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I think that if you move to AZ, you will greatly miss your grandbabies if and when they are born. There is nothing sweeter than those little arms held out to you.
It sounds like you really don't have much in AZ except the sunshine and a couple of casual friends. I've moved to FL for the sunshine and enjoyed it tremendously. However, in time we came to miss the little grandkids and moved to be near daughter #2 who has 2 children. Although we STILL miss the sunshine and the FL lifestyle, we have enjoyed those grandkids tremendously. They are teens now and we don't see them as much, but we've moved to a small 55+ 30 min. away and are having a great time, while still being able to see our daughter and the grandkids when we want. (Our other daughter & family live on the east coast and we only see them a few times a year. We have missed a lot of their young lives and are sad about that.)
So before you run off to the sunshine, think things through. If you are 58 now, in 12 years you will be 70. After age 70 things can happen and you may need to be near family for health reasons or because one spouse has died (it happens). You may end up having to move back to PA anyway for the help, and then you will have missed the grandbabies as they grow and change so quickly, and then still end up in the cold weather!
You don't say where you are in PA but are there any 55+ communities anywhere near you? Are the many 55+ in Delaware located at all close to where your daughter lives? Having friends makes a huge difference, no matter where you live. Is there any chance of spending some time in FL or the Carolinas to get a little sunshine to help break up the doldrums?
Good luck with your choice. If you decide to move back to AZ, you'll have to teach yourself not to feel guilty or long for your daughter and, in time, the grandkids. You don't mention what your husband wants. How does he feel about all this?
Staywarm - thank you for your good thoughts and ideas . You have helped me to make a plan to organize my thoughts about this and consider other options. My husband would be happy anywhere - he is easy to please!!
Merf56, I don't think your daughter is doing it to you. I think you're doing it to yourself. That was what I meant but articulated inartfully. Also, be aware that on fora such as these it's not unusual for people to misconstrue what one has written, perhaps because it hasn't been clearly expressed or is open to interpretation, and respond accordingly. For your own sake, please be careful about taking things too personally. The vast majority of posters in this forum are here to learn and/or help.
All that aside, I'm sure you and your husband will make the choice that is right for you.
Thank you Emptynester1 for your very nice reply and you made some excellent points I will think about.
I must have phrased things wrong because I want to make it clear that in no way did my daughter ask suggest or in any way insist that I will be the one to care for her children. I had told her I would LOVE to do that for years now. It was always and only my idea. I feel as if I will be reneging on my 'word'. She is very undemanding. We do virtually nothing for her as it is. I forgot to mention that her emotional fragility is a result of a medical condition - a residual effect of a severe bout of meningitis she contracted as a teen. It will affect her for a lifetime we were told. She copes very well but still I am her mom and would hate to stress her beyond her capabilities at a time ( new babies) when we are/were all a little off our game anyway.
I just wanted to know how it feels to see other people with their grandkids at dinner or hiking or whatever and feeling like you are missing out on their lives. And how you would stay close. And can it be good to be apart - maybe visits are more like special times?
If we do move we would never return to live in PA. Not making the same mistake twice! We are very independent and have taken our elder care preferences ( hopefully several decades down the road!!) and placed that under our attorney ( a distant cousin who is very close to us) as a guardian. Our wishes for our care, type of facilities we would like to be in if ever needed et al are all detailed. We would have to update if we move of course. This is something my parents did and it worked beautifully - we had zero say in where she spent her last days( in a lovely hospice she chose ( though my sister tried to talk her into a closer one) My sister's husband tried to break it but it was well drawn up and airtight. So my kids do not have to worry about caring for us or rushing to AZ because we were ill or whatever. Just wanted to clarify.
If you're miserable in PA and longing for your life in AZ, go back if it's a possibility. Grandchildren may or may not happen, I wouldn't base plans on something that may never materialize. If it does, visit as much as you want or can and be prepared to eat the phrase "never return to live in PA."
I'm a grandmother that loves being a part of my young grandchildrens lives; I wouldn't have missed this time for anything. My grandchildren are in FL though and I admit that makes it easy for me as a snowbird.
Theses are tough decisions with no right answers, just ones that you can live with in the end.
A lot of the boomers are trying to operate on the model of their parents and grandparents, when everyone stayed close together and had Sunday dinners and outings to the park and trips to Disney, etc. Many boomers see themselves in that identity confusion—follow that model, or live for ourselves in retirement/old age, even if that means leaving family behind. We may be afraid of loosening the ties, becoming irrelevant in our grown kids and grandkids' lives. We may want genuinely to be there for them and among them. Ways are changing, even in the most traditional of societies, and the ways are based on changing values. Not necessarily a bad thing, just really different from the model we are used to and many seem to want to hang onto.
Actually I haven't observed this at all. Boomers are known for being different parents than their parents were. There are, supposedly, fewer family fractures, because boomers prioritized parenting.
