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When our kids were 1 and 3 we decided to move from our home town in CA to the Denver area. We left one set of grand parents who lived 10 minutes away, one set who lived 1 hour away, and all of my aunts and uncles, and most of my cousins, all living within an hour from us. It was a hard decision, but at the same time a no-brainer. Our main reason was air quality and health issues of the kids. Out only real reason to stay was to be near family. The reasons to move were air quality, weather, recreation, cost of living, and over all quality of life.
3 years later I still feel a lot of guilt over moving away and I still cry when the grandparents leave after a visit. But our day to day life is much better here. I worked before. Now I'm a SAHM. We have nicer weather and can be outside more. We are in a bigger city so we have more options for "stuff" to do. We have kind of found a niche in our new community, where it was missing before. Even though we were in our home town, our childhood friends had moved away. This has been a wonderful opportunity to meet new people and form our own life instead of being "our parent's kids".
It is a big decision that shouldn't be taken lightly. Make sure you heart is in it, and you spouses, and make sure you have good reasons. If you do, it can be a good thing.
ETA before, our interaction with my parents consisted of me dropping the kids off once/week and rushing off to work, then picking them up, exhausted, and hurrying home to make dinner. It was really nice for the kids to have one whole day/week with their grandparents, though. Now we spend much more fun quality time with them. We meet for vacations; and, being in a bigger, new-to-us city, when they come to visit it is like going on vacation. We've had a great time showing them around. They had their first ever white Christmas last year. We have more fun, but it is much less often.
Edit again... When we first moved I thought we'd go back to visit often. We did at first, but there have been times when we've gone a whole year without going back. Air fare prices went up, and DS turned 2 and was no longer free... Now that one is in "real" school, it is harder to go back for visits, and it is harder to have visitors here w/o disrupting school schedules.
Last edited by Kibbiekat; 02-28-2010 at 07:11 PM..
When our kids were 1 and 3 we decided to move from our home town in CA to the Denver area. We left one set of grand parents who lived 10 minutes away, one set who lived 1 hour away, and all of my aunts and uncles, and most of my cousins, all living within an hour from us. It was a hard decision, but at the same time a no-brainer. Our main reason was air quality and health issues of the kids. Out only real reason to stay was to be near family. The reasons to move were air quality, weather, recreation, cost of living, and over all quality of life.
3 years later I still feel a lot of guilt over moving away and I still cry when the grandparents leave after a visit. But our day to day life is much better here. I worked before. Now I'm a SAHM. We have nicer weather and can be outside more. We are in a bigger city so we have more options for "stuff" to do. We have kind of found a niche in our new community, where it was missing before. Even though we were in our home town, our childhood friends had moved away. This has been a wonderful opportunity to meet new people and form our own life instead of being "our parent's kids".
It is a big decision that shouldn't be taken lightly. Make sure you heart is in it, and you spouses, and make sure you have good reasons. If you do, it can be a good thing.
ETA before, our interaction with my parents consisted of me dropping the kids off once/week and rushing off to work, then picking them up, exhausted, and hurrying home to make dinner. It was really nice for the kids to have one whole day/week with their grandparents, though. Now we spend much more fun quality time with them. We meet for vacations; and, being in a bigger, new-to-us city, when they come to visit it is like going on vacation. We've had a great time showing them around. They had their first ever white Christmas last year. We have more fun, but it is much less often.
Edit again... When we first moved I thought we'd go back to visit often. We did at first, but there have been times when we've gone a whole year without going back. Air fare prices went up, and DS turned 2 and was no longer free... Now that one is in "real" school, it is harder to go back for visits, and it is harder to have visitors here w/o disrupting school schedules.
You sound just like us...and look at that...we're both in metro-Denver!!
There is something to be said about quality of life. It's a term that gets thrown around a lot and probably overused, but moving to improve your quality of life, I believe, trumps living close to family and having a lower quality of life. How someone defines QOL depends on their situation, but for us, it took a while but even I can recognize that things wouldn't be as great as they are now that we live here.
