Family Matters
ejh08278
member
Please visit my blog! re-discoveringhome.blogspot.com
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How close to live to family?
Hi everyone,
My husband & I currently live about 6 hours from our families; I went to graduate school here and we both found jobs in the area. Now that we're talking about starting a family, we are trying to decide if we should move closer to family.
We have a lot of mixed feelings about the situation, but right now it is seeming like a move would be best for us.
I was wondering about your experiences living away from or near your family and what recommendations you have for us as we make this decision. Also, how close is too close? Since my family lives in a very small town with no job opportunities, we'd be about an hour from them if we were to move.
Any advice would be appreciated... thanks!
Please visit my blog! re-discoveringhome.blogspot.com
Re: How close to live to family?
I personally would love to live in the city I grew up in where much of my immediate and extended family still live. H is not so much a fan of the city or living so close to family. Right now we're 2.5 hours away with a mountain pass between us and them. It's fine for now. In a year we're going to discuss jobs/careers and where to settle down.
I think it depends on your relationships with each of your families. Do they cross boundaries? Will they help when you have kids? Are you close to them? Which family will you live by, his, yours or both?
What are your expectations about being closer to family? Analyze that. Is it just so that your kids will see them more, or would you be expecting them to help you out, and/or making more time to come and see you?
If it's just that you want to be closer in hopes of seeing them more - that's one thing. But if you're thinking in terms of "expecting" certain things AND especially expecting that they'll suddenly want to see you all more... just be careful. Many people move closer to family thinking "Oh- they'll want to help watch our child/ they'll want to see our child all the time" and then are shocked when their parents (who are already busy as it is) don't drop everything to come running and be the stereotypical grandparents.
I live about 10 mins from my parents. When we had DS, we were closer to 30 minutes away. When we moved, we actually already had a proven track record w/ my parents that they wanted to be really involved and make a real effort to see/ spend time w/ DS. So we knew that it made sense to be closer to them.
My IL's talked the talk of wanting to be involved, but for various reasons haven't and can't be more involved - so.... I'm really glad we didn't make any decision to move closer to them based on "Oh- we can't wait to be suepr involved". We would have been VERY disappointed.
And I also think the other response about boundaries is something to think about too. If in the flip, your families will be TOO involved and won't respect your wishes, maybe keeping your distance would be for the best.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
That depends on how involved you want your family to be in your daily life. We live about 30 minutes away from our family and they literally never come see us. If we see them at all, it's because we make the drive. It's nice when we want our space, though.
The Raymond Rule is key.....we are moving to a house that is 20 minutes drive from my inlaws....hopefully that's far enough that they don't think it's ok to just pop in whenever because they drive me crazy enough as it is. Right now we are living 20 minutes away in the other direction though, and they generally do not come by unannounced, so I think it will be fine. My family lives 2.5 hours away from us, but they never come visit me here - usually we are going to see them and it's just for a weekend visit during the holidays.
My husband and I live about 5 minutes from my family and 15minutes from his. It is really easy for us to see both families, which is very nice. It especially helps a lot when both sets of parents have holidays or special occasions on the same day and we can manage to run by both. If you can live next to at least one set of parents it is worth it. I must say both sets of parents dont drop by unannounced, they always call first....so it is possible for some to understand boundaries even though they could easily just drop in.
We'll see what kind of problems we have when we start having kids though. o_O
We live very near to my family members and reasonably close to DH's parents. (all within the same metro area) I love being close to my family because we genuinely enjoy eachother's company. I get to spend time with my nephew on a regular basis which I love too. We really don't have trouble with anyone dropping by unannounced. We may get a call saying that they're in the 'hood and do we want to catch a bite to eat or something but it is not common and totally without expectation that we'll drop everything and do whatever they propose.
my ILs haven't been to our house since before we got married. They're weird about going "into the city" and we live in a very urban area. I seriously think that they think they'll get carjacked or shot at. :-P It works out OK for me that way since I don't particularly care for them much. We're civil but we just don't have a lot in common with eachother.
We found it best to move far away from family. Not that I don't love my family to death....but some of my immediate family is very overbearing and its nice to have some space.
If you are 6 hours away and have good jobs I wouldn't move. You're not too far that you'll never see your family. I wouldn't move to a small town with no jobs. At least not yet. You can move closer when the child gets older and starts school if you want. Think about it for a while before you decide anything