It is ironic that we hear all the time not to compare oneself to anyone else, that it is not productive and does nothing but cause stress that is not needed. It is ironic because comparing oneself to another is almost human nature, it comes naturally to a lot of people and it may actually have some benefits. When people compare themselves, it actually helps to build their moral compass on values that they hold important.

When a woman becomes a mom, it becomes more important that she does not compare herself to other mothers, which is made almost impossible by social media. Everyone sees the posts by the “perfect mother” who seems to have everything figured out and has found the time to do their hair and put make up on. Everyone sees the moms who seem to have perfect children who sleep all night and barely cry. All this does is make other moms feel bad about themselves, and it doesn’t matter that these posts may be staged.

What about if we took this to a grander scale, and we compared countries? Certainly, that would be a simple thing to compare and would not hurt anyone’s feelings, right? There are some countries that seem fairly similar to each other, they look the same and speak the same language, so we assume that they have similar methods and policies on doing things. If we look a little further, we will probably learn that is not accurate at all.

Today, we are going to be discussing the differences between the United Kingdom and Australia and where the similarities and differences lay when it comes to being a mom.

15 Parents Have Options With UK Schools

A big part of being a mom is making sure that our children get the education that they deserve and that they need to have a great foundation from which to grow on. We may not be able to do a lot about the school systems where we live, but we can definitely observe how they are now and compare them to other countries. The opinion of which is best will be subjective on what one considers important when it comes to how a school should be run.

In the UK there are two sectors of education; state and independent. The main difference is in what students are taught and the qualifications that the teachers need to have.

There are maintained schools which means that the schools are operated by local authorities. They follow the national curriculum but may also focus on subjects like religion.

An Academy is an independent school and they focus a lot on business, technology, science or art. Then there are independent schools that focus a lot on the personal development of individual students. What a family chooses depends on what they are interested in their child learning.

14 Fewer Choices For Schools Down Under

The school system in Australia seems to be a bit simpler. It is not as complicated and there are not as many choices as there is in the UK. Mom’s in Australia will just have to choose from government and non-government schools when the time is right. Government schools are schools that are considered public or run by the state. They are the school for everyone. Non-government schools are the group that is considered faith-based and independent.

Something that is similar in both countries is that students are legally obligated to complete school until they are 16 years old. It is against the law for them to drop out any time before that.

When they are finished school in Australia, they will receive a “certificate of education.” The equivalent to a diploma in the US and Canada. Schools in Australia are run from January to mid-December, so they don’t have the long summer breaks that a lot of the other children in other countries are used too. They get about 2 weeks over the holidays with other shorter breaks throughout the school year. When comparing this to the UK, students in the UK are in school from September to July and they receive 6 holiday breaks.

13 Mom Controls Hospital Childbirth In The Royal Kingdom

When it comes to giving birth, it seems that it would be pretty universal from country to country. When we are comparing first world countries, there are a lot of similarities but there are a few differences. Giving birth is that one moment that really signifies that one has become a mother. So, how do the moms in the UK give birth? A lot of moms in the UK choose to deliver in a hospital, although there are also women who choose to give birth at home as well.

Things will be pretty textbook from then on out. You will get to the hospital and hand over your birth plan and they will make sure that you are far enough dilated to earn a stay at the hospital.

In the UK there is a wide variety of options when it comes to pain relief and control. These options include hydrotherapy, painkiller injections, gas and air, and epidural. Some do allow other forms of pain relief, but it would have to be cleared before hand. In a lot of cases a lot of women are discharged 6 hours after having their baby, which can be overwhelming for a new mom, especially if it is her first.

12 Home Birth Is Discouraged In Australia

So, we see that giving birth in the UK is pretty standard and nothing seems to be shocking or questionable, it is all pretty much expected. What is the differences (if any) that we may find in Australia? Australians pay into a healthcare system, so they are not charged for having a child, it is all covered by their insurance. It is quite common for a woman in Australia to give birth in a hospital, if they are high risk they will be forced to deliver at the hospital and all their prenatal appointments will also be at the hospital.

They are allowed to have a home birth; however, it is only available to women who are considered low risk. Also, not all insurance companies will cover a home birth, so mom will have to consider that when trying to make her decision.

The role of who cares for an expecting woman depends on what the woman wishes. She can choose to have a midwife, or can be seen by her family doctor or an OB. If she is considered low risk and is delivering at a public hospital, she may not ever be seen by an OB until she gives birth. She would be seen by her family doctor for the entire pregnancy.

