I like your last sentence - “I’m not going to argue.” I think this is what stood out to me about what my sil said. I mean, as long as she is NOT sharing her displeasure in a nagging/whiny way with niece, it’s fine. She’s certainly allowed to be unhappy about it (though I think a couple of hours of distance is nothing), but it would seem unfair to pile on guilt about her daughter’s decision. Especially since she would be moving to a much nicer area of the state with more opportunities.
My husband and I moved from a northern state that was unable to sustain my husband’s profession. Taxes were high and the weather was not great, so it wasn’t a hard sell - except to my husband’s large Italian family, all of whom live in the same city (and will never leave). Our move was not popular with them at all (me? I was secretly thrilled for the chance to be outside the famiglia).
Fast forward 21 years and we’ve raised two daughters in a lovely southern city - great weather, friendly people, many job opportunities, affordable for most of the time we’ve been here (although recently on a gradual uptick). Our kids love our city and like hanging out with us 
My oldest and her future husband settled here (as have many of their high school & college friends). It would have to be a tremendous job offer elsewhere to get them to leave. My youngest is a freshman 3 hours away and I anticipate that she will try to end up nearby as well (neither kid had the inclination to be a plane ride away for college). We are contemplating retirement in a few years and plan to go no more than a few hours away (still within our state) so we can easily go back and forth for future grandchild activities.
Jobs are a major influence. That said, I think a subset of jobs is a real driver of where kids go. By that I mean what are their career goals/expectations, what is available close to home, and what is the overall family attitude towards exploring those goals.
Easy example for me is D. She’s a performing artist. We live in FL. Her personal goals / expectations go beyond working at Disney or performing on a cruise ship…so she’s in NY (and hopefully for her will realize her dreams in NY or LA). Are there other kids who want to perform and choose to stay in FL? Sure. But they are limited by what’s available.
Other, more generic careers tend to blur the lines. Does the kid aspire to be with an industry leader within their field, a high profile opportunity, something that sets up a higher career trajectory than what’s most likely available close to home? If so, they need to go elsewhere. I recall a conversation I had with a good friend who is a partner at his CPA firm (regional) with former Big4 (was Big8 back then) experience. He told me / my son if he wanted to go down that path, he should be looking for a big market to get staffed on larger clients, have greater exposure, etc.
I do think where they attend college has a lot to do with this in terms of both recruiting and what they get exposed to. If they go away to school, seems they are more likely to be OK with going away after school.
Quite anecdotal but in our circle, those that attended large in-state schools came back home, and those that went OOS have found opportunities all over the place.
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I have noticed that too.
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I miss my son and DIL, and it will be worse when and if they have a child. Just as Rickle1 wrote, had my son attended a FL state school, I doubt he would have had the job opportunities that he has had. What is sad is that he is living in such a high price area, they can’t yet afford to buy.
At some point, I’d like to see them have a place with a Murphy bed, so the room can be used as a home office, but still allow us parents to visit.
PS a friend’s Dtr is about to move to NY to try for a career in the theatre. It is just something that can’t be done in FL
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This is complicated. I live in a town where several generations of the same family live, the elderly stay home and are cared for by all the siblings. I would say this is more of a working class model traditionally.
This is breaking down as investors have bought up properties and converted to airbnb’s and the whole area has become too expensive, basically driving kids out.
For those with higher socioeconomic/educational status, I think living near home , at least in one’s 20’s and 30’s, is almost seen as a failure. This is cultural and independence is a priority value (which then extends into old age when the elderly enter paid private facilities).
Two of my kids went to college within an hour or two, but now live on the opposite coast. One hopes to return to the East, but 4 hours away- and yes jobs will determine if that is possible or they end up in Iowa!
Third kid lives a half hour away and talks about a 'big move." I think it is more about adventure and living life fully before settling down, for them. They don’t call often but seem to like knowing I am here, so my intutiion is that this kid will remain nearby.
My kids are already feeling they need to worry about caring for me. I have an injury that makes them see me as newly vulnerable. I take care of my mother but don’t want kids to take care of me! So they can live their lives I will probably enter a CCRC and they can live where they need or want to!
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I’d like to add… think it’s job opportunities AND cost of living. When one of my kids was looking…that kid considered both. The northeast, where we live was just way too costly for that kid and job ops. That kid chose a place with a more modest cost of living while still having the job opportunities available.
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Also anecdotal, but my kids both attended large instate schools and neither ended up moving home after college. And I never really figured they would.
