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Being away from your familiy will not make you stronger but it will make you lonely late on .
Once you are away for so many years you will NEVER get back the closeness you once had . Your kids will return the favor when they grow up and , imo , you'll both end up old and alone .
A visit once a year is not enough and you will feel like strangers before long . Your kids will never ' love ' their families because you can't love somebody you don't know . Plus the wasted years will not be forgiven by the ones you left .
Too bad most of us have to get old or sick before we know whats really important.
If you love the ocean then visit it once a year . Once you live near the ocean the charm is not as intense and you'll seldom even visit it .
Where would would this world be if we never left our families. Everyone must do what is right for them. If everyone's mommies and daddies guilted them into staying in one place we would not have discovered the world. Some people are meant to set out on their own while others are better off being sown to their families side.
Being away from your familiy will not make you stronger but it will make you lonely late on .
Once you are away for so many years you will NEVER get back the closeness you once had . Your kids will return the favor when they grow up and , imo , you'll both end up old and alone .
A visit once a year is not enough and you will feel like strangers before long . Your kids will never ' love ' their families because you can't love somebody you don't know . Plus the wasted years will not be forgiven by the ones you left .
Too bad most of us have to get old or sick before we know whats really important.
If you love the ocean then visit it once a year . Once you live near the ocean the charm is not as intense and you'll seldom even visit it .
Wow! What a great post! I agree 100%. There can never be a substitude for family. The Ocean is just a huge body of water, but your family is much bigger.
Being away from your familiy will not make you stronger but it will make you lonely late on .
Once you are away for so many years you will NEVER get back the closeness you once had . Your kids will return the favor when they grow up and , imo , you'll both end up old and alone .
A visit once a year is not enough and you will feel like strangers before long . Your kids will never ' love ' their families because you can't love somebody you don't know . Plus the wasted years will not be forgiven by the ones you left .
Too bad most of us have to get old or sick before we know whats really important.
If you love the ocean then visit it once a year . Once you live near the ocean the charm is not as intense and you'll seldom even visit it .
Oh please. There are so many examples of your theory being wrong, it would take me days to put it all on here. As for "love"...I can assure you that my children love their grandparents (who don't live anywhere near us) as much as anyone could. Unlike some who live near their older relatives and take it for granted that they'll always be there, I have always treated relative's visits as an opportunity to make awesome memories and to tell them exactly how much I love and value them. My grandfather died last September unexpectedly. The people who were the most upset about it were my cousins who lived down the road because they said that they took him for granted...put off calling him or going by to see him...saying that the last time they spoke with him, it was to tell them that they had to work late so they couldn't come over for dinner and that they'd see him next week. Next week never came. My last conversation with my Grandpa ended with "I love you" and was made 2 days before he died when I called him for my twice weekly chat. We talked about all kinds of stuff...his great-grandchildren, how our oldest was playing with the dollhouse he made for her, politics, food prices, gas prices, etc. I made those phone calls every week for years. I even stopped to call him to talk when we were at Disneyworld...we had a "date"...every Tuesday and Friday at 12:00.
Whether your kids are close to you when they grow up is totally dependent on your relationship and not geography. There are plenty of families like my husband's...he is the only one of 7 who who don't live within 5 miles of each other...and they are absolutely horrible and disrespectful and take advantage of their relatives. When I leave their house after a visit, I honestly feel a sense of relief and not envy. Their kids are all growing up playing with their cousins...learning that it's not about having shoes for your feet, it's about the label ON the shoes...it's about whose parent has the nicest car and house...it's about whose kid had the grandest birthday and constantly trying to one-up each other. Yeah...I'm sure they're all going to grow up just fine...not.
My husband was in the military for 20 years so living near family was not an option. When he retired, we realized we had no particular "pull" towards a particular city and so we went where the job was. After living on our own and having to make a "home" where we found it, we have a fantastic marriage, which developed without "help" from family and friends. We learned more about each other because we were all we had until we met friends. My husband's family boasts only 2 solid marriages out of 7...mine and his brothers. Everyone else is "married" in name only. Our kids are incredibly close to my husband and I. We are involved in their lives and take the time to spend lots of family time together. I doubt very much that our relationship will fade into obscurity because we didn't let them grow up with cousins nearby. Not every family is the Waltons...plenty of them are dysfunctional and plenty of cousins are total losers who I don't want to have any influence on my kids.
Every crack-head, hooker, girl sending naked photos of herself on her cell phone, high school dropout, drunk, sexual predator, superficial, hot tempered, violent, irresponsible person in the world is a relative of someone. Not every family is made up of awesome people who love and support each other unconditionally who all show up to every birthday party, graduation, sporting event, etc. There are plenty of people who wouldn't leave their kids with their relatives for a slumber party or a vacation for all the money in the world.
Wow! What a great post! I agree 100%. There can never be a substitude for family. The Ocean is just a huge body of water, but your family is much bigger.
Thank you, but it was learned the hard way , haha.
I moved to be near the ocean and rivers and my mother said " I got sand in my shoes " which is an old saying for those who fall in love with the beach and water .
