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For those of you who have adult children who moved far away - how do you feel about it? How often do you see them? Is there any resentment that they left and now you only seem them a few times a year? Did you have kids thinking that they would remain close by for your lifetime? or did you want them to "spread their wings and soar" type of thing?
For those of you who have adult children who moved far away - how do you feel about it? How often do you see them? Is there any resentment that they left and now you only seem them a few times a year? Did you have kids thinking that they would remain close by for your lifetime? or did you want them to "spread their wings and soar" type of thing?
My children moved because that is where their jobs are. I miss them and my grands. I see them about twice a year, at least. No resentments at all, feel sad yes. We keep in touch on FB, email, text. No I never thought they will always live near me, but hoped. I absolutely want them to spread their wings and soar.
For those of you who have adult children who moved far away - how do you feel about it? How often do you see them? Is there any resentment that they left and now you only seem them a few times a year? Did you have kids thinking that they would remain close by for your lifetime? or did you want them to "spread their wings and soar" type of thing?
Are we all supposed to stay in the same city our parents live? I tried numerous times in the last 30 years to find a good job in my hometown. I decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to take a 30% "hometown discount" to remain close to home.
I was the ONLY one in my generation in my extended family who settled over 100 miles from our hometown. In the next generation, MOST are moving away for better job opportunities. My parents had no expectation that I would remain at home. They hear from me more often than the four siblings that live within twenty minutes.
Our daughter moved after she married a man from the Pacific northwest. It has been her home since.
Her brother who had been living and working in Miami went to visit her. He liked it out there and moved. That was 20 years ago.
They like to come back here to visit where they grew up.
We looked at moving out there, but found the cost of living to be prohibitive. Later we became aware that we would have hated the climate.
Our daughter is looking ahead to retirement and is considering coming back to Florida with her 2nd husband who we like a lot. Her kids are grown and have settled in the northeast. They come to visit the old folks every once in a while.
I grew up in Boston and am the only sibling in my family that graduated high school. In fact, I have an MBA in Information Systems, but that fact really means nothing to my parents; since neither of them graduated high school either, I just don't think they understand the concept or value of holding a university degree.
When I was 18, I joined the U.S. Air Force on the spur of the moment. Twenty years later, I retired with a full military pension and my MBA.
And as you would expect with a military career, I was never too long in one place, and I sure as heck was never stationed anywhere close to home.
When I retired from the service, the thought of returning back to Boston never occurred to me. During my transition to the silly-vilian world, I paid no attention to where the job offers came from; I selected the job based on salary and future potential. (Unfortunately, that landed me in the state of Kansas where it took me another 13 years to escape.).
I don't think my parents ever had any allusion of me coming back to Boston. Maybe they did and I just never picked up on it.
My husband and I moved to the town I grew up in, and three years later my parents sold the family home and moved south. I realized at that point that all generations are mobile. Two out of three of our own kids are quite a distance away, one an 8 hour drive, the other on the opposite coast, pursuing a graduate degree. We don't see them often, less than yearly in fact, but it's ok. We are happy they are living their own lives, and we continue to live ours.
If your kids get a good college education from a non-local college -- and you do not live in a major market area - you can likely count on them settling elsewhere ... with 'your' grandkids. Fortunately, modern transportation and communications resources (and related costs) have greatly reduced the impact of distance.
Another factor is that career growth often means multiple moves, effectively limiting the potential of retired parents to 'move closer' early in career stages. And, even if they live closer, the parents of spouses also want to be near their kids and grandkids, somewhat limiting holiday and vacation availability.
Of course, no good parent sets out to raise dependent children who are unable to successfully launch their own lives. So, the expectation that one's children will grow-up and stay near, with the grandkids, is largely contrary to most child-rearing goals. The few instances where extended families live/work in the same area (and get along) are a blessing to be enjoyed and savored.
I live in central Florida. I have one daughter who lives a few blocks away from me, another daughter in Arizona, and a son in Chicago. It gives me nice places to visit, at different times of the year.
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