I don’t expect my son to come back here to live (even though we live in Hawaii, a place many people would love to live, or at least think they would). He prefers life on the mainland, there are way more jobs there, and he has friends and a partner there. I knew when he left that he would probably not come back, except for visits. But I do expect him to be self-supporting after college. If he didn’t have work, I might help for a few months, but then I would want him to come home if I had to support him. I can’t afford to carry two households.
I didn’t go home either, after college - I was raised in Maryland, went to school in Michigan, and then went to upstate NY where I lived for 24 years (and went to law school). After my dad died, my mom actually moved to the town where my sister and I lived, and she followed us to Hawaii too (with our blessing, she was 80 at the time).
@LBad96 I agree… the good news is that you appear to be staying at UNC-W. I would not bring up the subject of returning to NJ- you still have 2 years left. Wait until you get closer to graduation and see how things pan out.
One of my kids returned close to home and I expect her to stay here. I don’t expect my other one to come back. I expect her to either go right to grad school OOS, or get an OOS job for a year before heading to grad school. Of course there is always the chance that she will find a year long position close to home and commute for a bit… who knows. It’s still too early to tell. TBH- right now I am happy that she has a major and found a great internship with opportunities that may take her into next summer and beyond. I decided it’s best to only “worry” about things 3-6 months into the future or I may drive myself crazy. Graduation is 2 years off.
@LBad96 , this seems to be a great incentive for you to have a job lined up post-grad. Your parents can’t force you to move home after you finish college. If that means you have to toe the line until you graduate, so be it. Keep them happy by doing well in school, and be prepared to head into the world in a couple years’ time.
As far as your ? goes, I will not expect my kids to move back home when they leave college. I imagine I will be shoving them out the door if they stick around too long.
No the two olders did not come home after graduation. All 3 knew we had no plans to support them financially after college so the two that have graduated had jobs and a place to live after graduation. Families are different about these things and all of ours knew the financial line in the sand was graduation so there was no surprises. We are firm and loving parents and we’re super proud of them for making the transition to independence.
DD is attending school on the opposite coast. We hope she will return home after graduation. There are plenty of jobs in her field of study here, but you never know. We don’t demand she return home. We hope she does.
Typo above. Smile and move on to other topics.
Both our s live across country. We miss them but are happy for them. Older s lived a state away after college, then happened to take a job in our community. However, he met his now wife here and followed her across country when she was sent there for a fellowship. It is what it is. It’s you really life, not theirs.
Why is this even a concern now? Just stop discussing it with your family for now. When the time comes…you will go,where you get a job. Guess what? It might be NJ…then again, it might not be.
Enjoy college…and stop fretting over something that is years away.
Don’t fight a fight that doesn’t need to be fought. This is 2 years away. For now, say nothing. Smile and nod. Deflect. As @Lindagaf said, just have that job lined up before graduation and go there instead of NJ. Or have some jobs and roommates, enough to be self-supporting, while you look for something better in the area where you want to live.
My children did not go to school far away. One was local, even. After graduation, the local one left and the next one is planning on it. My feeling is the time to leave and explore and live anywhere they want is now, when they’re single and childless. Not only don’t I think they should come back “home,” I WANT them to go. Oh, and once they’re all moved away, maybe I want to go someplace new, too!
Okay, you all make good points, especially about not worrying about that right now. I’ll update my other thread in a bit, as school has ended and I am home now.
I created this thread because last week was kinda a whirlwind. I told my family that I intended to stay in Wilmington for the summer, but I made the mistake of only telling them during finals week…and over text. BIG mistake. Another big mistake was failing to call them at a designated time (the evening after my last final) to talk about it. They got so incensed that they nearly withdrew support for me to attend UNCW. Apparently the implication was that I wasn’t coming home at all this summer…so I had to come back home ASAP to fix things.
Luckily, after I came back and got to see them face-to-face, my mom at least understood why I wanted to remain in Wilmington this summer and felt that my rationale for doing so - wanted to set legitimate roots down there, all my friends are there, my social life has improved tenfold since going to school there, I still don’t know the city as well as I think I should after two years, my life functions better down there - was sound enough. But then she said yesterday that they probably wouldn’t have let me go to school OOS (or at least so far away) if they knew that meant that I wasn’t planning on living in Jersey again, and how this area is supposedly better for what I want to do (International Business + French) and how my dad has had plans for me to take over his business in the future…yet my mom’s never liked this area any more than I have and just last year wanted to move to NC potentially. Dad’s still a little upset, as he felt a bit abandoned by my original summer plans. I’ve told him several times that it was 100% locational and 0% familial, but still he thinks it was because I didn’t want to see them. So that’s incredibly frustrating. And apparently now they’re not letting my younger siblings go OOS. My mom says I should apply for a summer job here, but I want to apply to places both here and there just to see what would happen (internship search didn’t work out, I even persistently followed up and everything). It’s just that last summer was very boring, and I didn’t get to see my HS friends as often as I would’ve anticipated. I was trying to avoid that scenario this time, especially because I just can’t get comfortable up here because of my past. We will see. I may still at least get to visit Wilmington this summer and/or go back a day or two earlier in August.
