@Hoggirl I WASN’T (had to edit my “was”) implying anything negative about your “loaded” post. ;). What I meant was the questions can go SO many ways! Most of which are not against anyone - including parents or kids!!
The things that people chose to say to “friends”. Shame on your friends for even suggesting something ridiculous like “he must not like you”. That is so petty if true and so rude and lacking of empathy regardless!
My kids have traveled internationally since they were 6 months old. We lived abroad for a short period of time. Now they are young adults, they probably could live anywhere they want, they have both decided to settle in NYC. It is where I also now live. I worked outside of NYC for a short period of time while maintained a home in NYC. More recently I’ve had opportunities to move abroad again and both of my kids have asked me not to. They also said unless they were offered some unbelievable jobs, like head of Asia/European division of their firms, they wouldn’t consider moving. They have informed their SOs of their life choices. I have never explicitly talked to my kids about this issue. I think it just organically happened.
The benefit of us living close by is I am always available to babysit their kid/dog. D1 had a baby 7 months ago. I see the baby almost every week. I am dog sitting D2’s dog this week while she is on vacation.
My mother lives an hour away from me. I am the only sibling who lives close to her. She is going to move to NYC next year so she could see more of us.
I am very lucky I have my family close by.
I’m another one who gets the “You’re driving to Georgia BY YOURSELF!!!” comment. I LOVE my solo trips. I can crank up the music, stop at any darned quilt shop or antique market I want, take the back roads – it’s all good.
I also got a lot of comments when the guys were applying to colleges along the lines of “how can you let them go far away when you are so ill?” How can I NOT let them choose their own lives? Both chose schools an 8-9 hour drive away, but a two hour flight via Southwest. When something serious DID happen to me, it was the week before S1’s last finals before graduation, and S2 was home to do perform CPR on me. We all survived. 
We exposed them to lots of the world, rode on the subways when they were kids, let them ride solo at 13, camped a lot and tried to make their world larger. Living in the DC area makes a widely diverse and cultural experience pretty easy. They could see how their cousins and close friends in parts of the country have very different opportunities and are much more tethered to home base. My guys have flown the coop (literally), but they also see the advantages of being near family.
At one point, both my brothers were in the far-flung Atlanta exurbs with Georgia spouses and my sisters met husbands in Kentucky and started families there; my dad was stationed at Ft. Knox while they were in HS. Now one of my sisters lives a mile from Dad, the other sister is still in KY, younger brother is still outside Atlanta, and my late brother moved in with my dad the last six months of his life. His kids are in metro Atlanta.
I missed having family nearby when my guys were small. Both of us were working and had no support. My youngest sister is 54 and has three grandsons – she sees them every day, takes them out on the boat on weekends, goes on vacations with them, babysits them so their parents can go out, etc. Those little guys will have such a wonderful relationship with their grandparents. Color me envious.
H and I are in paralysis by analysis on whether we would relocate in retirement to a place with lower COL or for being close to hypothetical grandkids. Neither my parents nor H’s would ever travel to see us, but we are absolutely willing to go see our sons wherever they are. It’s a definitive shift in policy on our part. My grandparents didn’t travel either. I’m determined to do it for as long as I can.
As a current student, I literally have no idea where I will end up settling. I would like to live in Europe for a bit, and eventually come back to the continental 48. But you never know who you might meet in your travels that could convince you to stay… in the early years I do assume it will depend on jobs, or grad school if that is a factor. I assume I will move around to quite a few different locales before I hit 30. My parents do not know where they want to live - close to their children, but we might be spread out. I personally like my parents, so I wouldn’t actively try to avoid their region, but I don’t think I would pass up a great job offer further away.
And then there is the question of potential children. My brain has no room to consider those possibilities yet.
My parents grew up in the same small town. NO ONE ever left. When they moved to the midwest, relatives game to make sure we were living in a pony express outpost - but then ran back to their small town.
My parents then moved several more times, leaving children in different cities, but 5 of 6 of us made it back to Denver (move number 2), even if we went to high school and college in other places, or moved and moved back. We like it here. My parents kept moving but one thing brought them back to Denver - GRANDCHILDREN.
From what I’ve seen in real life and read in this thread, there is no one driving factor that really determines where a person will end up living — economic opportunities play a role, weather, housing costs, cost of living, being near to (or far) from family, experience in moving about the nation or world, romantic partner’s desires, and some luck all seem to play roles.
My dad is happy that his retirement home is only a couple of miles from where he lived for 48 years. He still has lots of friends and ex-students who visit him often. He said that the majority of people living in the facility relocated there to be near their kids and they have no friends in the area. He said it seems lonely for them. I hadn’t thought of that.
I guess like most life decisions, it’s complicated. I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone’s stories and backgrounds.
