Moving so daughter entering 9th grade can have her old friends back (pregnancy, single mom)
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I haven't read through the other replies, but I'm curious as to what your and your wife's lives were like at your kids' ages.
Did you get to go to school with the same kids, year after year?
Were you friends with the same exact kids throughout high school?
Personally, my group of friends changed through high school because we all changed. Just because you move back, doesn't mean your kids will still be friends with those same kids.
If you're better off financially in Montana, stay there.
Remember that saying, "You can't go home again." In a lot of cases, it's true. Things changed while you were away.
Thanks for explaining the problems where you are in Montana. Obviously you've unfortunately landed in a socio economic group that is unhealthy and where you do not belong or identify. I agree, you need to get yourselves out of there.
I shudder to think of a California girl being forced to grow up in either Montana or Texas.
Depends on where in Texas - Houston has a huge contingent of Californians who moved here to get away from the high cost of living. Houston went for Hillary though it was a slim margin. Harris County actually went for Hillary by a bit larger margin.
Another part of your issue though may be that in today's easy online communication world, they may have kept in touch too much with their friends back home. We could only do that with handwritten letters when I was a kid so that didn't last too long and we adapted faster than kids probably do today. However, if your kids know they will not be moving back, that may taper off in time.
This here ^^ and I still have trouble with it . We had to move approx 70 miles just across Seattle into the Tacoma area 14 months ago due to what you stated , living paycheck to paycheck. We had to make a HUGE sacrifice as before he ot laid off he had a 66 mile one way commute he carpooled through with 5 other co workers . Our youngest still at home is in 10th grade. This is her second year and she may have a handful for friends when before we had kids all in the house .
I finally had to take the phone away except at school . She can have more time on it now but she would and still wont really let her old friends GO. I think we are down to 2 but I still make her turn it in to one of us at 8pm . Alot of people she knew moved when we did- the neighborhood experienced a STEEP rent growth .
It has been MANY years since we had anything but a family only B-day party also due to a similar incident as yours and that was with my now 24 year old so yeah that stung bad enough 17 years ago that I NEVER let it happen again . We set a budget an go on a mini shopping spree wherever they want to go ( not at Tiffany's but more like Hot Topic).
You're talking about making your second 1000+ mile move in two years. That kind of thing costs you money and sets you back financially even if all other things are equal, which they never are.
Your kids' adjustment processes will be unpredictable, no matter what. In addition, Montana has good state universities for pretty cheap, even cheaper for in-state students.
I would not raise my kids in California, unless it was northern California. That entire state seems to have gone off the rocker...its like a void of common sense, morals, and normalcy.
Texas or Colorado would be my two first choices. Both have large enough cities to give them lots of friends and arts, etc, but also grounded in the real world, with magnificent amounts of public outdoor space to enjoy. Both also offer you very diverse choices on where to live depending on your "politics" if that matters to you.
^^^ Agree with ya on that! We chose DFW as our new home and have found it a good fit for our family. Look, OP, I was born and raised in CA and I won't lie- it was great. It was the 80's and 90's and from what I and countless friends and family remember, life was good to most of us. My father had a lucrative career and we lived in an upper-middle class neighborhood and went to great schools, etc. But...were there drugs/alcohol at these schools? YES. Was there a ton of sex going on? YES. Were some of the kids suicidal/violent/crazy? YES. Was there bullying and cruelty? YES.
Unfortunately, location doesn't make crappy things in high school go away. How your kids deal with all of the things thrown at them during their school years is the key- and as parents, it's our jobs to give them the tools to deal with all of that.
Another unfortunate aspect is how much CA changed in the last 10-15 years. My husband and I never thought that we wouldn't be able to afford to buy a house and have a life in the place that we grew up. We saw so many friends buy houses during the boom and then lose them. Our choices for homes were shockingly limited to areas that were just plain ghetto and unless we took a huge sum of money from family (NEVER an option, as we will pay for our own lives, thank you very much) we couldn't ever buy a home in CA. And, we weren't happy with how the general climate of So Cal had changed. It wasn't about raising kids to be happy or just having a good, solid family life- it was about new cars, fancy clothes, vacations, new phones and image. We no longer felt connected to CA so we left.
OP, you and your wife need to really think about how you can either make your life in Montana better or choose a different place to live. Summer is heading your way soon- it's an ideal time to move if you choose to.
I wouldn't go back to California. Paycheck to paycheck is no fun. You might try to find a bigger town where you are with more people like you. It's hard to break into an established community, but if you go where the newcomers are, you'll find more people with similar goals.
No offense, but this is kind of crazy. Family economic decisions should not be decided by teenage social lives. Your job as the breadwinner for the family is to provide for them as best you can and ensure they are safe. And the financial issue means that you can provide for them better.
Is there any chance your kid might not have made friends because she has assumed a "I'm from CA and I'm better than you" mentality? I ask because I saw that as a kid myself. Assuming that's not the case, a lot of people around the US don't really like California. It might take some time for the kids to prove they aren't CA idiots.
I got moved when I was in 2nd, 8th and 10th grades. All of them worked out as far as me making friends. I hated my new high school until I graduated, but guess what? High school is a minor part of life in the grand scheme. While moving sucks as a kid, it teaches an exceptionally valuable life skill for succeeding in the modern world, which is adapting to change.
No offense, but this is kind of crazy. Family economic decisions should not be decided by teenage social lives. Your job as the breadwinner for the family is to provide for them as best you can and ensure they are safe. And the financial issue means that you can provide for them better.
Is there any chance your kid might not have made friends because she has assumed a "I'm from CA and I'm better than you" mentality? I ask because I saw that as a kid myself. Assuming that's not the case, a lot of people around the US don't really like California. It might take some time for the kids to prove they aren't CA idiots.
I got moved when I was in 2nd, 8th and 10th grades. All of them worked out as far as me making friends. I hated my new high school until I graduated, but guess what? High school is a minor part of life in the grand scheme. While moving sucks as a kid, it teaches an exceptionally valuable life skill for succeeding in the modern world, which is adapting to change.
As a long time CA resident I can tell you the ones who play the "CA card" are recent transplants and usually on the young side. And the reason some don't like CA is it's 20 degrees in Boston right now, and 60 here....LOL. Kind of like the women who hate the pretty girl.
I agree a child doesn't get to dictate where the family will live. Sounds like there is more going on here, parents who try to be their child's friend rather than the parent.
Besides being ridiculous to move back for that reason, the daughter's friends would probably give her the cold shoulder as she has been out of the loop. Teens are very fickle.
As a long time CA resident I can tell you the ones who play the "CA card" are recent transplants and usually on the young side. And the reason some don't like CA is it's 20 degrees in Boston right now, and 60 here....LOL. Kind of like the women who hate the pretty girl.
Californians usually think people don't like CA because they are jealous. It might be true sometimes, but I think most people with that opinion hate CA because of the image they have created for it in their head. Others simply wouldn't want to live there for factual reasons (cost of living, politics, some even find the climate boring, etc). I've lived in CA before and it's one of the bottom five states I would want to live in.
A lot of people hate Texas too and would never want to live here. Frankly, if I could choose where to live it wouldn't be here either. I also know that if I went to CA, NY, NJ, etc., there would be people who wouldn't like me because I live in TX or who would think they are better than me.
This is all why moving kids can be so valuable to their development into adulthood. They have to learn how to deal with different types of people, mindsets and worldviews. It challenges their preconceived notions and paradigms. I know from having been moved to CA that there are plenty of good, hard-working people there, even in the nuttiest of areas.
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