11 UK Moms Get Great Maternity Leave

Maternity leave is a hot topic all over the world. Some countries appear to be doing it right, while others seem to have a long way to go. Which of our two dueling countries has a better maternity leave plan? If a woman gives birth in the UK, she is entitled to take a total of 52 weeks of maternity leave. That is if they meet the conditions set by their employer. If they do not have additional coverage, than they are allotted only 39 weeks covered by maternity pay. What you take is up to the mother, but she is forced to take two weeks off, four if she works in a factory.

So, what is maternity leave like in the land down under? Well, unpaid maternity leave is guaranteed by both the federal and state laws in Australia.

As long as the woman had been with her employer for at least 12 months she is entitled to maternity leave up to 52 weeks. However, this is not well paid.

So it may mean that she will not be able to afford to take her entire leave. Women must give 10 weeks written notice of their maternity leave, and it must include a medical note that certifies the pregnancy and the woman’s due date.

10 Daycare Costs A Lot Everywhere

If mom is unable to stay home with their children due to financial responsibilities, or just because they want to go back to work the available daycare in their country will be very important to them. Choosing a daycare is a big decision, the are going to be responsible for caring for your child when you are not around, so it is not a decision that is taken lightly. In the UK, there are many daycares (or nurseries as they call them) available. A lot of them will take children from a very young age.

They will also run long days, many from 7am to 6pm, in order to meet the parents, work demands. There are government programs that will help mom out financially if she needs it.

There are also a wide array of daycares in Australia available to a working mom who needs to leave her child with someone during the day. On a government run website for daycares located in Australia, they state on their homepage that they understand how crucial the early years are for child development. It also lists numerous important categories that they see valued in their daycares and can link a parent up to the right fit for their family. They also offer assistance as well for those moms who need just a little bit of help.

9 Which Is Safer? The Jury Is Out!

Moms want very simple things for their children, and one of them is safety. No matter what country you are from, mothers are all the same in that they want their children to be safe. This would be an easy category if we were discussing the differences between the UK and a country in the middle east, but it can be harder to discern which country is better when we are discussing two first-world countries.

Pulled from a blogger’s post who has experienced living in both countries, it would appear that this individual felt a lot safer in Australia.

It was stated that when we look at safety in the mere terms of crime, that Australia was coming up on top. When the blogger was living in the UK, it was noticed that the rate of property theft was very high. Items were always getting stolen from front yards, and while this may not seem like the biggest or most dangerous crime, it can be when we involve children. Children love to play on their front yards, and while they may not be stolen, their bikes and other expensive toys will always be at risk.

8 The UK May Be Rainy, But At Least The Temperature Is Nice

Every country has stereotypes, little jokes and prods that people make when it comes to their culture, food or weather. One of the most common judgements about people who live anywhere within the UK is that it rains all the time. This does not sound like music to a mom’s ears, because on a rainy day she is normally pulling her hair out trying to think of activities to do with the children inside. She would much rather send them outside to play.

The exact term for the type of climate that the UK enjoys is defined as a temperate oceanic climate. It shares this climate with most of north-west Europe. It is defined this because their weather is influenced a lot by the Atlantic ocean.

Due to this country being so close and connected to the Atlantic Ocean, it means that they actually have the mildest, wettest and windiest weather.

They also do not have extreme temperatures, they tend to stay in the comfort zone and never reaching too cold or too hot. This may not be ideal for a mom that is moving to the UK, but if mom grew up there she knows how to handle wet weather activities.

7 Most Of Australia Is Desert

While we may think that it is raining in the UK every single day, we imagine that in Australia it is all hot and sunshine. It appears like it would be perfect weather, except maybe it is possible that it gets too hot. It is always pleasant when it is nice outside, but there reaches a point when it can even be too hot. When the risk of dehydration and heat stroke is too high, and a mom is always stuck inside with her kids. Also, no one likes being sweaty all day every day.

Australia is near the subtropical high-pressure belt. Australia is a large country (it is its own continent as well).

Weather can vary by region, but the biggest portion of Australia enjoys desert-like weather. Only the south-east and south-west areas of Australia experience a comfortable climate.

They do experience a change with the seasons, even though it is reversed from the western part of the world, even the UK. The weather doesn’t seem to get too cold or too hot in places that have a large population of young families. So, which weather is better? It depends on what you are looking for, so we will call this a tie.

6 Australia Is Famous For Dangerous Animals

A picture recently went viral depicting a typical scene in Australia. It showed a Dingo consuming a shark on the beach while two snakes were involved in some sort of wrestling match. Hundreds of Australians were commenting how this was incredibly realistic and could think of no better way to describe life in Australia. This has me thinking, maybe Australia is more dangerous when it comes to wild animals? We have all seen the spiders and snakes that live in Australia, and we know that one must be wary when they are swimming in the ocean, but is it too dangerous?

