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I've always said that in this mobile life, you can't chase your kids. So your question is a variant of that. We retired to the Rockies, with kids in Baltimore and Phoenix. And 60 miles away from us We saw them all pretty much equal amounts of time
Loved the mountain life. 25 miles from a cell phone tower, 9000' elevation. Big cats, bears, elk and deer. Oh Lordy, the deer. You couldn't go out at night without a flashlight. They'd wait until you were a few feet from them, then storm out of cover and scare your pants off.
But 19 years later, still healthy, we decided to get closer to civilization. A hundred mile plus round trip to a mediocre MD was okay for now. But what if one of us gets really OLD sick? Besides, not many sick old people on our mountain. By the time 1st responders got to you, well, call the coroner.
So go where you want to go. Life's short, as someone above said.
Oh yeah. Now we're between LA and San Diego. Lucky to have a nice place with several acres, so we can get to a doctor in several minutes, CalFire just 4 miles away in case we need emergency service, yet still have a sense of rural life.
Still working on the wife I have retired and she has not .I want to go somewhere,anywhere other than where we are. She says no to every suggestion but complains about the neighborhood.
I think it would be so hurtful and emotionally damaging if grandparents made a geographic move to be close to an adult child & spouse and grandchildren and then the grandparents were not included enough or differed in how often to see each other or somewhat ignored at times or a closeness was not developed or the adult child and spouse did not enjoy or appreciate the presence of the grandparents enough or the grandparents never felt happy with their new location and left too many friends or positive aspects back in their previous location.
Life decisions always carry risks though.
I've seen this happen too.
One of my "first cousins once removed" grew up in Charlotte. He had a daughter, and then him and his wife at the time moved to Florida. This was back in the mid 1990s. His mom (who was then widowed) also moved to Florida to be closer to them.
Then the fireworks began. The wife came out of the closet as a lesbian and divorced him. He ended up with epilepsy and had to have major brain surgery. He recovered, remarried, then the second wife's son molested his daughter. The daughter went to be with her mom, and as far as I know, has had no further contact with him, and has blocked everyone on that side of the family on social media now.
Nothing went as planned on that Florida move for the old lady. I think she eventually moved back to North Carolina and died a few years ago.
Still working on the wife I have retired and she has not .I want to go somewhere,anywhere other than where we are. She says no to every suggestion but complains about the neighborhood.
... Wow! - Our discussions have a really-similar 'ring' to them, G1.. - DW is teasing me with some indecision about her retirement date (hopefully, before June 2018), and doesn't want to have those "relocation discussions" until well-after she retires.
Like you, I'll go "somewhere, anywhere other than where we are" ... But, we continue to be at odds about just where that ought to be ...
I hope you'll be able to get through to her, so Y'all can make some plans to better your retirement.
Hi All, We aren’t retired yet but just wanting input from those of you who have left kids/grandkids to move somewhere more affordable or desirable. I'm sure this question has been asked many times before but just wondering what your experience has been for those of you who have done this.
Husband and I are so torn, 1 year ago we followed our kids back to NJ after leaving there 10 years ago because we didn't like it and cost of living/property taxes are ridiculous. So we are back in NJ and bought a tiny condo to live in (that's all we could afford) so we could be close to kids and 4 very young grandkids. We love our family but we hate living in NJ, and the tiny condo just isn't working out. We can't move to PA or anywhere nearby due to licensing issues with my husband's profession. We love North Carolina and would move there in a heartbeat but it is an 8 hour drive away from family.
Any experienced responses to this would be appreciated. Thanks.
8 hours isn't that big of a deal if you are that much happier. I'd say you could make it work.
Good luck OP. Our daughter moved to NYC right out of college in the Mid West, where we have all lived our entire lives. She's been there 12 years now, is married and pregnant with our first grandchild. We would never consider moving to NYC, nor would she ever expect us too. We ARE however moving to Florida at the end of 2018. We're a plane ride away either way. I am concerned about being a Gramma so far away, I worry the 'kids won't even know me. I don't even WANT to think about the what if? if she moved back to the Mid West. I don't want to have to make the OP's decision! But the odds of that are pretty slim, even though they're both from the Mid West, they have great careers in NYC and are pretty deeply ingrained there. And, I don't think they want us that close, they're both fiercely independent. I guess 'cuz they were raised well.
My daughter and her family moved to Alaska last May. We are resigned to seeing them once a year. Maybe when we retire we will go twice a year. But I grew up in Chicago and had grandparents that lived in Wisconsin. We only saw them once a year for about 2 weeks. We had such good memories of them that I felt closer to them then my grandmother that lived in Chicago.
Maybe we want to move away so that our snowflake adult kids will learn to be self sufficient, and to get away from busy body in laws.
In addition, in reality, how often do families get together on a regular basis other than holidays?
How sad.
We moved from Boston suburbs to Atlanta because of my husbands job in 2006. Both kids in college, I was devastated to leave a job, home and community I dearly loved. We have since learned to love the south and ended up staying even after retiring 4 years ago. The kids are married, working with young families and babies I wish I could see them weekly, but FaceTime often and at least 3-4 times a year make the big Atlanta-Boston-Grand Rapids loop for visits that usually last 3 or 4 days with another week together in Summer. It is tough but we are retired and they all work so we travel to them. I am the grandma that has learned to hop on the plane when daycare/chicken pox/work travel issues come up and I can help out in a pinch.
Long story short: you can still maintain close family ties living a thousand miles apart.
I agree that living in an era of abundant air travel does make living away from loved ones easier, but I keep wondering as I read all these posts about flying back and forth frequently, aren't a lot of retirees on a fixed or at least limited income? Flying often gets expensive, and then there is transportation to and from the airport, pets to board, etc. Then there is the issue of older, widowed grandmas and grandpas not being comfortable or adept at flying alone, which puts all of the travel burden on the kids. I just don't think it seems like it would be all that easy to fly home frequently for a lot of retirees, but maybe I'm wrong.
Another point that someone here made that I hadn't even given much thought to when DH and I discuss our future retirement plans is that moving away from our kids would mean that all or most of their family vacations would end up being used to visit us in our location, and vice versa. This was the case for my DH when he was growing up, one of his sets of grandparents lived in Florida and they lived in Ohio so every summer they had to go to Orlando for vacation and they never got to go anywhere or see anyplace else. Even if we lived somewhere with fun things to do, I still think it would get old after a while, always having to visit us for their family vacations. Families need to get away and see new places by themselves, IMHO.
Honestly, the more I read in this thread, the more I lean towards staying where we are when we retire and just spending 2-6 weeks somewhere warm during January and February. This would be the best of both worlds for us, not to mention that where we live gives us a very good quality of life in terms of crowds and traffic. We are spoiled in that regard and the sprawl and congestion of most warm weather retirement destinations kind of spoils them for me. Again, different strokes for different folks. We are blessed to have so many choices!
Last edited by canudigit; 02-14-2018 at 01:41 PM..
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- Our discussions have a really-similar 'ring' to them, G1.. - DW is teasing me with some indecision about her retirement date (hopefully, before June 2018), and doesn't want to have those "relocation discussions" until well-after she retires.
But the odds of that are pretty slim, even though they're both from the Mid West, they have great careers in NYC and are pretty deeply ingrained there. And, I don't think they want us that close, they're both fiercely independent. I guess 'cuz they were raised well. 
