<p>Curious how much location figures in. Not necessarily for ease of communte home for the holidays. I am more wondering if you consider that your S/D may actually make roots in the location where they attend college - be it a boy/girlfriend or an internship that develops into a job. </p>
<p>You may be sending you S/D away 10 hours of drive time - but that's a long drive if they settle in that area. And a long drive to see the grandchildren.</p>
<p>Any thoughts? Any experiences where this has happened? Or is it not that likely?</p>
<p>I think it depends where you go. People who go to the San Francisco or Boston area may stay there, at least for a while. People who go to Hanover, Ne Hampshire or Northfield, Minnesota are unlikely to set up housekeeping.</p>
<p>My son went to our state university, less than an hour from home. My daughter goes to college 300 miles away from home.</p>
<p>Son moved to the opposite side of the country to attend graduate school. Daughter has lined up a job for after graduation in the same metropolitan area where she grew up.</p>
<p>S went to school in Chicago and has settled down happily there since graduation in 2009. I’d certainly prefer that he was closer to home, but that’s where he found the best program for his needs and where he’s made professional contacts.</p>
<p>Travel considerations to see your potential future grandchildren if your child happens to find their future spouse at this school and then happens to also get a job in the area and happens to then settle down in this town and then happens to have kids with said spouse in said town… probably really not a big decision making factor in the grand scheme of things.</p>
<p>This is a good thread. One of my concerns as a mom who is attached to her only child is that sonny’s leaving for college is the first step in his moving away. And I think that is the case for sonny. He wanted badly to be in NYC for college and now he is.</p>
<p>He loves NYC and why not? He is in the middle of the art and music scene in the village area. He thinks his opportunities will be stupendous. He has already stated to me he cannot think of living anywhere but in NYC.</p>
<p>I had to "force " him to put NYU into the hopper of prospective colleges to apply to last year.
Now I see and sonny sees it is a perfect match for his interests and life style preference.</p>
<p>While sonny is only a couple of hours away (depending on travel)’ it still feels like we have lost a key member of the family ( empty nest syndrome is very real!). Yes, it is true we do not have to fly to see him, but seeing how busy and inaccessible he is during the school year, with intersession travel, summer internship and study abroad, I know sonny is indeed leaving the nest.</p>
<p>I had planned on retiring to Southern Ca. but now feel I may not be able to leave, at least not right now, until I get used to sonny being separated from us, not just psychologically but physically.</p>
<p>The OP struck a nerve with the opening post.</p>
<p>I wish all parents well as we adapt to changes in this phase of life. So much attention on the kids and not enough on us!</p>
<p>I admit that I stayed near the school 2000 from home for almost 20 years, but have moved closer to my aging parent. I have told DS that he can go anywhere (that he likes and we can afford), and this former CA kid is mainly looking in the Midwest LACs. I have told him that he needs to pick a warm place to move when he has kids, sonce DH and I want to retire close enough to be grandparents, but far enough from them to avoid being babysitters on a daily basis. Hopefully that will be several years and degrees down the line.</p>
<p>S1 went to big state u. less than 3 hours from home. Post-grad., he’s now 3 states and 9 hours from home. As long as he’s in his chosen line of work, he’ll never live in our state.
So you just never know.</p>
<p>S2 is at a different big state u. 4 hours from home. We will be retiring to the area in four or five years so it would be really nice it he were not too far away but I’m not betting on anything at this point.<br>
We didn’t chose the retirement location because he was in school nearby. We bought the lot when he was nine years old.</p>
<p>We lived too far from our parents when our kids were growing up to visit often. I’m sorry that they didn’t get to spend much time with their grandparents and never really got to know them.</p>
<p>It’s a big world out there. There are airplanes that we can all board at any time. I saw no need to restrict my kids to certain areas of the country for fear that they might develop roots elsewhere. They’ve grown up in the same area – indeed, the same house – and we schlepped all over the country during the college process to drive that point home.</p>
<p>As it so turned out, S is going to a college in our general area. That was NOT part of the envisioned plan and frankly that’s the one negative of an otherwise excellent school - that it is in our backyard. </p>
<p>D will be in Boston. I hope she loves it there! Why wouldn’t I?<br>
And who knows where their spouses will be from? </p>
<p>It’s such a big world – I just don’t have a lot of patience for the “my kids have to stay within our own backyard or we’ll all melt” mindset.</p>
<p>I can appreciate that, but I will also note that grandparents can live nearby and they don’t necessarily wind up being close. I think kids know which grandparents make efforts and which ones don’t, and it doesn’t necessarily correlate to distance.</p>
<p>A very interesting question. It seems to me worth considering, but neither a deal-maker nor a deal-breaker.</p>
