I think it depends on how settled your kids are. Based upon their age and how long they have lived where they are and how much they like it there and are likely to stay
I have only one and she has been living where she is for 10 years now and I don’t imagine her moving very far from there in the near future. She would not move for a job opportunity and has all of her friends nearby. We enjoy spending time together and therefore living near her is something we all like. Of course, my husband and I still have to like the place we are living in, which we do.
When our son was posted to Georgia, it was for his entire nine-year stint, so he bought a house and settled in for the long haul. But, four years in, he’s been lured to a different branch of the Army and will be moving to Pittsburgh sometime this summer. He does not plan to make a career of the military but, either way, there are definitely more moves in his future. There is no way we can plan around him but, as retirees and as @RookieCollegeMom posted, we have the freedom and mobility to come him and will do so as he’ll have us. We think it will be fun visiting him in Pittsburgh.
Now, if he’d only move to France…. Agree with @abasket@tkoparent — send pics! That sounds like a dream move.
@ChoatieMom my oldest went to Carnegie Mellon, and I really enjoyed visiting Pittsburgh.
My parents were in the foreign service so while they had a house in Washington DC they didn’t necessarily feel it needed to be their forever home. My Dad was originally from the Chicago area and my Mom from Boston. My father ended up taking a retirement job in Lexington VA. They enjoyed the town and the presence of two colleges, but they did not see their grandchildren nearly as much as they might have. It was an eight hour drive for us. I did it alone once and almost killed us all I got so sleepy. Eventually (in their 70s) they moved to the same town as my brother, a couple of hours from my other brother and about four hours from me. It was a huge improvement from our point of view.
tkoparent - congrats on the move & adding my request to see pics if you’d like to share sometime!
And, it’s nice to hear about a couple where each partner had differing views but you came together to find something mutually agreeable. Hub and I are so different also - but we do generally agree on the big things (values) and often on the small things, ultimately (paint color, furniture choices!).
kiddie - agree about ‘how settled the kids are’ being a big factor. And abasket- yep, my son absolutely loves where he lives - but, career moves can happen, and much more likely in the earlier stages of career.
Interesting that the ‘type of travel to kids’ makes a difference - a driveable four hour trip could be far different than a mandatory plane flight. Something to keep in mind…
Our two older, post college kids have funny ideas about our retirement. They both think I need to be near them to take care of, and/or homeschool their kids, lol. (Kids they don’t have yet) We’ll see how that pans out. Our younger kids both have expressed just wanting to be near us and say they’d be willing to move to their siblings to facilitate that. No one seems eager to settle in the Los Angeles suburb where we raised them. We’re probably 10-15 years from retirement. It will be interesting to see where all our kids end up.
My good friend from college and her husband retired to NC from NJ about 6 years ago. One of their daughters was living in NYC and the other was in FL. NC seemed like a reasonable compromise. Fast forward to 2020. Both daughters (plus one fiance and two dogs) moved into their house while they figured out how to navigate a pandemic-inflicted world. Both daughters decided to stay in NC and the fiance is now a husband. They had a lovely wedding in October that we treated as a college reunion.
I just made the decision that this year will be my last at school, and then I come across kids from my last day at school (day to day subbing this year) who saw me in the grocery store and went out of their way to thank me for being in their class Friday. “You made it a lot of fun. I can’t wait to have you again” and “Just wanted to let you know…”
It’s nice and reminds me how much I enjoy working with teens, teaching science (or math, but science in this case), but I want to scream UGH! I’ve been on the fence about retiring since the second Covid year and thought I had finally made up my mind (sigh).
H is still a couple of years away, so who knows, but we do love to travel and HE can work remotely.
Thank you. The issues relating to our kids and the move to France also seem to be working out so far. Our son will be graduating from a US college this year, but he’s decided to attend graduate school in the UK, so he’ll be close by. Our daughter is an online student at ASU, so she’ll be coming with us and can continue her studies wherever we are. I had worried how they would feel about our suddenly pulling up roots like this and selling off their childhood home, but they have both been pretty positive.
We are near completion of a huge renovation of our massive-failure-to-downsize home. It is pretty stunning. Beautiful, huge kitchen. Dining room basically a glass box with amazing views. Beautiful river views.
Incidentally, our kids had no problem at all with us selling the house in which they were raised.
I wanted to try a winter in the new house. In the past as I’ve always tried to escape to warmer weather, but we had to go help my mother-in-law with some rebuilding of her house on Sanibel Island as a result of Hurricane Ian (unlike most of its neighbors, her house is on stilts and needed very little work). ShawWife was indispensable in getting dry-wallers/electricians to fix what needed to be fixed. All that is left is some flooring in the entryway and getting the elevator to work. I do love the weather in Florida in the winter, but will have to wait until next year to get a good test of whether I could manage New England in our new house.
Your failure-to-downsize home sounds beautiful. When we were thinking about moving back to the US, New England was one of the areas I kept coming back to as a possibility. I grew up in New Jersey, with four proper seasons, and one of the things I have missed in Tokyo is “real” winter. Tokyo’s climate is similar to DC’s, so winter is a fairly half-hearted affair. I suppose we can expect the same in France, but we loved living in LA so I think it will be OK. Also, we’ll be only a few hours away from the Alps.
We are doing some renovation in France - putting in air conditioning, adding solar panels, converting half of a four-car garage to storage,etc. - but nothing very fundamental, thank heavens.
Agree, it’s a wonderful book. My husband initially wanted to move to Bonnieux, which is close to the town where Peter Mayle lived when he wrote the book. Bonnieux is a spectacular place, but after reading Mayle’s description of the winter cold and the mistral wind, I told my husband “no way” and we moved our search towards Nice.
You sound like an awesome teacher. I hope this is not intruding but have you ever thought of tutoring? It may give you the enjoyment of teaching while allowing for more flexibility as I’m sure you could in-person and/or remote tutoring depending upon where you are.
I have and I did some tutoring online during Covid. Personally, I prefer interacting in person though and there’s not much for that at the high school level where I am. Maybe if I get bored in retirement I’ll look into it again, or maybe I’ll putter along at school for a couple more years until H also retires.
I don’t blame you - there aren’t too many times when on-line interaction beats in-person. Good luck with making your decision. There’s no reason you can’t change your mind at any time or many times.
Your house sounds great, shawbridge. I’ve visited a few large homes with breakfast rooms or sun rooms with tons of glass windows and they seem really fun/relaxing. Wondered how you keep it warm in the cold weather?
I was developing a wish list of items for a future second stage house - radiant heat in the floor would be a dream - I’m cold 24/7 and always thinking of ways to manage that, particularly if there is a cathedral ceiling somewhere in the house or lots of (chilly) windows.
The ground floor of this house has radiant heating. The DR does not have radiant heating but has an insulated roof, brand new high insulation factor sliding doors, and a mini-split for heating and AC. We will have solar panels that will provide all or most of the house’s electricity.
shawbridge - that’s good to know! Lots of factors in play to keep it insulated. Would love solar on any future house if possible (to give the security of not being totally tied to the grid).
HImom- we have a big bank of windows in our family room back wall - we are always freezing and it’s drafy. I’m assuming we don’t have those double-pane! Good to know that windows don’t always produce the result we have, lol.