Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's been 10 months, and while we're doing well here in most respects (love the area, both have jobs, have a good housing situation, our son's school is great, have started to make some friends), we're now really struggling with missing family and friends. And we're really, really struggling with the thought that we have brought our only child to live in a location where he has no family but us.
My heart goes out to you. My advice is different from the other posters', too.
I'm considerably older than anyone with a three-year-old son, but in 2014, I made a major move from the mid-Atlantic region to a far northern state. I did it in order to be near French-speaking Canada, because I was still young enough to contemplate finishing a graduate degree that would let me find work, possibly across the border.
...
...
...
Infinite bad juju edited out. In the middle of February, with the temperature double-digits below zero, I packed my car and headed back home. I had been in this town for a little under three months, but it had taken me only three days to know I had made the mistake of my life. (And despite my relatively "senior" age, I was treated by the border-crossing agents as if I was El Chapo Norte.)
During those horrific months away from home, I responded to many people here on City Data about their regrets and doubts about moving. Since it's Valentine's Day, I can say I believe in love at first sight, and that goes for love of a place as well as of a person. If you're not happy deep-down in your new State, you aren't going to be. And if you're not happy, the likelihood your only child will be is slim. Just as you can't force yourself to love someone, you can't force yourself to love a place--and the place where you live is kind of like your second spouse. You are married to a place, for better and worse.
The good thing is that you don't have to divorce it!
Best wishes in whatever you decide. You're certainly young enough to regard this as a learning experience. No travel or relocation, even if regretted, is ever a total waste. One thing I learned in my BONES from my three months in Hades was that I was meant to bloom where I had been planted many decades ago. I am better able to weather the tedium that, eventually, hits every human being even if they live in the best arrondissement of Paris.
Last edited by Purplecow; 02-14-2018 at 03:59 PM..
Reason: clarity
Much too soon to make a decision like this. My first year in Seattle (I come from Miami originally) wasn't easy. Seattle unfolds in layers, be patient and you will love it. I'm still here 28 years later .
Now you know what all those people in your original area were going through. You know, the ones who didn't have any family around to child sit, support them, or spend holidays with.
Now you have a chance to seek out others in your now area and do for them that which was done for you. Maybe you can trade off sitting for each other, etc.
Also, if you didn't know what full time SAH parents go through, you do now!!!. It's not easy!
In threads like these there are always posters that are not close to their family. Ignore them. They don't understand and never will.
If you stay where you are I think you will regret it more and more as time goes on. Some people have to move for financial reasons and not having any opportunity where they lived. You don't seem to be in that position. You have friends, home, and jobs in your new area but you still think about moving back.
I think you know what to do. Don't let a small financial loss be a factor in the decision.
thinkalot, I'm very close to my family, fly back 4-5 times a years to Miami to see them, they love coming to Seattle too.
So there you go. FL is a good distance from WA, too. Where there is will, there is way.
OP:
Moving from the Midwest to CA was the best idea I ever had as a recent grad (STEM), in 1990. And CA to Seattle, in 1998, the second best and hugely greater monetarily, assuming one got in on career goodies and bought every piece of property not nailed down, at the time.
Moving far from family was the third best thing that ever happened to me, they're long gone by now in the fullness of time and/or simply dead to me anyway. But that's me.
Not so you.
Good luck with lots of travel for family, that stuff gets expensive, quick. Traveling with some three year old is the last thing on earth I'd do, but you knew that when you chose to have a child. He'll grow and accept air travel eventually.
I wouldn't worry about him, he'll really not know his relatives except as people he sees occasionally. If you raise him like an only child anyway, he'll be pretty independent. My nearest relatives were on my mom's side, and 60 miles away. They were holiday / strangers, and dead to me at this point anyway.
My parents had little time to "play" with me, they were on the old side anyway, and it was made abundantly clear that 1) counting on others, even parents, for anything other than food and shelter is a major life-error and 2) the amount of fun you can have alone is doubled, trebled, without having to deal with others to get in the way of your plans.
Then again, I was the kind of kid who wandered the then-new Disney World in Orlando by myself at ten years old. My parents were not neglectful, they trusted me. Do it on my own or do nothing was rule of the day just about all the time. I grew up camping, in nature, and never got lost or other dumb stuff nor bothered by freaks/molesters. Not even close, not ever.
He'll be fine, if you want him to be independent (if that is his disposition: I was born for it anyway).
Moving from Seattle back to pretty much anywhere in the Midwest sounds horrifying, to me at-least. But, I'm dug in here head to toe in terms of career, property, other investments, and finding things to do. Could not be dragged away. If you feel strongly enough about it, move back to Palookaville and take the hit. I'm skeptical opportunities are as great there, but who knows.
I can relate. Fam is in Texas and we've lived in Dc/Denver for 3 years. I miss all the big family dinners, the random hangouts on Tuesdays and my parents growing older. However, great job in Denver and sill can't make myself move back to Texas....yet.
Flipside is my family tends to be workaholics. 6 days a week, 12 hours a day
I understand how hard it is to be away from your family and friends. We moved 1,000 miles away from our home town, our family and friends, to a small rural town where we knew no one. We also had two children a nine year old and a twelve year old. It was a huge decision. We are very close with our families.
My advice is to give it longer, you are coming into a new already established community so you're going to have to make extra effort to meet people, to invite them over, and make connections. Join a book club, or some other social group so you can meet people and start putting yourselves out there. Playdates for your child would be another way to start.
If you don't start feeling a sense of community and friendship after another year or two, then you can look into moving back home, but you need to really give it a bit longer to see if you can establish yourself there and be happy.
My heart goes out to you. My advice is different from the other posters', too.
I'm considerably older than anyone with a three-year-old son, but in 2014, I made a major move from the mid-Atlantic region to a far northern state. I did it in order to be near French-speaking Canada, because I was still young enough to contemplate finishing a graduate degree that would let me find work, possibly across the border.
...
...
...
Infinite bad juju edited out. In the middle of February, with the temperature double-digits below zero, I packed my car and headed back home. I had been in this town for a little under three months, but it had taken me only three days to know I had made the mistake of my life. (And despite my relatively "senior" age, I was treated by the border-crossing agents as if I was El Chapo Norte.)
During those horrific months away from home, I responded to many people here on City Data about their regrets and doubts about moving. Since it's Valentine's Day, I can say I believe in love at first sight, and that goes for love of a place as well as of a person. If you're not happy deep-down in your new State, you aren't going to be. And if you're not happy, the likelihood your only child will be is slim. Just as you can't force yourself to love someone, you can't force yourself to love a place--and the place where you live is kind of like your second spouse. You are married to a place, for better and worse.
The good thing is that you don't have to divorce it!
Best wishes in whatever you decide. You're certainly young enough to regard this as a learning experience. No travel or relocation, even if regretted, is ever a total waste. One thing I learned in my BONES from my three months in Hades was that I was meant to bloom where I had been planted many decades ago. I am better able to weather the tedium that, eventually, hits every human being even if they live in the best arrondissement of Paris.
And I didn't even have Sean Penn and a beautiful Mexican movie star in my posse or twenty-year-old Subaru, which the border-crossing agents seemed to regard as borrowed from Walter White.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
.