow those three bends in the road, past McCormack’s field, then through the crossroads, past the old pump (hasn’t been there since 1967) and count four gates down…”
5. Your children don’t notice the smell of slurry
Inevitably you will give up trying to direct other mums to your house and offer to pick their child up instead. Driving along the town-kid may start to shout “yuck what is that disgusting smell?!” while your lot remain blissfully oblivious to the stench of animal excrement surrounding the vehicle. They have years of stinking immunity on their side.
6. Your front AND back doors are always swinging
You’re not a fully-fledged country Ma if you don’t roar “Will ye CLOSE THE FECKIN DOOR!!!” fifty times a day.
7. Your offspring can identify an electric fence from 100 feet
From a very young age your kids have a near-intuitive knowledge of electric fences. But that probably won’t stop them from daring the townie play-date to touch one…
8. A car at the gate is the most exciting (and suspicious) thing that can happen
Unexpected visitors pulling up to the gate immediately cause every nose in the house to be pressed up against the window. Shouts of “mummmmmmmm there’s someone at the gate!” sends you all into a frenzy of suspicion and excitement. The fact that it’s just the ESB man to read the metre is both a massive let-down and a relief.
9. Knocking into the neighbours is a full-blown expedition
Townie-kids will never know the hardship of what knocking-in to your neighbours means in the countryside. Asking someone if they’re allowed out to play probably involves a trek across a field, under a hedge, or through a ditch and closely resembles We’re Going On A Bear Hunt “Mud! Thick oozy mud. We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it. We’ve got to go through it!”
10. Your children are jealous of their friends who live in the town
Your kids will repeatedly ask if you can move to an estate so they can have a green, even though they have a massive field outside their own house.
11. There is always a wide variety of children’s ride-on JCBs abandoned outside your house
Despite all the notions that people have about you floating around your country garden with a basket of fresh produce looking like an earth-mother, the reality is that you live in a junkyard where Massey Fergusons go to die.
12. There’s always mud everywhere
On your children, all over your floors, covering the wellies, football boots and runners they abandon at the front door, on the dog…oh no wait that’s not mud…
13. At least one of your kids will wear a GAA jersey every single day
Ah yes, the countryside – where fashion choices mean club or county. Normal clothes? Townies can kiss my ash.
14. There are a lot of animals to look after
And a lot of animal sh*t to scoop up. Chasing hens is a family activity but mention cleaning out the coop and you’ll suddenly find yourself completely alone. Spare a thought for country-kid Darragh, the star of the Late Late Toy Show, whose Daddy brought his pet lamb Tara on a special trip. To the factory.
15. Cutting the grass is a massive full-day ordeal
Unless you have a ride-on lawnmower; in which case it’s a joyride on your Da’s knees.
16. Your kids will never be scared of the dark
Because where you live has darker nights than any horror movie Hollywood can imagine. Ever heard the screams of foxes going at it? No? You don’t know what fear is.
17. The internet is crap
You can’t ‘just stick on Netflix’ for the kids because the estimated download time is…FOREVER.
18. Halloween is always a bit shit
See 1, 3, and 10.
19. Supermacs V McDonalds
Your kids don’t need some creepy clown. They have a creepy pink bunny.
20. Living in the country is the best
Fresh air, rosy cheeks, summers spent swimming in effluent, and learning to drive in a field when you’re eleven. Why would you want any other kind of childhood?
Town or country living? Let us know which camp you fall into in the Facebook comments.