Many children of boomers do move away, especially when jobs are easier to find in other places. This was certainly our experience. And the experiences of others of our acquaintances. Other kids of boomers do stay put. I am not sure there is a good generalizing statement about boomer families as they age. We are all so different.
I am thankful to read through this set of posts, as my husband and I have be conflicted for the past few months. We moved across the country when an opportunity of a lifetime presented itself about 5 yrs ago. We left all of our family on the East Coast and knew not a soul on the W Coast. He was almost 60 and I was 58, so getting close to retirement age, but absolutely knew we both needed to continue working for a while. Financially it was a good decision for us to move. The visits from the East are few and far between, we have used all of our time off to travel East for visits. Our son has not come out at all, he has 2 little boys that we wish could see what we have here, our daughter has come out once, a spattering of friends have dropped in. We moved my mother in law, who was 88 at the time, and in excellent health to live closer to her other son in Virginia when we moved here. She may not agree, but she is still thriving and thankfully out of that horrible WNY weather. So our summer visits are nice, we enjoy seeing everyone and they all are waiting for us to move back I'm sure. We plan on retiring in 2016 and we are leaving a place we love to move back to the East Coast. We will be in Florida and we should be able to visit more, and longer, since we will have the time. We agonized about going back to WNY but financially not smart and we don't believe we will be happy there. Being away from everyone gave us a new view on family dynamics. We know you just can't live someone else's life, in the end we answer for ourselves. We wish that they will visit us more often since the airfare from nor'east to Florida will be so much less and the time to get to us so much less too, but we know that isn't always the case. We are conflicted because we are going to leave a place that we love being and a place that has everything everyone wants - just to be closer to our family(that never visits). He he, not too close though.... We keep saying, we are leaving,why??? If we stay here we will be even more disconnected and heck maybe someone will need us and we can get to them faster. At least we had the good fortune to follow our dreams and to learn a little bit more about ourselves without all of that sibling - children noise :-).
We keep saying, we are leaving,why??? If we stay here we will be even more disconnected and heck maybe someone will need us and we can get to them faster. At least we had the good fortune to follow our dreams and to learn a little bit more about ourselves without all of that sibling - children noise :-).
Many folks can't "go home again." They find that it isn't what they dreamed of or even imagined. Folks back home have changed, friends have disappeared, and relatives you think you're going to be close with, you're not. At least not enough to make the huge move back worth it. Anyway, they've done OK without you so far, and have not made much of an effort to visit you in CA. If you have a nice place there, just come East a few weeks several times a year once you retire.
My DH and I are not quite retirement age, at 55 and 49 respectively, but we do plan to retire in a couple of years. I don't know how others do it, but I know that I could never, ever, move away from our kids. They are 20 and 23 now, and the older one is married and lives about an hour away. Even having them an hour away is tough, I can't imagine living 8+ hours away on a daily basis.
I was one of those moms who put everything into our kids; was there for every sporting event, helped with homework, volunteered at school and church, etc. For me, having kids is the best thing that ever happened to us, so why would we pack up and leave them behind?
We live in Michigan. Thankfully, we love the weather here from April through early November, and even late November and December aren't bad because the holidays keep one busy. It's only January, February, and March that we would love to escape. The obvious choice is to snowbird, which is what we will be doing in a couple of years. We have a condo in SC where we can go for as much of the winter as we choose to, the rest of the time we will be here in Michigan with our kids and our future (I hope!) grandkids. Hopefully our kids will come down to visit us sometimes during those few winter months and then it will be almost like we never left, even for a short time.
I used to think that snowbirds were nuts, that it would be impossible to divide your life into two parts: winter part, and summer part, in two different locations. Now that I'm getting older and have adult kids who are very happy here in Michigan and are building lives here for the long term, I completely get the whole snowbirding concept. It just seems like the perfect solution!
Has anybody here retired or semi-retired and moved away from adult kids?
My husband and I are in the process of moving from Ohio to Florida. Our move won't be final until December but we are set to go, sold our house, winding down business, etc.
I love the area where we are moving and I am looking forward to this adventure with my husband. We've worked pretty hard to make this happen.
Lately, now that the house has sold.... I'm having pangs of guilt and anxiety about "leaving" my 26 year old son "behind"... He has his own place with his girlfriend and is doing pretty well, so I don't really know why I am feeling this way.
Can anyone relate, and if so, how did things turn out for you?
I have kids in three widely separated states. So living near them as a group is simply impossible. Frankly, I'm glad they all have an independent streak.
Of course when I was young I move 9,000 miles away from my family so my outlook may be a little different.
I have kids in three widely separated states. So living near them as a group is simply impossible. Frankly, I'm glad they all have an independent streak.
Of course when I was young I move 9,000 miles away from my family so my outlook may be a little different.
I found that living 2000 miles away from my neurotic mother was adequate distancing.
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