<p>we live in greater DC, and DD is headed towards architecture, so it would definitely be possible for her to end up here, though I dont think greater DC is at the top of where she would like to end up. </p>
<p>If she did end up here I would be delighted, both to see her more, and to have interaction with grandchildren (keneinahara).</p>
<p>My oldest is going to end up on the opposite coast - not a surprise, but I’d have loved to have him closer. I agree that it’s nice to have grandchildren closer. My parents were a 7 to 8 hour drive away for many years and it was too far. It’s early days to guess where my younger son will end up, but I think the NYC area would be great - he certainly doesn’t have to live in our town. He might end up spending time overseas, or really at any number of big cities on one of the coasts (including the north coast as he said in his U of Chicago essay!) and we’d just have to enjoy visiting him.</p>
<p>I would absolutely love it if they came back and I hope they do. We do have a solid economy here, but it may not be the best place to launch one’s career (or not even possible to launch some careers). But where we live is also extremely expensive so that is a barrier too (unless they were willing to move back in with us). Maybe the best I can hope is they start out somewhere else but move here when they start families, if they do.</p>
<p>One of the reasons that my daughter wanted to go away to college was that she knew she would return to NYC after she finished school. That is still the plan and I a am thrilled at the thought of having her back in the city.</p>
<p>We have a very achievement-oriented family. I always expected to go where the best opportunity was. ShawWife moved to the US because it was the place where the most ambitious people in her field went. I would expect that ShawSon will do that. ShawD is a little different. Our kids are dual Canadian-US citizens. She likes the kinder, gentler style of Canada and has decided to go to university there. I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up living in Canada. [Who knows? We might as well at some point]. I’d love it if they were nearby, but don’t expect it in either case.</p>
<p>(Before reading the other replies)</p>
<p>I don’t mind if my kids return home after college. I can understand how some parents might feel burdened or used if they continue to foot the bill for every expense even after the young ones are grown. I hear you. But perhaps there is a middle groudn there where the young now old ones can pitch in. Or not. It won’t matter for us. I’ve made more than I need and most of it is going to them anyway. It really makes no difference. </p>
<p>I suppose I could spend it on wine and women and travel, and don’t get me wrong, I am no angel, I’ve met my share of women who were worth spending money on, if you know what I mean, but, funny thing, as it turns out I am happy in life with what I have. So the money will probably be there either way. </p>
<p>I’m probably missing the point. </p>
<p>And, I think the OP answered his own question when he/she said he/she wants his/her kids to follow their dreams. Great. If their dreams lead them back to hom they won’t find the door closed. Not as long as I am alive and working and my lovely wife feels the same way.</p>
<p>I’m torn about this. On the one hand, I want my kids the **** out of West Virginia. There’s very little for ambitious college graduates here but teaching and public sector jobs. Moving away violates the Appalchian cultural norm of “don’t get above your raisin’” and many kids, especially in rural areas, are guilted by their families into returning. My family was different. My parents are originally from Indiana, came here for my dad’s job, and basically grew where they were planted. Being separated from extended family was “normal” for me, and I was taught that one goes where one’s work is.
OTOH, we live 50 miles from our families and it’s perfect - far enough away so we’re out of each other’s faces but close enough to visit whenever we want. I’d like for my kids to be that close, but not at the expense of good-paying, rewarding jobs. My older son is majoring in sports journalism and will probably have to leave … we’ll see how it plays out.</p>
<p>My son has moved home. It is a temporary move while he is job hunting, which is taking quite a bit longer than he would like. He had not stayed more than a night or two in our house at a time since a few days before he turned 18 so it was difficult for him to make the choice to move back. If he does not get the job he is waiting to hear from he is planning to move to an area where there are lots of refineries and/or chemical plants and find some sort of interim job (fast food?) and see if living in the area helps him secure a job. He has traveled all over applying for jobs which all have hundreds of applicants. We have wondered if the distance he is coming from is a handicap for him. The job he is waiting to hear from was one he applied for a while back and did not get but they are trying to get an additional position approved and have contacted him about it and more or less said if they get the position approved they want him. But they did bring up the fact that he is from so far away as a concern. He is itching to move somewhere new so hopefully convinced them.</p>
<p>Our town is dying as far as jobs are concerned. It was pretty much a company town and the company merged with another company and nearly all the jobs went to the HQ town of the other company. So I doubt either of my kids will live here. If my son gets the job he is waiting to hear from he will be on the East coast. If my daughter’s current plans for the future stay the same and work out, she will be on the west coast. We are in the middle, but I would like to move to a place where there is more going on. So maybe close-ish to one of them. It would be nice if they ended up on the same side of the country.</p>
<p>I would like to be near enough to grandkids to have a close relationship with them. My Mum is in England so my kids used to see her once a year at most and have not seen her in several years since she has been unable to travel here and we can’t afford to fly them over often. It would take the first part of the visit to get to know each other and be comfortable again, so they never had a really close relationship. Their paternal Grandparents lived about 6 hours away so again, quite a distance.</p>