I just wanted some parents to help me rationalize all of this. My friends all say that they’re trying to rob me of my freedom and that they’re going to have to let me go eventually, and that I need to do what’s best for me. I do generally agree that it’s a little too early to be seriously talking about this. At the end, I’m just happy to be staying at the school I love. No point pulling me out to be local when I’m halfway through anyways, especially when I would look at my degree as worthless if I didn’t like the school I graduated from. I definitely view coming home after graduation as something that should be a mutual want as opposed to something I feel is forced on me because of other issues.
I would not expect my children to go to school out of state and not get attached to the area where they were living. As much as I would like to live near them, I would never hold them back from choosing their own place to live no matter how far away. Of course as me this again in ten years when grandchildren may be part of the equation :-j .
Since my kids are in the entertainment industry, I didn’t/don’t expect any of them to return to our home state right out of college. There just aren’t enough opportunities here. They need to stay where they can get jobs. I’ll visit, and so far they are in cool places that I enjoy.
We live in a mid-sized city in the midwest. Both of our kids went to college in large metropolises – NYC and Chicago. Given their career aspirations, they did not expect to return home to make their careers. And we didn’t expect it either. Now both are living in NYC, and we visit them once or twice a year, while they visit us or join us on visits to my relatives on the West Coast once a year, and we vacation together for a week or two in Maine.
Of course we’d like to have more direct contact with them. But it’s not going to happen. We benefit from living in a new electronic age when making contact, including visual contact, is very easy. But it’s hard to give a hug on the internet.
All parents wish their kids to be close for selfish reasons. Parents also recognize the true goal is to raise kids to have a life that makes the child happy. To find contentment in what one has or does.
Moving away from family is hard on everyone I think. It might not feel that way once you graduate and are young. But after you are married and have a child, you too will appreciate family more than you did when you left. Life is not rainbows and unicorns and it brings you places you might not otherwise choose because that is where the work/money is. Here in NE, in the Northern states of VT. NH. and ME, parents talk a lot about the need for the kids to move away to find work. It is painful for parents but a fact of life.
Bottom line reality is you need to do what is ultimately right for you. If that is not in NJ, then so be it.
Our state sucks for lack of a better word so I’m actually advocating for my kids to seek schooling and jobs in other states. Would/will I miss them? Absolutely. But I want them to be the best flyers they can so leaving the nest and pursuing interests in other states is fine by me.
Both my kids have gone OOS for college. I expected, when the first one left, that she’d be home for summers. That turned out to be an unrealistic expectation! She’s had an internship OOS every summer (that’s three now). I’ve adjusted my expectations at this point (and kid two will be home half the summer). I have no idea if either of them will move back to our area, and I’ve tried not to build my own hopes and dreams around that possibility, but it’s tough. I’d like them to be nearby. I miss them! I’m happy they are doing well where they are. I miss them!! I’m glad they call often!
Parents have all kinds of expecations of their kids, and when those expectations (whether realistic or fair or not) go unmet, it’s disappointing at first, and can cause conflict at home. Kids growing up and leaving home is a major adjustment for everyone and primetime for unmet expectations and ill-conceived attempts to control things by both parties. @LBad96 Give your parents some grace when they react badly and hopefully they will do the same for you.
As it turned out, each of our kids spent one college summer away from home. They spent the other two college summers at home mostly because there were good internship opportunities in our area.
After college, the kid who went to school in-state, less than an hour from home, immediately moved to the opposite side of the country. He has been there ever since. The kid who went to school out-of-state took a job near home for the first three years after college. Since then, she too has moved to a distant part of the country.
People will do what they will do. I would prefer it if my grown kids were more-or-less nearby (or at least in the same time zone so that phone calls would be easier to arrange), but it didn’t turn out that way. There were good job opportunities and graduate programs in other places, and they weren’t particularly thrilled with the area where we live anyway. I miss them – much more than I would have anticipated. I think that those feelings probably creep into our conversations from time to time. But they’re adults with their own lives to lead.
In the short term, it may not be. Some students do not have enough money in the bank to cover the costs of moving to a new location after graduation. They may need to borrow from their families to pay for their first and last month’s rent, a work wardrobe, a car, furniture, the cost of transportation and lodging during an apartment-hunting trip, or other needs. If parents refuse to help because they disapprove of where the young person will be living, this could put the young person in a difficult situation.
Also, in some areas of the country, a recent graduate may not be able to rent an apartment without a guarantor (co-signer). (New York City is notorious for this, but it can happen in other places – one of my kids needed a guarantor in Washington, DC.) If the parent refuses to act as a guarantor and the young person has no one else to turn to, the young person may have great difficulty finding a place to live.
If you think your parents will try to prevent you from moving away by refusing to help you with your transitional expenses or refusing to act as guarantors, it makes sense to make an effort to save up several thousand dollars before graduation so that you don’t have to go to your parents for money for your transitional expenses. And when you look for jobs, make sure to apply for some that are located in smaller cities, where you are less likely to need a guarantor.
I have no idea if either of them will move back to our area, and I’ve tried not to build my own hopes and dreams around that possibility, but it’s tough. I’d like them to be nearby. I miss them! I’m happy they are doing well where they are. I miss them!! I’m glad they call often!