I ended up close to where I grew up due to DH’s job. My intention was to live somewhere else, preferably the west coast. However, have come to love this area. We are in the NYC suburbs.
My youngest spend last winter out west and had hoped to get a job with easy access to ski mountains. However, he ended up taking a job about 1.5 hours away. I was certainly happy about that! But not sure he won’t end up moving away at some point.
A friend’s daughter and son-in-law are moving south, far from family and friends as they want better weather and lower cost of living. Friend has been babysitting weekly and is understandably upset that they are moving so far away. Of course it is their decision and she supports it, but it will be tough to go from seeing the grandkids weekly (or more) to seeing them every few months (or less).
I don’t see a definite pattern. Many kids have stayed in the area, drawn by jobs in NYC. Others have moved farther, some gravitating to where their college friends are living, and others just due to a job or a gf or bf. As HImom says, living in an area that is attractive to young people and has lots of jobs may be more of a draw than areas that have fewer jobs and are less interesting.
I think education does play a roll in it. With higher education opens more possibilities to move further away (and pay child care and work through issues of not having family nearby). Geography seems to play some aspect as does culture. In Texas close has a different definition than it did in NY (I have lived in both!). It is complicated.
S17 is very independent, wanted to go away to college 800 miles away, has already had internships all over the US, and has no idea where he will end up. I know he won’t live near us. His gf is close to her family and went to college 2 1/2 hours away (rural flyover state) but also has no problem moving to wherever ds’s job takes him. Her older sister is already living several states away. Now her parents don’t like it but are learning to live with it.
My D15 however just moved back in with us. She had to leave an abusive relationship with her baby’s father just this week. She has only 6 hours college credit, not an academically inclined person, and won’t go far away. She will still need our help financially for awhile. I bet if we retire and move she will come with us unless she finds someone new or the dad gets his act together (doubtful). Honestly I wish she would find someone and move away from here. But I just don’t know.
I was the youngest in my family and I went to college over 1000 miles away from my parents. My sisters already lived hundreds of mile away from them and from each other due to where there spouses’ jobs were. My parents got transferred to where I went to college a year after I started. They lived there for years until they died. After college I moved 5 1/2 hours away (still in the same state) for a job. Dh’s parents lived in the same area so he was also 5 1/2 hours away from them until they died.
Like a lot of issues discussed on here, it depends. And I think there is a tendency to extrapolate from one’s experiences to everyone else. As they say, life is what happens while you are making plans. And often times I think there is an expectation if you lived close to your grandparents and aunts/uncles growing up, you are more likely to expect that your kids will remain close too. But when you have kids you understand (or at least should understand) that goal is for them to become indpendent and responsible adults and part of that may mean they make choices different than you did. And that changing circumstances from earlier in your life may lead to different plans/outcomes for your kids.
I mentioned upthread that the rural area I grew up in lost factories in the late '70’s and the economy went downhill. What a lot of people don’t consider is the effect on other jobs. For example, my dad was employed by one of the factories but he was an engineer and worked in a fairly large department with other engineers, the factory also employed finance/accounting professionals, people in sales, marketing and HR. So those jobs left, too.
In addition, the resulting population decline (it has leveled off since) resulted in fewer jobs for teachers, health care professionals, etc.
The area economy has rebounded somewhat but not at the level of what it was. In the late 70’s and the 80’s it was not a place to land with a college degree.
Yes, I think if oil prices hadn’t collapsed in 1986 we would have ended up staying in Austin. It would have been a very different life. Pluses and minuses.
Without air conditioning, would there be a migration to the south/west? Will climate change/natural disasters reverse some of that? How about water availability?
No A/C would definitely give some folks pause about moving to the South. Here in NC we are already seeing people in moving because of the double whammy of high COL and fire season out west. Have been for several years and I imagine we will continue to get lots of Californians moving in. Lots of people from the northeast move here to get away from harsh winters too.
Both of my kids live in very blue areas in blue states. It is definitely a factor for them. I totally get that young people who happen to be white, straight, cis , Christian may not consider this as much but for those who fall outside of those parameters (or are in an interracial marriage/partnership) it may be. Local/state laws and cultures may make it very difficult for them to live in certain areas.
The only place in Texas my S would consider is Austin. My D (white/straight/married/Christian) is concerned if say she found out she were pregnant 8 weeks after a rape. Or had an ectopic pregnancy…Texas is a non starter for her.
Laws, more than politics, are a consideration for my D as well. Although they do seem to go hand in hand.
I do have a friend who is actively looking to leave TX because of the current climate.
Would be interesting to see the 20-something age subset of this link. Doubt the migration pattern is quite as crystal clear as those aged 30 and above. Note: #48 ranked is the most net outbound migration, because AK and HI aren’t in the survey.
https://taxfoundation.org/state-migration-trends/
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What? An ectopic pregnancy is not an exception? I’m stunned.