<p>Our son is now 24 and working. </p>
<p>We are more worried today for son driving solo from his home in Seattle to our home just below Portland. A distance of 200 miles. We would rather him take public transportation just as he did when he went to school and internships 2000+ miles away.</p>
<p>“Does anyone fear that if their kid goes to a college far away from home, that the kid will be more likely to end up living permanently far away?”</p>
<p>sacchi, that is a great point and one that we have discussed. (just us parents). It does worry us a little but I don’t think we would let it impact the decision since we have no way of knowing where she may end up in life anyway. </p>
<p>One other consideration I thought of last night when looking at this topic is the type of calendar system the school operates under. 2 of her top choices operate under a 4-1-4 system, which reduces the amount of school break time and adds in some additional airfare.</p>
<p>Bobby CT…I sent you a PM.</p>
<p>We went the time zone route. one time zone. We felt there were more than enough colleges in our area. She will be 8 hours away. I do think if she wanted it bad enough and had good reasons we would have let her have her way. We just want to get to her easily if she needs us.</p>
<p>P.s. turnes out she is perfectly happy where she is going, never applied within our state which has amazing schools. I wanted her to go to a school four hours away that i could easily drive to but that was not my choice or fair.</p>
<p>There IS an advantage to having a kid on a west coast school…if you live on the east coast. If you need to call the Bursar’s office (or any other school office)…they are STILL OPEN when you get home from work at 6 EST!!</p>
<p>The other coast is near in contrast to this distance from the West Coast to Hungary or the East Coast to New Zealand. (I’ve dealt with the former and known of the latter.) Find the best fit, let the chips fall, and don’t worry about distance. </p>
<p>My prejudice against too close to home is the potential of coming home for the weekends. One of my D’s roommates at college lived about two hours away. Her mother came and cleaned her side of the room almost every weekend before taking her D home for the weekend. Imnsvho, the kid missed a lot of the college experience.</p>
<p>I note with approval that when Cortez landed in Mexico, he burned his ships behind him. (Not an endorsement of all that followed.)</p>
<p>TheDad:</p>
<p>LOL about the mother who came to clean her D’s college room because she was within range. It reminds me of a “60 Minutes” piece I watched that talked about how Italian mothers were still doing the laundry of their 30+ year old sons. :eek: :eek:</p>
<p>^LOL.</p>
<p>Sorry, I have an Italian grandmother, and she is ALWAYS doing the laundry and cleaning the house! It drives me (20) and my parents (40+) well about batty. It’s not that they don’t appreciate the help…but it is a little excessive! I think it makes them feel bad! (It makes ME feel bad…)</p>
<p>Family is very important to us Italians…the g-ma may still be doing the laundry of the 40+ year old, but she expects the same in return, even if she may not say it out loud. Family is family and you always lend a helping hand/friendship/etc. WHENEVER you have a free moment, no matter how old or young you are. It is what she lives for and it is what she hopes her children and their children live for, too :). I think even as an adult the child feels his/her independence is being infringed upon, but as the grandkid I have never felt resentment or loss of independence to her. I frickin’ love her and I will keep making copies of those recipes she finds in magazines for 40 years without it getting old (even though she MUST know how to use the copier by now…put the paper in…press the green button…really).</p>
<p>Maybe it is wrong to generalize all Italians like that…haha…>< But I only hope that one day I can be as dedicated to those I love as she is.</p>
<p>I think it really depends upon the kid. For our oldest, who is looking at colleges now, we have said that he has to go within five hours driving distance of our house–luckily, we live on the East Coast with tons of colleges within that range. We decided on this limit because he has always seemed to need a little extra support. Five hours seemed to be easy enough to handle if the need arose, but far enough that both our son and his parents wouldn’t visit each other on a whim. Our daughter, on the other hand, who won’t be looking at colleges for two years, won’t have any limit—she is more than ready to deal with being on her own.</p>
<p>I’ve seen the following scenario quite a few times: Student goes to college far away who has never spent any significant time away from home. Student can’t handle it and comes home to live and go to the local community college. </p>
<p>I think that if your S/D hasn’t ever been away from home, it’s a good idea to have them close enough that they feel they could come home for a weekend if they want. They may not need to, but I believe it helps a lot to know they could if they wanted. From what I’ve observed, kids who weren’t independent before they went to college tend to stick it out more often if they don’t go too far away.</p>
<p>I just read all these posts. Draw a circle and force your child to go OUTSIDE it? Counting on the fact that they will most likely continue to live/work in their new area?</p>
<p>Yikes… I thought the political threads were mean, but this has me speechless. If I DID feel like that about my kids I don’t think I’d publicly state (and be proud of) it. </p>
<p>It’s one thing to LET them go if they are begging for a particular school, but to FORCE it on them? Wow. There’s a happy childhood memory for them.</p>
<p>^^Referring to my two previous posts^^</p>
<p>The circle method worked for our family. Our kids have grown up expecting to “go away” to college and they have embraced the concept. It means that their horizons and choices are wide open and they never felt any pressure to stay close to mommy and daddy (unlike some of their close friends and cousins). Both sons have spent significant time on their own at camps, conferences and trips independently of us, and have had/will have no trouble adjusting to being on their own at college. As parents, our intention was to raise them to be able to launch their lives. I can assure you that they do not feel unwanted and unloved in the least.</p>
