Lol, we have now taken the “driving” portion of this post title to heart. (I’m guilty as well!!)
One more driving comment. My mom married my dad (American) in Morocco and came to the States in 1956 (?) with my very young brother and sister. She did not learn to drive until I was 4-5)ish (1964?) when my dad took a job oversees for 18 months. We were staying in the states so he had to teach her to drive before he went. I have memories of him teaching her - it was NOT pleasant! He wasn’t very patient and she was very nervous.
She drove around our small town to get us where we needed to go but has NEVER driven out of town. Perfectly fine these 50+ years driving in town, but had a fear of the expressway and driving out of town would have been like flying to the moon!
For my mil, I think it is fear of traveling alone, needing to make pit stops in places she unfamiliar, etc. She did drive about an hour and forty-five minutes to see her older sister, but her younger sister was with her. I think it is about driving alone.
I’m honestly kind of glad. She isn’t the best driver anymore.
To me, the driving or not driving is something that comes back to the original question. And probably relates more to female children than male. But maybe not.
For so many years, I feel that there were all these social cues of how women should behave.
Women aren’t good at math, women should have women specific careers, teaching or nursing for example. My parents talked about having a good career for a woman. Not every parent was this way, that I know, but my parents talked about a career that you could transition to part time when you had children. Women weren’t good drivers. Men should make the decisions about money and spending. Blue chores, pink chores.
I very intentionally tried to break those conventions for my daughter. And tried to also instill them in my son.
So I’m proud of my engineer daughter, and my engineer daughter in law. Who are working in places their careers took them. I don’t know where the future will lead them. But they are leading it.
I guess this has migrated from the original question. My opinion is that there are many reasons why children live close to their parents. But maybe the thought that they can be mobile if they want contributes to the greater mobility our children have over previous generations.
My mom doesn’t drive and never has. She grew up in a poor family in an area that had good public transportation. The family didn’t own a car so she had no reason to learn how to drive and no easy access to a car if she had wanted to learn. When she married and moved to an area where a car was needed, my father just drove her around when she needed it. After he died, she relied on a mix of friends, family, taxis, and a senior ride service that her town runs through the senior center. She did try to learn a couple times as an adult but it gave her anxiety attacks and she gave up.
Unfortunately I did not have many role models of career women (small town) and my HS guidance department was too busy trying to help at risk students. So no other career guidance. I majored in something that led to an internship in a “good career for a woman” and quickly found out that meant low pay and few chances for advancement. I ended up returning to college in my 20’s and entering a career field accounting/finance that had never been suggested to me even though I was in my HS’s top honors math class and my math test scores were very high.
OMG, I am totally remembering “blue chores, pink chores”. That’s golden.
Good post @deb922 . I think my family (parents, in laws, SIL, etc.) still don’t have any real idea what I do at work - and never seek to understand it. No one ever asks questions about my work. My mom still doesn’t seem to get that I work full time even though I have for years.
Another factor in adult kids living nearby might be if the couple is from the same town/area. S married a local girl and she is very close to her family (single mother and 3 sisters) - since we are “all” here in one town I think while initially upon college graduation (different schools) they job hunted in the state, they were both super happy to land jobs in our town.
I think as far as where adult children live that it really is cultural. It may be that they are blue collar folks who have always had extended family close by or they may be rural farm folks who have always had family close by or they may be recent immigrants whose culture dictates that family usually stay close by (immigration notwithstanding).
For my family, this was not that common. I do have some cousins that stayed pretty close to their family farm (one cousin moved an hour or so away and then further later and then came back maybe two hours away). But my immediate family for generations have not lived in the towns we grew up in.
My mom left the family farm at 16 during WWII and went to college about 300 miles away. (My parents had me when they were older, very late 30s. ) She was always close with her parents, but I don’t think she ever actually lived at home again. We visited all the time, though.
My dad was in the Navy in WWII and also went to college and he moved about 200 miles away from his hometown where he met my mom. They ended up settling about 40 miles from his hometown.
He had an older cousin that traveled across the country in the 1930s or so and settled in California.
Growing up I knew very few people who stayed in their hometown. But I think I was probably close enough to the agricultural era of our state (NC) that the opportunities were not on the farm and it was seen as unambitious to stay at home.
I remember watching “Everybody Loves Raymond” in the 90s and thinking how weird it would be to have a house right down the street from your mom. That was not done in my area.
My mother (70s) was a generation ahead of her time. But she only went to college (math major) because my Dad signed her up for the SAT and told her she should go. But she was very adamant that her children, especially her girls, be fully independent. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but there was never any real gender discussion. I was good at math and science and sports. I wasn’t good for a girl. I was just good. Period.
Getting back to driving. My mother has always been comfortable driving anywhere by herself. She taught her mother to drive and made her get a job. My grandmother drove to her job, but that was it. Once retired, hardly ever again.
I love to drive by myself. I would prefer to drive all the time, but so does H. I usually defer to him until he gets sleepy. He has a bad problem with that, and I take over then. However, I do see at some point I will not feel comfortable driving. As we age, our decision making skills decline. So does our vision, especially our night vision. Age catches up with us all eventually.
But in my town, it’s very common for even young women today to not drive anywhere alone. My co-worker’s 30 year old D has never drive outside of our area alone. She made her BF (now H) drive the 2:30 back from college every weekend. When he worked 7 hours away, he drove home every other weekend. But she is not unusual for my area. We seem to be a generation or two behind in many ways. For instance, when I had my kids 20 years ago, there were no daycares for kids under the age of 2. You either stayed home, used family/friends, or found a private sitter.