<p>A couple of hours would be nice. Can’t see it happening unfortunately.</p>
<p>My parents expect me to move back home after college and I am welcome there until marriage. I would greatly prefer not to live at home but I may have to for a while for financial reasons. Once my fiance finishes the certification that goes with his degree and finds a job, if we combine incomes I’ll be able to move out and we’ll be getting married then. So hopefully I won’t be at home for longer than a year but it could be two. But in my family, that’s okay. I am more than willing and able to be independent in terms of personal growth, but whether I can afford to do that right away just depends on what kind of a position I have to take to start off with to get my foot in the door with a company. All my parents care about, at the bare minimum, is that the payments are made on the loans they signed for. Until I can afford to do that AND move out they would rather I stay home and keep making loan payments on time. As soon as I can do both I will move out on my own, though if I do that before my fiance finds his job (which I am optimistic about) I may stick around a while longer to save money for our wedding. They could use my help around the house anyway.</p>
<p>My hope once I DO move out is that we will be within 45 minutes drive of my parents, but we may have to start off elsewhere and relocate later in life. We’ll see.</p>
<p>We live in a very pleasant area where, to my NJ raised view, housing costs and taxes are reasonable and thankfully the economy has not been hit as hard as most places in the country. If my D’s do decide to teach HS, our district is a nice one to teach in. I spent the 1st 4 decades in a state where all of my & Dh’s families still were. It made holidays convenient and my kids knew all cousins, aunts, etc. Now we’ve moved 950 miles away and my inlaws retired to FL; my younger D hasn’t seen any extended family in 3 years and that does make me a little sad. So if my kids did come home after college I think they’d be in a nice, comfortable place. </p>
<p>The reality is that my oldest has the travel bug; she’s already planning 2 study abroad terms and has discussed working for the State dept. That of course could change, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she ended up across the pond for at least a portion of her career. I’m thinking of it as a travel opportunity for me! My youngest is more of a homebody but she has let us know that she needs to be more than an hour away for college. I am apparently missing some type of genetic material, because I don’t plan on seriously altering my life when my kids have kids. I spent 15 years as a SAHM with no family members willing to take my kids for weekends etc. So I don’t plan on doing that for my D’s either. Not trying to be mean or crotchety but I’m back on my job train. And I don’t miss diapers.</p>
<p>S1 has graduated and is a military officer. I’m certain he will never return here.<br>
He has no gf at this point to influence him. He really has no clue where he’ll end up.
He is an adventure seeker so nothing would surprise me.
S2, a college junior is less adventurous than S1 but doesn’t really want to come back to our suburban town and we aren’t encouraging it.</p>
<p>DH and I don’t plan to stay here either. We’ve built a smaller home for retirement in another part of the state that is 30 miles from S2’s college. I an hoping that after graduation he will find work somewhere in that half of the state so we can see him (and any family he might have) more than a couple of times a yr.</p>
<p>Our kids really missed out by living five and seven hours away from their grandparents/aunt,uncles,cousins. I was always jealous of the time my Mom got to spend w/ my brother’s kids because they were only one hr. away.
There was never any real connection there for my kids. If/When my S’s have kids, I would hope DH and I can be a bigger presence in the lives of our grandchildren that what our own kids had.<br>
So the answer is “no, don’t want them to come back to our town” but “yes, it would be nice for them to be within reasonable driving distance.” We won’t put pressure on them to be near us. Their lives are their own after all. I had to face that fact when S1 let is know years ago that he wanted a military life.</p>
<p>No expectation that either son will return to our hometown after college. I’d bet my entire fortune (not a big bet) that S1 will not settle within 2500 miles. Personally, I can’t wait to visit the west coast. S2, on the other hand, is closer to our extended family in the area. He has cousins who were required to go to college close by, who are living with their parents after college graduation, and who all expect to marry and raise families within 20 miles of here (and each other). It would not surprise me if he eventually ended up in the same state. But he knows that the goal is to be self-supporting after college and if that means a job elsewhere, I know that he will accept that responsibility.</p>
<p>I keep trying to get my kids to move away so I can follow them…well, not really, but I would love to have family to visit in a sunny, warm state! They keep saying they’ll go, but only if I go with them. Hoping they’ll grow out of that mindset by the time they graduate. I’m really not in the mood to move again (although if they actually took their stuff with them maybe that wouldn’t seem so daunting)!</p>
<p>No I don’t really want my children to return to their hometown after graduation. I moved away; all but one of my siblings moved away from our hometown. Oldest D will probably be in the DC area if she is in this country, no telling where the next 2 would go. </p>
<p>There are always politicians lamenting the fact that our young people have to move away to get jobs, ignoring the fact that a lot of people are also moving to the region for jobs. There are many young adults who won’t go anywhere else. I know many people who buy a house on the same street as parents, siblings, etc. too close for me!</p>