While there are dangerous animals all around Australia, they tend to stay away from urban areas where a lot of families settle.

They are also easy to avoid when you grow up around them and learn to live in peace with them. The most common of these species is spiders, Australia has a lot of them. These spiders are not likely to kill you, their bite may hurt you and require some antibiotics, it is not likely to take your life. The snakes that are roaming around do have more of a potential to take someone’s life, but they tend to avoid human company, they are definitely more scared of you than you are of them.

5 Is One Mom More Relaxed? Not Really

If we looked at the two countries at face value, and thought about which country had the happier, and more relaxed moms we may think we know. Sometimes the UK gets a reputation for being a little stuck-up and snooty: that they are always uptight and never seem to relax and just the good times roll. As someone with strong English ties, and a lot of family over there, I can tell you personally that the British now how to have a good time.

If we skip across the pond, we assume the exact opposite. We assume that those moms in Australia must always be happy and relaxed because they practically live in a place that a lot of people flock to for vacations. However, this does not mean that the people who live there are always happy, or always on vacation mode, because they are not.

Moms are moms all over the world, and they experience a range of emotions. They are happy, sad, frustrated and stressed out at different points in their life, heck, a lot of moms go through all these emotions in the matter of a single day.

There is no way to determine which country has the happier moms, no study would ever be sure.

4 Average Family Units Are About The Same

We often want to know how big the average family is in any given country. We are enthralled with how many children some women have, and if it seems to be that when we find out a woman has a lot of children we want to know how they do it. We feel like we can barely manage the few we have, so we can not wrap our heads around women who have almost a whole baseball team in their home. So, how do the two countries compare when it comes to family size?

In 2016, there were 27.1 million households in the UK. This number had been rising over the years and will probably continue to rise. When we look at the average size of these households, we come to a rather conservative size.

The average household size in the UK has remained at 2.4 people for the past 10 years. The number is not much different in Australia. The average household size in the land down under was 2.6 people.

This number is a little higher than the UK, but not big enough that we could correctly determine which country is doing it best!

3 More Teen Moms In The UK

There is no right age to have a child, and there are women all over the world who are choosing to have children at different stages of life. Some choose to wait until they are older and married before having children, others like to have children young. They want to experience as much of their children’s lives as possible, so they want to make sure they are still around. Then there are teen mom’s. Being a teen mom is not ideal to many people, if any, but it happens, and they are just doing their best like everyone else.

Is there a country that sees more teen pregnancies? When we look at the UK, their amount of teen pregnancies does tend to be higher when comparing them with other developed countries in the western world. The numbers are dropping as the years go by, but not very fast. In Australia, you are considered a teen mom if you are 18 and younger.

Between the years 2011 and 2012, there were 16 Australian babies out of every 1, 000 that was born to women who were younger than 18. That number does not seem as high as in the UK.

2 What Do Moms Do For Fun, Without The Kiddos!

It doesn’t matter what country you live in, if you are a mom, you need to have fun and have fun often. It is one of the best ways to make sure you don’t completely lose yourself in motherhood. That you are able to unwind and have some fun. Whether this be by yourself or with some friends you haven’t seen in a while. The pub culture in the UK is very high, and no, this does not mean everyone is out getting drunk every night, which is another misconception when talking about people from the UK. They may go to the pub, but it is more about being social than it is about drinking.

Moms in Australia may be a bit more low-key.

They tend to go to the local park or trail when they need to unwind, instead of the UK pub. This could be due to the climate, as it does not rain as much there as in the UK, which makes it easier for moms to get out and go for a walk.

It is not uncommon to see a group of moms with stroller out for a walk together, enjoying the nice weather and venting about all the struggles that are involved with motherhood.

1 So, Who Won?

Normally when you are comparing two countries on who does things better there should be an obvious winner and loser by the end. However, we did not say this was a competition, and it will always be impossible to pick a clear winner when it comes to being a mom in a different country. It all comes down to personal preference. Now that you know some basic motherly facts about the two countries, you can be the judge on where you think mom’s have it better, or where you would be willing to relocate as a mother.

England appears to be leading when it comes to education, as they have more options that may be more inclusive to each child’s individual needs. Australia may be losing when it comes to all those creepy crawlies just walking around, so if bugs make you nervous maybe just book a visit to the land down under and not a full move. Australia does seem to be more laid back when it comes to views and attitude, so if that is the kind of mom you are, than they may be the place for you. When it comes to being a mom, no one wins, we are all just doing the best we can.

References: pointtopointeducation.com, expatica.com, expatfocus.com, mychild.gov.au, quora.com, ons.gov.uk, abs.gov.au