{"id":135873,"date":"2026-01-11T09:40:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.society19.com\/uk\/?p=135873"},"modified":"2026-01-11T09:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:40:19","slug":"the-realities-of-growing-up-in-a-small-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.society19.com\/uk\/the-realities-of-growing-up-in-a-small-town\/","title":{"rendered":"The Realities Of Growing Up In A Small Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I first moved away to Uni, I quickly realised that not everyone understood what it was like to grow up in a town as small as mine. In fact, most people hadn\u2019t heard of where I\u2019m from and were shocked to learn that there were only around five hundred students in my entire secondary school. I\u2019ve found that people who spent their childhood living in large towns and cities, had a completely different upbringing to me and different concerns to consider. While there are pros and cons to each, if you\u2019ve never experienced rural living and are wondering what it\u2019s like, here are some of the realities of growing up in a small town:<\/p>\n

1. Having to drive everywhere<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re from a small town, you\u2019ll understand what it\u2019s like to have very limited public transport at obscure times of day and know that you\u2019ll have to travel out of town often. You\u2019ll therefore understand the need to be able to drive and will having probably learnt to drive as soon as you turned 17, so that you could gain some freedom. After all, having to drive eight miles to the nearest Tesco is just one of the realities of growing up in a small town. Another reality of growing up and learning to drive in a small town, is that you\u2019ll probably struggle with parallel parking, as you won\u2019t often have to do it in such a rural area!<\/p>\n

2. Everyone knows everyone <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Another reality of growing up or living in a small town, is that everyone knows everyone. Your parents will probably still be friends with the people they went to school with, local residents will all know each other on a first name basis and you\u2019ll have known most people your age your whole life. You\u2019ll probably have been born in the same hospital! There could be three or four generations of the same family who have lived in the same place their entire lives and even people who don\u2019t have an obvious connection could well be related to each other!<\/p>\n

\n<\/h6>\n

3. Feeling safer there than anywhere else<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you grew up in a small town, you\u2019ll no doubt feel safer there than anywhere else. In rural locations, there are close communities and everyone knows everyone. Unlike people who were brought up in large towns and cities, you\u2019ll have been allowed to walk to your friend\u2019s house unsupervised as a child and you won\u2019t have needed to carry a house key, as your back door will have always been unlocked. Rural towns tend to have low crime rates and there\u2019s always a neighbour to call on if you need help. Because of this, one of the realities of growing up in a small town, is that you\u2019ll feel safe there and big cities will always seem overwhelming.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0<\/strong>Being able to name everyone in your year at school<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you were raised in a small town, you\u2019ll probably be able to name everyone in your year at school. With only 550 students in my entire secondary school and around 80 in my year group (many of whom I also went to primary school with), I can still name everyone from school by their first and second name. While this will seem strange or even impossible to those from cities, this is just one of the realities of growing up in a small town. Linked to this, another quirk of living in a rural setting, is that some of your teachers may have even taught your parents!<\/p>\n

\n<\/h6>\n

5.\u00a0<\/strong>Often getting stuck behind a tractor<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Getting stuck behind a tractor on your commute to work or school, is a common and unfortunate reality of living in a small town. It\u2019s inevitable that you\u2019ll encounter this slow-moving vehicle on the windy country roads around the local area and it\u2019ll no doubt be when you\u2019re in a hurry! However, if you grew up in a small town you\u2019ll understand that tractors are a necessary annoyance, as you\u2019ll be used to seeing farmers working in the fields or clearing snowy roads in them in winter! If you live in a rural beauty spot, you’re also liable to get stuck behind caravans and slow-moving motorhomes as your hometown will appeal to tourists!<\/p>\n

6. News travels fast<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In small towns, nothing stays secret for long and one of the realities of living there is that everyone seems to know everything that happens. With residents living and working in close proximity, many of whom have know each other their entire lives, gossip is rife and news travels fast. Be it good or bad news, if you want something to be known, word of mouth is the best form of advertising in a small town. However, it is quite nice to return to your hometown and be congratulated on your achievements since moving away, even by people you’ve not spoken to in a while, who have heard about what you’re doing through the grapevine!<\/p>\n

\n<\/h6>\n

7. Never any traffic unless there\u2019s an event on<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One of the realities of growing up in a small town, is that you won\u2019t have been familiar with rush hour traffic until you moved away. In rural areas, you are unlikely to experience anything resembling a traffic jam unless there is an event on in town, like an annual show or festival. If you nowlive in a city or large town with numerous traffic lights, roundabouts and queueing traffic when you start and finish work, you\u2019ll no doubt miss commuting home along quiet, wide open country roads. You\u2019ll also probably lack patience for heavy traffic and while I\u2019m not saying that everyone from a small town has road rage, I think a lot of us do! You will also have experienced some testing driving conditions if you’re from a rural area, whether it be ice, snow, flash flooding or cows in the middle of the road!<\/p>\n

8. You\u2019ll always call it home<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you grew up in a small town, you probably couldn\u2019t wait to leave when you finished school. Many people from my hometown, including myself, moved away to larger towns and cities to go to University or to find work. We all wanted to be independent and felt claustrophobic living in the same tiny place we had our whole lives, knowing that there was so much more out there. However, while people from rural areas are drawn to the \u2018big city lights\u2019 and are often quick to leave their seemingly mundane hometowns, they\u2019ll actually appreciate their small town more once they\u2019ve moved away. One of the inescapable realities of growing up in a small town, is that you\u2019ll be proud of where you\u2019re from, even if no-one else has heard of it and there\u2019ll only ever be one place that you call home!<\/p>\n

These are just some of the realities of growing up in a small town like Leyburn. Can you think of any others? Leave them in the comments below…<\/h5>\n
Featured Image Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/empty-railways-1299434\/<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first moved away to Uni, I quickly realised that not everyone understood what it was like to grow up in a town as small as mine. In fact, most people hadn\u2019t heard of where I\u2019m from and were shocked to learn that there were only around five hundred students in my entire secondary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24689,"featured_media":135876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true},"categories":[1801],"tags":[15197,9397,11567,15351],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-135873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-real-world","tag-growing-up","tag-hometown","tag-small-town","tag-towns"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Realities Of Growing Up In A Small Town - Society19 UK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Growing up in a small town is filled with a lot of realities that only people who gew up in a small town can relate to! 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