While it would be nice to live somewhere close, I too am a SAHM who can only do it because of the lower cost of living in Denver. Our family has embraced the Colorado lifestyle and find ourselves outside a lot, going to the mountains, learning to ice skate, etc. Things would be a lot different for us if we were closer to family and other than having larger birthday parties and having to save more seats for sporting events, it probably wouldn't be as good as it is now for us.
All things being equal I'd stay near family. Having that support system is important but you never realize that until you don't have it. If it's just a "weather" thing I wouldn't move. If you have other reasons then add them up and see how it looks on paper. Just remember, if you are close to your family and on good terms you need to consider everyone, not just yourself. For instance, if your parents need assistance at some point is there anyone there to do it if you leave? Can you help them out from where you are living? Can anyone help you if you run into trouble, are suddenly single due to death or divorce? Will your kids benefit from regular interaction with family? Etc. Yes, you will meet other people, even other families in your same situation if you move. But they all moved once and are likely to move again. You can't always count on "people you know at the time" because there is no connection to them other than not having family nearby or having kids the same age or living on the same street.
People move. About "Needing to consider everyone, not just yourself." WRONG. You need to consider you, your wife, and your kids. Period. No one else. You have to do what is best for YOUR family, not your brother's family or your parents.
If people walked around basing their decisions on what 'might' happen, we would wrap ourselves in cotton and stay at home every day.
I say move and be happy on the beach every chance you get. Maybe the family can all go down to NC and everybody rent a cabin on the ocean for a couple weeks in the summer. They can come and go as necessary.
I wouldn't move just for the weather. But if you're going to move it would probably be easier to do it while the kids are young. We moved away from our family. Now it's a bit of a hassle to see family. Most of our vacation is spend going back home to see family rather than actually going on vacation. I'd move for a job opportunity but think again as to why exactly you want to move.
Frankly, it's hard to live far from family. It wasn't nearly as difficult before we had children, but once they arrived, I missed having relatives nearby. After a few years of splitting holidays between grandparents and really expensive travel, my husband finally landed a job in his parents' town. My parents still live elsewhere, and I regret that they don't have much opportunity to develop a close relationship with my children, although we give it our best effort. Like Mayor McCheese, we've never had much of a chance to take a vacation anywhere but to see family. Something always gets in the way: school, sports, job, or plain lack of funds.
In October, my DH and 2 kids (ages 6 and 10) moved from Washington State to North Carolina. My kids have done just fine.
We talked about the move and any questions or concerns for MONTHS prior to the move. We gave them some "power" in choices for packing, places to stop and eat, etc.
I gave both kids a stationary set, they call "home" often, webcams, emails, texts....
In fact, the other day, when refering to the Interstates here, I said, "back home it was like...." and my 10 year old daughter says.... "we ARE home"
Your kids are still young where you could try it out for a few years with plenty of elbow room to move back home if you find the distance is to much. I lean towards the family side over any weather. I feel your pain though too. All my family is on Minnesota and we live in Socal with PERFECT weather and an ocean to boot!! But at the end of the day, it's family over weahter. Best of luck to your decision. Remember that your kids are still SO young, so if you decide to make the big move it's not like you have to commit yourself to live there forever.
Things that have been better since we moved away - health, recreation, church life, work/home balance, husband's commute, preschool choices, self satisfaction from "doing it on our own" (this is worth a lot), weather
things that are harder than I thought or did not anticipate - The kids say they wish they still lived near grandpa and grandma (that really hurts to hear), visiting has gotten more expensive, visiting has gotten harder since DS started school, the longer we are here, the more it feels like home, which is good, but the less we feel like going home to visit, there is no babysitter like grandma!
We are glad we made the move. We have given our kids a better place to grow up than we had. But there is still a twinge of doubt and guilt in my mind about leaving the grandparents. I have a very guilty conscience in general, though.
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