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Today with folks getting married later getting stuck baby sitting your grandkids is not going to happen too often. Most of the dads in my daughters Elementary school are around 50. Plenty of Dads in my friends Kindergarten class were 50. If there kids follow the cycle and get married around 35 and pump out 1-3 kids between 36-45 I may not be a math wizzard but that would make grandad around 90, I dont think he is babysitting.
Two hours or a little more is what we are looking at for our retirement home in a few years. People, especially retired, should live where they want, in a place they can afford comfortably. I have seen several cases where retirees stayed close to the kids/grandkids only to have one of them get transferred to another state, leaving them in an overly expensive area but still far away from their kids/grandkids. Two hours drive is not a big deal, in fact I live 3 hours from my parents by car and ferry, and find that my visits 4-5 times a year are sufficient for now. I expect to be moving closer to them as they will be hitting the late 80s when I retire and will need more help on their 5 acres. Ideally, we would be about 2 hours from the kids, an hour from the parents and we do like an area at that location.
I live 13 miles from my Mother in in-law and that is a bit too far. She is a widow and hates to drive much, so to do anything to help her is a 26 mile round trip. And to babysit I have to go pick her up and drop her off. Or drop kids off there. So we never do it. She actually would like to do it more. Folks who have their parents within a few blocks is a lot better.
My neighbor down block elderly parents live next door. The kids mow the lawn both houses, shovel both houses, do repair work both houses and grandparents babysit after school. They took down the fence in backyard between houses so kids go out back door of one house into the house next door. Total safety.
They are typical 70x100 plots so their backyard is 140 wide which is an oasis. Good deal. Plus when parents go to Florida or something no worries about house
We are currently 12 hours away, but in 2 weeks will be moving 4 hours away. That's the closest we could get and still live in an affordable state. She has assured us that she won't be leaving the northeast in our lifetime, so that may mean closer or a bit further from us, but we will stay put. She has been further than 4 hours since she graduated from HS and went to college. Those times worked out when we were in western PA but not from SC. Since she is an only child she is the only one that matters. We originally thought she might be transferred to DC with her job, but then she changed jobs and moved even further away. I decided that I had had enough of only seeing her twice a year and away we are going. Will see her more often but for shorter periods of time which suits us as she doesn't feel she has to entertain us after she has worked all day.
I said 30 minutes, and we are 20 min now. They visit often, sometimes briefly and sometimes most of a weekend day. We go out shopping, out to eat, to community events etc. They bring their little dog over here when they go on vacation. They like to swim in our pool. We all want to be close, but we also know not to snoop uninvited into each other's business. So far, so good.
Too expensive where our kids live. Our daughter has mentioned moving here when she retires. She could sell her place in the PNW and buy 5 condos like ours.
I live 13 miles from my Mother in in-law and that is a bit too far. She is a widow and hates to drive much, so to do anything to help her is a 26 mile round trip.
I had to chuckle at this. We have to drive 38 miles round trip just to do our grocery shopping; 40-50 for everything else including medical care.
We moved in retirement and are now roughly 2,000 miles from five children between us and 10 grandchildren, 900 miles from one grandchild and 700 miles from two more children and four grandchildren. I know that to some that sounds awful and they're welcome to their opinions. However, we are precisely where we wanted to be in retirement and to us, that's what counts. We earned it!
Let's face it, this isn't the 19th Century any longer. We have airplanes, interstates, telephones, email, Skype, and more.
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