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Austin Babies
POLL: would you relocate to live closer to family?
Every year I get the itch to move closer to my parents (to DFW). We love our life here except that we are far from family and I despise the travel on 35.
Would you up and move?
[Poll]This discussion has been closed.
Re: POLL: would you relocate to live closer to family?
Married and it feels so good!
For me, it would depend on A LOT of things. Would you be giving up better chances in advancement at work? Job demotion or promtion? Do you generally get along with these family members? Would the COL be terribly different? How many close friends would you be leaving?
For me, I would absolutely move to be closer to my in laws. My family? I love the safe distance we have now.
I don't have kids yet, but I think that our distance from both sets of parents (DFW, too) will be good.
Neither DH or I grew up with extended family nearby and saw grandparents once a year or twice if we were lucky.So the concept of grandparents watching their grand kids daily/weekly just wasn't something that our family expects.
Now that we live closer to home, I imagine that we will be able to see them every month or two and I'm sure that they will travel to see us once we have a guest room for them.
Would, and did. I loved Austin. I had really fabulous friends there and just enjoyed so much about the city .... but I missed my family terribly. I wanted my kids to grow up around their grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. The move was tough, I still miss Austin and my friends there and, oh, idk not being under a foot of snow half the year .... but I'm SO glad we made the move. We have my parents here all summer and my dad off and on through the winter, my sister is close enough to come by on her lunch break, my cousin and his wife are here and due a few months before I am this summer, we have a lot of extended family in the midwest who visits ... and we're just all around happier as a family here.
I say life is too short not to be with the people you love most. If you can do it, you should do it.
(read it. you know you want to.)
anderson . september 2008
vivian . february 2010
mabel . august 2012
all of our parents and college/hs friends live in DFW and we live here. no plans to move up there. we love our life here and tried living there and only made it about a year before we moved back
so while i wish we were closer to our parents, its not the most important thing for us on where we live. (and i'm lucky that my sister lives here)
my answer is very similar to mlfs. To be honest, I might feel differently if I was close to my parents as DFW -- we were across the country.
We've been in Massachusetts since November. We always skyped with the grandparents and V loved them and enjoyed their visits. But now they have their own little relationships. My dad and her like to go to the diner together and eat toasted cheese with all the townies and have their own little jokes. My mom and her do dance class, and my dad is going to start taking her to gymnastics. She had no idea who her cousins were and now she gets to go over and play with them and she comes home and talks all about them. It is so special and it is very different than when they came to visit. Not to mention that we've needed SO much help since all the pregnancy complications came up and will continue to need help once the boys are here. I miss Austin terribly but I truly feel like we did what was best for the entire family.
Photo by Melissa Glynn
it'd have to be a place that I'd like to live without my family too. Just being near family wouldn't be enough to make me like a place that I didn't already like.
ILs live in DFW and I could never live there (just not our style) and my parents live in BFE in southern Indiana, which would NEVER work for us, so no, we won't be moving near our parents.
If they happened to move to an awesome city, then maybe our decision would change, but I couldn't make move my family to a place that doesn't fit for us.
My IL's live about 35 minutes away from us here, and my parents live in Dallas. We actually see them both about the same, and we like them about the same so that's not really the reason. When my parents come here(or we go there) they get to see DD's first thing in the morning and are just generally around when the girls wake from naps. It can be hard to plan with IL's. Also we get better babysitting out of my parents since we are all under the same roof, my parents can just go to bed with the baby monitor, but with IL's we feel bad staying out past 9 since they have to drive home. Just something else to think about if you decide to move "near" I hate I35 too, blah!
Fly we were there Sunday for a few hours and I did my usual, "this is the homeland, I love it here" bit and DH actually said that he could move back and love it there too. I was short of having him write it in blood. *sigh*
"The House We Built."
A journey of building the dream.
I couldn't agree with this more. My mom is crazytown and now that I have kids, I wish she lived near me because she is a fantastic grandmother and I wish my kids could see her on a regular basis.
This. I would absolutely LOVE to live near my parents, but I am not moving back to OK unless there is an emergency. DH made me promise him that he would never have to live there, and I said, "Ok, as long as I never have to live in" his home town. Neither of us would live where our parents live unless it was necessary. My nephews (DS's only cousins) are 18 and 19, so it's not like he could grow up with them anyway. I would not, and DH would not, live near his parents for all the money in the world.
My dad is retired and my mom is retiring in a couple of years. They are dying to get down here and are looking for a place to buy for staying here in the winter. My parents have such a close relationship with my nephews and really want that with DS, too. It is killing them to not be close to us, but they understand about living in OK.
I think it depends on too many factors. IMO, life is too short to sacrifice the kind of life you want to live just so that you'll be around family. Think about jobs, living conditions, opportunities, your children's exposure to various things, your own happiness with your outside life (hobbies, friends, etc.)...all things being equal, sure, it would be awesome to have my parents and/or siblings around. But all things are never equal, you know? You have to weigh what you'd be sacrificing against what you'd be gaining.
I grew up with no family anywhere near and had a great childhood, am close with my grandparents and extended family, etc. I have never seen the "need" to have family around.
Andplusalso, I could never, ever, ever live near my ILs. Ever. Even if we WANTED to move to DFW to be near my parents, we can't b/c my ILs are there, too. And that's a great example of weighing the pros and cons. Do we love our ILs? Sure. But the negatives that come along with being closer to them far outweigh being near to them just because we love them.
We have some extended family here in DFW, plus FIL. But I would move (to Austin) to be near my parents in a heartbeat if only I could figure out my job scenario. I don't totally love the industry I'm in, but it's all I know right now and unless I find something else that would pay (or has the definite potential to pay) comparably then we need to stay here.
On that note, if anyone ever comes across a creative/fashion job opportunity in Austin, feel free to send it my way!
BFP 12.20.2010 :: missed m/c 1/2011 around 8 weeks
BFP @ 9dpo 5.24.2011 :: missed m/c 6/2011 around 7 weeks
positive for ANAs (1:40) with a speckled pattern
MTHFR c677t mutation (heterozygous)
*folic acid, baby asprin, Prometrium, acupuncture, Lovenox*
BFP @ 9dpo 2.1.2012 || HCG = 8 : Progesterone = 19.2
2nd HCG @ 11dpo = 40 || 3rd HCG @ 21dpo = over 5000!
Stick, little one, stick! EDD October 15, 2012
absolutely! i left my now-husband (he had been my boyfriend for 3 yrs) and moved from s ca to here 6 years ago to follow my family. my family is really close though and we kind of do everything for each other. having family near after we've had our children has been wonderful -- we have never had to pay for a babysitter and i love how close ds #1 is to my family.
with that said, we are 90% sure we are going to have to move in a few months once dh finishes school and it breaks my heart. but, unfortunately, there aren't many jobs here for dh and so we realize we'll have to relocate. every time i think about leaving my family i get really sad about it. i've moved many, many times in my life and i'm not afraid to do it, but there is something said about seeing how much my son's face lights up when he's around his cousins or his grandparents. i feel really sad about moving because of it - but there's no way around it. ;(
Yes - we did.
We LOVED Austin. Absolutely loved it, everything about it. But both of our families were in PA, and our thought was that you only live once - only one life to be near loved ones.
We miss ATX like crazy, but both agree that it was more than worth the tradeoff for DS to really know, and see his Grandparents often (and also to give them the gift of really seeing him grow up, not only "meeting" him a few visits per year).