After you live there for awhile it gets boring too if you don't have a very busy life . Vacations are never long enough for close visits . Now we feel more like strangers around our kids , grandkids and the rest of our family .
Time flies and hindsight is always 20-20 it seems . Take it from ' Dorothy" thers no place like home ".
Where would would this world be if we never left our families. Everyone must do what is right for them. If everyone's mommies and daddies guilted them into staying in one place we would not have discovered the world. Some people are meant to set out on their own while others are better off being sown to their families side.
Oh please. There are so many examples of your theory being wrong, it would take me days to put it all on here. As for "love"...I can assure you that my children love their grandparents (who don't live anywhere near us) as much as anyone could. Unlike some who live near their older relatives and take it for granted that they'll always be there, I have always treated relative's visits as an opportunity to make awesome memories and to tell them exactly how much I love and value them. My grandfather died last September unexpectedly. The people who were the most upset about it were my cousins who lived down the road because they said that they took him for granted...put off calling him or going by to see him...saying that the last time they spoke with him, it was to tell them that they had to work late so they couldn't come over for dinner and that they'd see him next week. Next week never came. My last conversation with my Grandpa ended with "I love you" and was made 2 days before he died when I called him for my twice weekly chat. We talked about all kinds of stuff...his great-grandchildren, how our oldest was playing with the dollhouse he made for her, politics, food prices, gas prices, etc. I made those phone calls every week for years. I even stopped to call him to talk when we were at Disneyworld...we had a "date"...every Tuesday and Friday at 12:00.
Whether your kids are close to you when they grow up is totally dependent on your relationship and not geography. There are plenty of families like my husband's...he is the only one of 7 who who don't live within 5 miles of each other...and they are absolutely horrible and disrespectful and take advantage of their relatives. When I leave their house after a visit, I honestly feel a sense of relief and not envy. Their kids are all growing up playing with their cousins...learning that it's not about having shoes for your feet, it's about the label ON the shoes...it's about whose parent has the nicest car and house...it's about whose kid had the grandest birthday and constantly trying to one-up each other. Yeah...I'm sure they're all going to grow up just fine...not.
My husband was in the military for 20 years so living near family was not an option. When he retired, we realized we had no particular "pull" towards a particular city and so we went where the job was. After living on our own and having to make a "home" where we found it, we have a fantastic marriage, which developed without "help" from family and friends. We learned more about each other because we were all we had until we met friends. My husband's family boasts only 2 solid marriages out of 7...mine and his brothers. Everyone else is "married" in name only. Our kids are incredibly close to my husband and I. We are involved in their lives and take the time to spend lots of family time together. I doubt very much that our relationship will fade into obscurity because we didn't let them grow up with cousins nearby. Not every family is the Waltons...plenty of them are dysfunctional and plenty of cousins are total losers who I don't want to have any influence on my kids.
Every crack-head, hooker, girl sending naked photos of herself on her cell phone, high school dropout, drunk, sexual predator, superficial, hot tempered, violent, irresponsible person in the world is a relative of someone. Not every family is made up of awesome people who love and support each other unconditionally who all show up to every birthday party, graduation, sporting event, etc. There are plenty of people who wouldn't leave their kids with their relatives for a slumber party or a vacation for all the money in the world.
I don't think this thread starter was asking about leaving a crack headed, dropout,hot tempered , violent bunch of relatives . Seems to me he or she just wanted advice about moving away from a loving familiy .
Sorry you feel bad about your grandfather, I wish i had of had more days with my mother too , but I 'choose ' to live away .
My dh and I grew up in northern NJ, about 10 miles outside of NYC. Most of our family members still live there although a few have migrated to Long Island and N.C.
Eight years ago dh was offered a job in Vermont (about 6 hours by car from where we were living). We had vacationed in Vermont and loved the area and so when dds were 2.5 years and 2 months we made the move.
We are much happier here and could never envision ourselves moving back to N.J., however, being far from family can be tough, especially around the holidays. My children are sometimes jealous of friends who have large families nearby to celebrate birthdays and Christmas with and they're disappointed that their grandparents can't attend soccer games or school concerts.
We still see our family, but not as often as we though we would. They hate to make the drive to Vermont, especially in winter, and everyone is busy with different kids' sports schedules, etc.
On the bright side, we appreciate each other more when we're together and we turn our trips to N.J. and N.C. into family vacations. And we no longer have to endure the drama and pressure of deciding who to eat dinner with on the holidays, etc.
If you make the move, be prepared to see your family much less often unless you can afford to fly whenever you want or unless grandma, grandpa and aunts and uncles don't mind long drives.
Moving away from my family was the best thing I ever did. My family tends to be too controlling. Much of them are about their "image". I just don't dig that. As a former high school teacher (he wasn't mine) told me not long ago "some of us just beat our drums to a different tune". The two times that I have left home the personal and spiritual growth I saw in myself was much more profound in a very short period of time than I might have ever seen had I stayed close to my family. I miss the closeness of being near family, yes, but I think that close-knitting is over-rated.
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