<p>I grew up in what my college admissions office called the “Midwest corn and oil states.” I came east to go to college, and while I live several hundred miles from where I went to college, I’ve never left the East Coast. But I think it has a lot more to do with my being repelled by my Midwest corn and oil state than with my having been attracted to where I went to college. When I left for freshman year, I already had no intention of returning to settle in MC&O State.</p>
<p>In addition, your kid’s choice of occupation may have a lot to do with where he or she settles. A chemistry teacher or a nurse can find work almost anywhere (except, granted, in the current economy); a classics professor will have to take a job anywhere she’s lucky enough to get one.</p>
<p>I encouraged my kids to go away and discover a new part of the country. Living on the east coast, where there are schools 'a plenty near here, I just thought it would be good for my kids just like it was good for me. My oldest hated being so far away. His first year was a disaster that he barely recovered from. My other two kids love their new home-away-from-home, but I’m sure it’s not a permanent relocation. I think it depends where they go (Many kids who attend schools in Ca or Co want to stay there), and where the jobs are.</p>
<p>My step-daughter left Northern CA to go to Ripon College in Ripon, WI. We thought that surely the weather and rural environment would not be attractive on a permanent basis. After graduation she got a job and stuck around. We kept sending her money to get out of there. We kept saying things like “Go to Paris”, “How about graduate school in Austin?”, and “Boston is a great city!”. She, however, had made true friends, loved the environment and had fallen in love with a local boy. She’s now married to a great guy and teaching in the local elementary school. No grandkids yet, it’s going to be hard to have them so far away.</p>
<p>When it came time for our son to look at colleges we knew precisely what could happen but, as I reminded my husband, it’s about him, not us. He’s in college 14 hours away by car, but that’s a whole lot closer than his sister. I wonder where he’ll go to graduate school, there are some pretty good schools in this area. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.</p>
<p>“I am more wondering if you consider that your S/D may actually make roots in the location where they attend college - be it a boy/girlfriend or an internship that develops into a job” - That is definitely aconcern. Years ago when we were skiing, a couple on a chairlift with older children warned us about that. But I’m a worrier - I likely would have thought it up on my own. </p>
<p>We would have liked our son to stay in CO (and we hope his ski habit brings him back for good someday). But he preferred Boston (or CA), and it has been a good thing for him to be independent. It didn’t hurt his case that his full tuition scholarship makes college cheaper at a private university than our state flagship down the road. And extended family is nearby too.</p>
<p>Yes, it happened to us. Daughter went to school on the east coast, went to grad school on the east coast, and now has many work connections and a local boyfriend. I don’t see her coming back to SoCal for many years if ever.
She’s visiting here now, though, staying for a couple of weeks for the holidays. Airplanes are good things! Honestly, I think she’s happier in the east than she was here in the west.
She lives in Boston and takes the subway everywhere. Here she would need a car. She is an editor and writer, and opportunities are greater for her in the Boston/New York area. It’s fun to live in a city with so many schools and young people, and there’s more work for literary types. Honestly, had she gone to UCLA or Stanford, she still might have wanted to go to NYC or Boston for work.<br>
Our job as parents is to help them find their places in life, not to hold them back just to be near us. That said, I’m really glad that my son seems to want to stay in sunny California forever.</p>
<p>We’re in NY. My older son is in Pittsburgh (at CMU). His last two internships have been out in CA, and that’s where he’s headed when he graduates. So we can’t exactly blame the Pittsburgh location! His company has recently expanded their NYC offices so I suppose some day he might head back this way, but I’m not counting on it. </p>
<p>Our younger son is in Boston. Since my mother is originally from the Boston area and I have lots of family in southern New Hampshire and the Boston area, so if he stayed in the area it would be fine. Given his interests though I think a move back to NY or to DC (where I’m originally from are more likely). Most likely is that he’ll spends some (or lots) of time overseas. I can’t complain too much about that since that’s what I did in my 20s and early 30s.</p>
<p>My SIL restricted her kids to in-state schools because " if they go out of state they could meet someone and fall in love and end up staying there". I think that’s an unreasonable reason for such a restriction.</p>
<p>Of course, your kid could go to school nearby, and you could move because of a job change, relocation or retirement. That’s happened to several people I know.</p>
<p>And conversely, my sister went about 800 miles away to go to college, and then my father changed jobs and our parents moved 50 miles away from the college.</p>
<p>Sister wasn’t really too pleased, as I recall.</p>
<p>DD went to school in NYC; BF is from Atlanta so she went there for a year. Missed NYC where she wanted to make her home. She came back. In law school in NYC; BF is moving to NYC. We live only 60 miles from NYC. It’s a happy circumstance, but the city is the draw.</p>
<p>DS goes to school in the Berkshires. Not a clue where he will end up. </p>
<p>I want to go to CA and have job opportunities, but the kids don’t want us to leave the East Coast.</p>