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I personally think that some of it is the parents expectations and experience. Here in CC Land, most of us are college graduates and have the expectation that our children will go away to college and seek opportunities that benefit them. Not us. We raised our children to explore opportunities and spread their wings. If they came back, great, if not that is ok also.
Not all parents are that way. I’ve had people in the town I live in now, tell me that their greatest hope is to have their children close. To be in the same town as their parents, siblings and grandchildren. They want their kids to attend the local college, come home every weekend, hopefully marry a local/high school sweetheart and raise their children just like they did.
My opinion, it takes a lot to let your kids go. They may come back, they may not. But that’s a gift you give them. To seek their lives. To live the best life they can. It’s the opposite of selfish because I think everyone would love their children and grandchildren close.
I would. My kids live away from us. We moved here because of a job transfer after the kids were out of high school. They are both in the same high cost east coast state. As we contemplate retirement, people wonder if we are going to relocate to where the kids are. I don’t see that, it’s not a climate I would want to move to and with HCOL, it wouldn’t be prudent. We wouldn’t have our friends there. Do we really want to move near them to provide childcare? Honestly probably not.
We miss all those holidays we can’t spend with them, especially now that all have busy work schedules.
It’s difficult but the kids are happy with great lives and great jobs. What more can a parent ask for.
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I think this is a loaded question and the responses or assumptions could be MANY.
Also, how old are your kids? Just because they have landed 200 or 2000 miles away now, doesn’t mean they don’t make a change closer - or farther - in 2 or 10 or 20 years from now. It’s all fluid!
Jobs may influence.
Schools may influence.
Friends may influence.
Family relationships may influence.
Cost of living may influence.
Dreams may influence!
And these may change from year to year.
I came from a family of 4 children. My mom is still alive and lives in the town we grew up in.
1 of her children still lives in her town. Has his own business and has a 2nd home out of state.
1 of her children (me!) lives across the border less than an hour away. Have for 40+ years.
1 of her children lives states away, left home as an older teen and has stayed states away.
1 of her children lives states away in NYC, job related and dream related.
Our home city offered limited opportunities for a couple of our job paths. That alone was reason to leave the area.
H and I have 3 children. One is in town and loves it. He often says, “the best thing ever is you guys are minutes away. So easy to see each other and help each other”. Two others live 2.5 hours away. A city chosen to offer more “excitement and opportunities” than our home city. Either of those two could eventually make another choice. But I don’t think either would ever come back to our home city. Heck, I wouldn’t choose it either if I was younger! 
Driving factors change with time and with relationships.
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If we want our kids to have the best education, the best career opportunities, why do we want to impose, or wish to impose, geographic restrictions on them?
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Well, that’s true in my case. I’m the older daughter. I moved 2,100 miles from my parents. My sister has lived about 10 miles from them for many years.
In my case, the primary reason was jobs. My husband and I got our master’s degrees in structural engineering the month that oil prices collapsed in 1986, and there were literally no jobs in Texas. So we sent out almost 300 resumes (“We are a newly married couple looking for work as structural engineers in the _______ area”) and ended up in Maine.
An important secondary reason, though, was that I was raised in a fundamentalist church and there was no way in heck (pun intended) that I wanted my kids anywhere near it. I knew if we stayed in Austin, there would have been constant pressure on us to attend the church. I loved my parents dearly, and they were remarkable people, but I knew we needed to live our own lives.
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My husband and I are having these discussions right now as his retirement approaches.
My head says that we should move back to my husband’s country, as he still has a lot of family there and we are very sure our D will end up there for at least several years. Plus, we both love it there. My heart says that I want to stay where my kids are, for at least a while longer. That means staying in the Northeast. I suspect my S will never live far from where we are now.
My family is on the west coast and is pretty small, plus hubby and I have zero desire to live on the west coast ever.
As a CA native, neither I nor my parents ever imagined I would live overseas for twenty years, and then on the opposite coast. We can’t predict what our children will do, so I think we need to do what works best for our own lives.
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The oldest being farthest and youngest being closest is true for my siblings- oldest is 3 hours from our parents, second is 1 hour, third is 30 minutes, and I am 15 minutes. It’s not true for DH’s siblings though.
DD’17 is 1 hour away from us and thinks she’d like to stay where she is. A future husband could change that though. DD’19 has had dreams of living someplace far away and cool, now she’s leaning more toward staying closer as she really enjoys seeing her sister (and us) often. After college she wants to look in an area 3 hours away due to possible jobs. It’s also quite possible she will stick with her BF of almost 3 years and his inclination is our part of the state but he’s okay with her 3 hours away location idea. We’ll see!