My MIL loves independently…and her six kids are all over the globe. None lived near the inlaws. They chose to live over 4 hours away from their nearest kiddo when they retired.
Fast forward a number of years. As their health became more uncertain, and they needed more help (they were living in a semirural area), their kids had a conference call, and decided to suggest they relocate nearer to someone. There was only one sibling who lived in a similar town and climate and area. The kids researched CCRC and found a fabulous one near that sibling who is about 10 minutes away. And the inlaws moved.
So in the case of our family, it wasn’t the adult kids making the decision to live near or not live near the inlaws, it was the inlaws. I should add…none of their kids had any interest in living where they chose to live when they retired.
Well, we still have blue chores and pink chores in our household, and they do tend to run along more traditional lines. However, we are both capable of doing the chores that the other does and sometimes do switch them out.
I was honestly thankful that my fil passed before mil. He did not know how to run the dishwasher or washing machine/dryer. Mil definitely needed a lot of help from dh after fil died to get up to speed on the household finances and bill-paying. She had no idea how much money they had or where any of it was other than their basic checking account. But, she was certainly capable of doing it and does those things fine now. She is very impatient with any household repair issues/dealing with contractors. So much so that she has had one handyman refuse to come back. Fil always handled that aspect of their home. And, fil always drove everywhere they went.
So, I think there are degrees of how far one takes the blue/pink chores.
Also obviously I think location, location has to come into play a bit. How desirable is your “homebase” town? For jobs, entertainment, housing, perks, parks/libraries/art, social activities?
There are plenty of towns that may not be desirable to live in for the long haul when you’re 23 years old. The old adage “work to live” not “live to work”.
I am the gardener, snow remover, and household fixer in our family. H does the bills because he has a complicated spreadsheet that he likes to keep but I’m perfectly capable of doing them if necessary.
The only thing that I make H do that could be considered a “blue” chore is kill bugs. I have an irrational fear of creepy crawlies. Tried very hard to not pass that down to my D and even held a tarantula when she was 8 years old to “prove” I wasn’t afraid. (Still gives me the heebie jeebies thinking about it.)
Thankfully I never got the message about “pink careers” either. I was always strong in math and science. Never a question that I would go to college and do what I wanted.
I’m thinking that maybe even a 10 year age gap makes a difference in that experience. I graduated from college in the early 90s.
A son has three close friends from high school that have returned to their hometown after college and actually bought homes in the neighborhood they grew up in. Not rural, not immigrant families. All from professional families . They all married women that were not from the hometown but from the general area. Two now have one year olds and both sets of grandparents have been very helpful with childcare. I think it can work out beautifully in many instances, and generations can provide mutual support.
My kids are not ever moving back and we will not be staying here after retirement anyway.
I remember one conversation I had with my mom when I mentioned being glad I was born when I was and in a first world country because I bet I’d have been stoned by Age 3 in some other places due to not being “girly” enough.
Mom corrected me and said I wouldn’t have been stoned because I wouldn’t have been born. She’d have been stoned by age 3…
She was fortunate enough to have grown up on a working farm with my grandparents who didn’t mind if she was out helping the men vs in the kitchen with the ladies.
When we visited my grandparents I started helping out in the barn about age 5 (similar time to starting kindergarten). I was driving my parents nuts in the house, naturally got up early around 4am, and was thrilled to be given a pitchfork to scrape cowpies into a gutter when the cows waiting to be milked “missed.” All typical girl loves, no?
I’m pretty positive I inherited a lot of my mom’s genetics - dad’s too, but they were quite typical for being male.
I have told people it’s good that I had three boys (no girls), because God knew I had no idea how to raise girls. I’ve also warned my three boys not to base their perception of typical girl behavior off their mama.
Interestingly enough, one of my DIL’s parents are good friends with us. They told us when their D came to them letting them know she had found a guy she was interested in they were elated. They didn’t think she’d ever find someone the way she rejected many things (like make up). They love our son. DIL fits in extremely well in our family.
Oh yeah, I’m the driver here, too. H works, reads or sleep. After my mom broke her femur and was totally bedridden, the thing she missed most was driving. Her world really shrank.
I see more and more people choosing to stay in the geographical area where their family is, if they can. The promise of economic advancement through geographical mobility that existed during the golden age of American corporations is pretty hollow now. You can move across the country for a great job, uproot your family, and two years later be laid off with nothing to show for it. The constant branch swinging from job to job in competitive industries without the support of the paternalistic old-style employment perks is just exhausting and not worth it. It’s also a lonely lifestyle where you never put down any roots.
My dad’s family has always moved across the US for jobs and opportunities for 150 years. My mom’s parents were immigrants. Whether it was a new farm, a new store, or a job with Cargill or IBM, you went where the work was. We are a far-flung bunch and rarely saw each other (I saw my grandparents maybe 2x year). There was never any expectation that you would live nearby the folks. We also never put down roots anywhere (except in a vaguely Midwest sense). But I feel very strongly that when I retire, I want to live near my adult kid and her family. I have hated being so far away from my own father as he ages.
Good point! Our area is very nice, but expensive. It’s got a great climate, good schools, and it’s a large area with an educated population. There are lots of well-paying jobs and it’s a huge metro area. Of course it’s an expensive place to live. But a lot of people who grew up in the area stay, because even though it’s expensive, it’s a desirable place to live and there are lots of opportunities and activities. Though I do know some people who move places for lower cost of living or retire to a cheaper place…it really does vary.