<p>As for not moving back home after college? That’s just being realistic. S1 is studying a highly specialized field where he would be severely limited in career choices if he felt we required him to move back to his hometown. I myself moved 600+ miles from my family roots 30 years ago, after “going away” to college and have had a wonderful life, including frequent visits home to very supportive parents/grandparents.</p>
<p>Just wanted to show an alternative approach that works for one family. I was trying to illustrate a situation where there was no “too far” for college. But I understand that it does depend on each individual family (and child’s) situation. Ours just happens to be able to be on the more independent end of the spectrum.</p>
<p>^^ Exactly what is different between drawing a circle and making exceptions for the INSIDE, versus making exceptions for the OUTSIDE?</p>
<p>I don’t expect/want my kids to move back home after college. I think I would be lying if I said I wouldn like to have my kids live close by. My D1 is in Australia now. She thought she would be so carefree to be so far away. I didn’t ask her, but she calls me everyday, and we just chat. D2 is in CA for a ballet intensive. She calls a few times a day. They don’t call to ask for advice or complain, just to touch base. I think/hope when they move away someday, they will continue to call. We live around NYC area, so there is probably a good chance of them getting a job around us someday (at least a few hours driving distance).</p>
<p>I am from a very close knit family, even though we live around the globe. For 30+ years, we’ve had family vacations every other year, if not every year, and we have gotten together every Christmast. But I am the only one that lives close to my parents. We don’t see them all the time, but we see them for birthdays, mother’s day, father’s day, and some weekend dinners. I know my parents feel a lot better having me around, especially since my father got cancer a few years ago. </p>
<p>I am a very independent person. It was my choice to stay close to my parents after I moved out. I did it more for them, not for my own need. I have passed up on some job opportunities for my family (kids and parents), looking back, I don’t regret it.</p>
<p>It will be different for every family. Personally, I have to be reminded and scolded to call my parents every few days when I’m away at a summer program. I miss them, of course, but I’ve never been homesick and I find “touching base” to be kind of pointless. Any reservations I have with regard to distance are due to the hassle of plane flights, not emotional issues. (Well, my parents don’t want me to go far away… and?) Ironically, my top choice is also the closest in distance; thankfully my parents aren’t the surprise-visit type.</p>
<p>I have always been comfortably solitary and independent.</p>
<p>I loved growing up where I did, but it has been a dying city for all of my adult life. I’m sure my parents would be happy if my siblings and I all lived there, but at the same time they know that our lives would be very different if we did. Only about 1/4 of my high school class still lives there, and most of them are very ambivalent about it. Some have even moved away in the past few years after spending 25+ years there post-college.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, one of my sisters does live there, two blocks from my parents. She went to college farther away (distance AND psychology) than anyone else, and she subsequently spent seven years and four years thousands of miles away (in separate tranches, and separate locations). If you are going to move back home, you move back home, no matter where you went to college. She DID go to medical school at the local university, but then she did her residency elsewhere. Que sera, sera.</p>
<p>We’ve had virtually no discussion with S about how close or far away his college choices are. One is very close (a 10-15 minute drive) and others are all the way over on the right coast. Since he’s a CA boy (although one that skis and has visited relatives in Seattle and Chicago), we’ve had more discussion about climate differences and how he’d feel about that (prefers not to be in the snow belt but will deal for a good school, he says), or how different some cities are from the LA region and how he’d feel about that (prefers areas that are not too conservatice or up tight, he says) or how some campuses may tilt more academic vs pre-professional and how he’d feel about that (netural, he says.)</p>
<p>I swear, he’s been independent from the get go. When he was a toddler, we took him to the county fair. I told my H, let’s do an experiment. So we let S just waunder at will, with both of us close enough to swoop in for a rescue if he needed. Well, it took him maybe ten minutes before he looked around to see where we were!</p>
<p>YM2: which is exactly why providing your D or S with the experiences that lead to a sense of competent independence is an important part of their growing up. There are nine-and-sixty ways you can do this (probably more). For us, it was easy: summer ballet intensives during high school were a good foot in the water to living away from home, learning to deal with roommates, etc. The experience of college three time zones away in turn made a junior semester eight time zones away much less daunting for D.</p>
<p>ATINTM: see above. Giving your child a competent sense of independence so that they can turn in any direction they want in their search for professional fulfillment is one of the greatest gifts you can give. I’d feel horrible if D felt that she had to live near home to please us.</p>
<p>Keilex: heh. Not that we would have ever visited unannounced, but “we’re not walking in on you and your bf” was up there right after “you’re not bringing your laundry home” as part of the “no school within 200 miles” limit.</p>
<p>As this
was also frequently cited in our house as a reason for the distance requirement, S2 thinks he has us outsmarted by putting UMich on the list…far enough away for M&D, but within 30 minutes of doting grandmother who has already said she would gladly do laundry in return for frequent visits. ;)</p>