I will say I utilized my parents a lot when my kids were small. They did a lot of transporting and after school care- when my youngest started K, they just happened to move to 1 block from the elementary school. My girls really got to be close with them and I would love to be able to help with my grandchildren if it’s feasible.
I think careers/jobs are a significant factor in where kids end up living after college/grad school. Some kids seem more committed than others to returning to their home base and find a way to make that choice work. For others, it’s often difficult to return to their roots. My kid is an actor and while there’s regional theater available near us, she’d rather be in NYC. Another kid has a dream job and unless the organization moves, she’s going to stay there.
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There are a lot of factors. The area you were raised in. Are there jobs? Is it a desirable place to live? Culture. Some people think being close to your children for you life is the most important thing. For me, not at all. I don’t have to see someone every day or week to feel close. I don’t even have to talk to them every week to feel close.
In my area, there are not many job opportunities. Most college bound kids leave and go elsewhere. But those that stay are from VERY close knit families. My co-worker’s kids did not go away to school and live in town. She lamented the other day that one was moving far away - a 20 min drive. But then again, she’s lived in two houses (< 5 min apart) her entire life. This is actually very common where I live if your kids don’t go away to school, and most don’t.
We hope our kids don’t come back. We plan to leave ourselves in the next 6-7 years. If they move far away, I’ll be fine with it. It’ll give me someplace cool to visit! As it stands now, one is 5 hours away and the other will likely end up in the same place. Where we wind up is TBD, though we are looking 3.5-4 hours in the opposite direction at first.
As for me/my siblings, the eldest lives the closet to my parents and the youngest lives the furthest. I’m the middle. DH & SIL both live here in their hometown. SIL did not go away to school. Both her kids are here and neither went away to school. H did go away for school. We planned to leave after 2 years, but H couldn’t find a job, so we got stuck. It’s not a terrible place to live, but we are both ready to move on.
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I am the oldest. I went away to college and never went back. I’ve lived in many states and am currently in one that is adjacent to where I grew up, but that is only because of jobs that brought me here. My younger sister never moved very far away. She currently lives across town from my Mom.
My oldest went to a school 500 miles from home and has stayed there. She’s got a job and a boyfriend and I expect her to be there for the foreseeable future. My youngest wants to come back here after he graduates. So maybe there is something to the birth order theory.
That was the expectation in H’s family and the path his siblings and their kids followed.
That was how I was raised and how H and I raised our kids.
Just a different philosophy pros/cons to each. That said, H and I are moving next year to be near D and SIL. We have no family here and are not going to live in the rural area we were raised in.
There is also a friends/peer influence factor. It was not unusual for kids who attended school with D (fairly large public HS in Northern Virginia suburbs) to be very open about choosing a college where their friends were going or that was close so they could come home often for social reasons. I still hear a lot of this now with neighbors/friends kids. These kids almost always returned to the area. To be fair, this area has a lot of career opportunities so it’s a “best of both worlds” IMO.
S’s peers at a magnet school were much less focused on attending college with HS friends. The class literally scattered all over the country (if not undergrad, then grad school) and overseas. Very few of his HS friends returned.
Not being judgemental - just different schools of thought (no pun intended).
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I’m from a family of 6 kids. Three of us went to college, 3 went right to work. My Mom never put expectations on us living nearby. 2 needed up within 15 minutes of my Mom. After college I lived an hour away and eventually moved 2 hours from my hometown. 2 siblings moved to another part of our state which meant an hour flight or 6-7 hour drive. None of us ever lived outside of Ca and I don’t expect any of us will.
My nieces I think will all settle within an hour of my brother and his wife. My brother and his wife would be disappointed if their girls moved far away. My nephews might not come back to Ca. Which would be due to jobs and cost of living.
My own have surprised me. One went out of state for college and had her first job out of the country. 2nd job was in San Francisco where we thought she would stay. After several years she decided the long hours and high cost of living wasn’t worth it. She moved back to our city and has no plans to leave. I never thought she would return. Cost of living is high but she feels she has a better quality of life in a small city. 2nd kid moved back after college and thought he would stay a few years. 10 years later he is still here. He has a great job that excites him. He could still move one day since he has a lot of ambition. Third kid will unlikely ever live nearby due to cost of living. She is saddened by that but has created a good life 7 hours away from us in a lower cost of living area but still in our state.
When my older kids first graduated college there wasn’t a lot of opportunities in our small city for college graduates to move back. We have had a lot of industry growth and more jobs that need and want college educated employees. I’ve noticed a lot of kids my oldest two went to school with have moved back. It’s a great place to raise a family.