<p>I guess it has a lot to do with how your family runs. I have one single solitary relative that does not live within 45 minutes drive of my parents, and she lives across the country in Alaska and we never see her at all, I didn’t even meet her until I was a teenager. Both sets of grandparents, my aunts, all my cousins, my older sister, etc and so forth all live about a half hour away give or take 15 minutes. The ENTIRE family, both my moms side and my dad’s side, are dispersed between three towns all right by each other. For us, the idea of moving hours away, while not unacceptable, is unusual. I’m willing to move anywhere in the world, we’ve even talked about relocating to the UK after graduation, but for someone in my family to move that far out of the area where we grew up would be highly unusual. My parents are the only ones so far who have chosen to settle in a city that isn’t where they were born, they moved 20 minutes away.</p>
<p>I don’t want my children to return here because I don’t want to live here any more. I wouldn’t be thrilled about coming back to visit if one of them does wind up back here. But like many other posters on this thread, we raised our kids to feel free to make their own decisions and choose for themselves what to be, where to live, and how to raise their own families. I’d rather visit an area with better weather and more interesting things to do, but I’ll go where the grandchildren are as often as the children will allow it. :)</p>
<p>At the moment, our three daughters live 7-10 hours away from us, in the same Southern state. Each has a significant other from elsewhere, and none are considering a return to upstate New York. But they already know never to say never.</p>
<p>Most of the members of our extended families live within an hour of where they were born, and always have. Several of my cousins pity me because my children went to OOS colleges and live far away. With cell phones, Skype, email, etc., the distance doesn’t seem that great. And the opportunities are unquestionably better for what my children want to do.</p>
<p>I would love to have my kids raise their families here. It’s a great place with lots of opportunity and resources. My parents moved here after I graduated from high school, and my sister and I gravitated here to be close to them. We’ve loved raising our kids near family. I never lived in the same town as my grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., and I think it’s been great for my kids and a big help to me.</p>
<p>Something, perhaps the only thing, son and I agree on- NO to living with us after finishing schooling. Figure on grad school for several years, then wherever his job takes him. By then this house should be long sold and none of us in this town. This place was where the jobs were and fine but conservative, blue collar for family life. We could consider which coast to be on based on where he gets into grad school- but probably not.</p>
<p>I notice some families spend generations in one area and have lots of relatives close by. Then there are families like ours where each generation moves. H moved from India, his sister came also and now their mother spends time in the US. My parents left their hometown- M had an immigrant father, her M from OOS and F’s grandparents immigrants. My sister and I ended up in the same area but her kids went OOS for college and beyond. My B never finished college, ended up in home town, his kids ending up there, none with regular 4 years college after HS.</p>
<p>Wife and kids in the distant future for son- like his parents at his age. Too many more years of school after bachelors degree to contemplate future longterm living places. Summers at home between school years have become short visits- nothing here for son (or us anymore after retirement). We communicate and get along well with phone, email and Skype. There’s no way I want to cook and clean on a permanent basis for son anymore, nor do I ever intend to move in with him. Guess we’re independent (as is my elderly father, and M-in-law- she will live in India as much as she can).</p>
<p>For me (and I guess my husband), our response would be whatever our son wants to do. Yes, we love seeing him and being with him, and being our only child, we’d miss him if he lived in a different city. We live in L.A., so obviously, we don’t have issues with small town, no opportunities, lousy weather, etc. that would keep someone from wanting to move here. Given the fact that at least half our population are transplants (mostly from NY if any consideration is given for all the Mets fans at Dodger Stadium when they’re in town), my guess is that people from the east coast move to L.A., and after one winter, never want to leave.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I don’t particularly fancy spending the rest of my life here. Not that we’re waiting for our parents to pass (quite the contrary!) since both my parents and my husband’s parents are still living and living in L.A., once they’re all gone, I don’t think we’d have a whole lot of reason to stay once we retire (assuming we ever retire!). Maybe keep the house, rent it out and move to the south of France! Now, if son wants to follow us there, that’s fine too!</p>
<p>Finally, I do recognize the change in family situations over the years. In the early '70’s, our parents couldn’t get us out of the house fast enough, and we couldn’t leave fast enough! A lot of my friends who left for the wilds of Oregon (that was a big deal back then) or Canada, did end up returning to L.A. some years later. Now, we’re back to the multi-generational family life, where kids aren’t so anxious to leave home at an early age, juggle paying rent, and work and go to college at the same time. It’s harder anyway, since rent (especially in LA) has gone up so much, tuition has gone up so much, and low-skilled jobs are low-paid jobs, which is what a part time wage earner/part time student would get. Generally speaking.</p>
<p>Bottom line: I’m down with whatever he wants to do.</p>
<p>My son is a graduate student on the other side of the country. He will soon be seeking a job, but coming back to the area where he grew up would be his last choice. He doesn’t like it here.</p>
<p>My daughter, a college senior, is seriously considering a job offer in a city 250 miles from our home. </p>
<p>I’m fine with both of these things. But I think I’m going to feel very different when either of them has children. I hate the idea of being a long-distance grandparent, but I think that is likely what I will be.</p>