Is it really so bad to move when the kids are in college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our financial situation has improved dramatically since we bought our current home. It’s a perfectly fine home and we’d like our kids (9th and 12th grade) to finish high school where they are. There aren’t really any homes we are interested in the HS district so we are strongly considering moving once the youngest leaves for college. The new home would still be in northern VA where the current home is so they could still see friends when they come home, and the new home would be nicer, they could restricted their bedrooms, etc. and I would still want it to feel like home to them.

But I worry that they would never really feel at home somewhere they didn’t grow up. DH thinks I’m absurd.

Has anyone done this and it went ok? Both kids are girls if it matters.

You have to do what you want, after spending 18+ years focused on on the kids! If you are within 30-45 mins of where they grew up, you didn't "move away". They will adjust.
BUt heck, they will adjust if you want to move cross country as well. You don't need to spend your life catering to your kids when they don't live at home anymore

Living far from family is a pretty huge deal if you have limited time or resources. My parents are overseas (I am the one who moved) and I have spent probably 100k over the years visiting them alone, with the kids...so you have to be mindful and realize you might have to go visit/not expect them to visit all the time.

We do that. Both kids attended college 2-3K miles from home. One landed near where they went to college, other is finishing up college now. If they find a job nearby, great, but they are more focused on the jobs they want and not the "where is the job located" at this point. They know we will fly to them and pay for them to fly to us as well. I'd never want to make my kids feel they had to "live nearby us" unless they found the right job nearby.

Definately don't expect the kids to pay and fly to us all the time. But we find if we offer to pay, they will join us on vacations and happily fly to us a lot of the time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our financial situation has improved dramatically since we bought our current home. It’s a perfectly fine home and we’d like our kids (9th and 12th grade) to finish high school where they are. There aren’t really any homes we are interested in the HS district so we are strongly considering moving once the youngest leaves for college. The new home would still be in northern VA where the current home is so they could still see friends when they come home, and the new home would be nicer, they could restricted their bedrooms, etc. and I would still want it to feel like home to them.

But I worry that they would never really feel at home somewhere they didn’t grow up. DH thinks I’m absurd.

Has anyone done this and it went ok? Both kids are girls if it matters.

You have to do what you want, after spending 18+ years focused on on the kids! If you are within 30-45 mins of where they grew up, you didn't "move away". They will adjust.
BUt heck, they will adjust if you want to move cross country as well. You don't need to spend your life catering to your kids when they don't live at home anymore

The people who are seriously factoring in moving after their kids have left for college are probably going to spend the rest of their lives catering to their kids and grandkids. This is just who they are and how they want to live. If they have a great marriage and love spending time together as a family, why not? Those of us who feel like we've compromised our own happiness for our kids too much over the years may do things differently. I'm in that camp. I'm going to downsize, divorce, and travel when my kids launch. I've been delaying my own happiness for years to give my kids a stable, happy childhood and put them through college debt-free. I'll certainly maintain our relationship in the future, but first I'm going to do me for a while.

I'm the PP. We have a great marriage and great family. But we have downsized---we moved to a condo in the city--somehting we had always wanted, but hard to manage with a family (I believe in public schools and I'm not willing to compromise and don't want to live in a 2 bedroom place with 4 of us, just not my thing. So we did the big house in the suburbs for 25 years. Once the last kid went off to college, we decided to do what we wanted to do---which was live in the city. So we can have a good family life and good marriage and still want to adjust once the kids are out of HS. Because yes, we do adjust our lives for our kids for so long (no regrets) but that also means we don't need to cater to their every wish when they are only home for 2 weeks at xmas, 1 week at spring break and 8 weeks over the summer ---by junior/senior year it was not even that much, as they go with friends on SB and have internships or research positions in the summers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our financial situation has improved dramatically since we bought our current home. It’s a perfectly fine home and we’d like our kids (9th and 12th grade) to finish high school where they are. There aren’t really any homes we are interested in the HS district so we are strongly considering moving once the youngest leaves for college. The new home would still be in northern VA where the current home is so they could still see friends when they come home, and the new home would be nicer, they could restricted their bedrooms, etc. and I would still want it to feel like home to them.

But I worry that they would never really feel at home somewhere they didn’t grow up. DH thinks I’m absurd.

Has anyone done this and it went ok? Both kids are girls if it matters.

You have to do what you want, after spending 18+ years focused on on the kids! If you are within 30-45 mins of where they grew up, you didn't "move away". They will adjust.
BUt heck, they will adjust if you want to move cross country as well. You don't need to spend your life catering to your kids when they don't live at home anymore

The people who are seriously factoring in moving after their kids have left for college are probably going to spend the rest of their lives catering to their kids and grandkids. This is just who they are and how they want to live. If they have a great marriage and love spending time together as a family, why not? Those of us who feel like we've compromised our own happiness for our kids too much over the years may do things differently. I'm in that camp. I'm going to downsize, divorce, and travel when my kids launch. I've been delaying my own happiness for years to give my kids a stable, happy childhood and put them through college debt-free. I'll certainly maintain our relationship in the future, but first I'm going to do me for a while.

You sound like me (except for the divorce part - at least for now). My youngest just started college. I am trying to balance all of this. I hate Maryland winters but stayed until they graduated HS. We are now snowbirds with a house in Florida. I will do this for another year or two, and then plan on being in Florida full-time. I want to focus on me, not everyone else in the family. And that is okay. I am important too.

Yes, focus on you! You are important! College aged+ kids should adapt and be happy for you.

[Anonymous]

Our daughter thought we were insane selling her childhood home even though we were in the same town. She got over it.

[Anonymous]

I would move, but I would prioritize a space for each child to store their childhood memories. Once they’ve been been out of college and have their own apartment, you can ask them to get serious about purging. It’s just too much to ask that they store all of their memories in a tiny dorm room.

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine did this and it was so much better-especially since her kids were bringing home significant others. Much more space so they weren't on top of eachother and they had the space to split up one couple since the young woman requested that they have separate rooms to please her parents.

I would make sure they have one last break or even summer in possible in their childhood home to say their goodbyes/take it all in. I would not move before say Spring break, but after is fine.