No nearby family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard it said before that people from other countries cannot believe how decoupled families are here. In many cultures, it's unheard of for people to live in different neighborhoods let along thousands of miles away in a different state. Think about how many cultures have many generations sharing the same house. Here in the US with many Asian families in particular, notice how many multi-generational families travel together.

There are so many benefits. No one needs to go into a nursing home, babysitters aren't needed. Younger generation learns traditions and history from the older. Shared costs.

My grandparents watched me a lot when I was younger and I got to know them in a way I never would have if I only saw them a couple times per year.

Seriously people, family is everything. What are we all doing?

PP, my parents are both dead. The town I grew up in is practically dead -- there are no jobs there except in fast food or at Walmart. You're fortunate, okay? Not everyone has the same situation you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard it said before that people from other countries cannot believe how decoupled families are here. In many cultures, it's unheard of for people to live in different neighborhoods let along thousands of miles away in a different state. Think about how many cultures have many generations sharing the same house. Here in the US with many Asian families in particular, notice how many multi-generational families travel together.

There are so many benefits. No one needs to go into a nursing home, babysitters aren't needed. Younger generation learns traditions and history from the older. Shared costs.

My grandparents watched me a lot when I was younger and I got to know them in a way I never would have if I only saw them a couple times per year.

Seriously people, family is everything. What are we all doing?

There are serious downsides to this as well. Adult children can be stifled and bound by tradition, never allowed to pursue their own dreams and interests. Never mind if it is your life's passion do cutting edge medical research at NIH, more important to stay with your family and be there for every college football game and barbeque. Grown men who live at home until marriage become infantalized mamas' boys who then turn into terrible husbands who expect their wives to take over the mothering role. Women domineered and bossed around by controlling mothers-in-law who rule the roost and are not prepared to retire to the dowager house. Entire societies calcified because tradition, rank, family status is so important. No risk taking, no innovation, no class mobility, no marriage outside the tribe. Family secrets are kept just that, so too bad if you are molested or abused or gay or whatever. Family is very important to me, but it is not everything.

[Anonymous]

My family is a 6 hour plane ride away, DH's is a 3 hour plane ride away. We moved here not knowing a single person. We've been here 5 years now. For the first 4 years we really struggled socially. I could not seem to make any friends. I tried really hard, joined tons of social groups, went out of my way to initiate over and over, but didn't make a single friend. Then I joined a church, and started making a couple of friends. I joined a book club and made more friends. And I started volunteering, and made friends that way. So now I have several close friends (maybe 6 or 7 close friends who I talk with weekly, and a few more acquaintances). It was hard work making these friends--initiating over and over, putting myself out there, etc. But I am so much happier now that I have girlfriends, and that we have couple friends. While it's no substitution for family, it does make this area feel more like home than it did previously.

[Anonymous]

Cut the cord people! After a certain age, you should be embarrassed to over-rely on birth family, no?

[Anonymous]

I can relate with you, OP. My family (mother) lives 11 hours away by car, and she does not drive. So the only way to see her is if we drive there, or she flies down to us. Being a senior citizen, it's not so easy for her to travel a lot, though. Plus, we're still renting, so, regrettably, space is tight. Husband's family is across the globe, so again, nobody is nearby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cut the cord people! After a certain age, you should be embarrassed to over-rely on birth family, no?

OP here. Over-rely? For me, I haven't lived near my family in 10 years and in the meantime have seen them about once a year. I don't think wishing you saw your family more than that and hoping they will be a part of your children's lives is over-relying. One cannot rely solely on friends in the area as friends' priorities shift and often, they move away to be closer to their families or pursue other career opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Well, we have had it both ways and I actually prefer having some distance. We used to live in the same city as both of our families. We love them, but we also realized that they caused us a lot of stress. Just trying to balance the time spent with both sides. If the kids had activities, we would have to figure out who to invite and worry about hurting feelings. So our kids ended up with an entourage at every single game, program, birthday party and started to become embarrassed by it. Also, we would see our parents repeat some of the things they did/said to us when we were children that we were not happy about. Not to mention that it kept us from developing friendships because we would end up spending too much time with family obligations. So, nothing tragic, but lots of annoyances.

When I was a kid, we lived a few hours from relatives. We would go visit a few times a year and I LOVED those visits! Christmas was so special because we would get together with the whole brood, many of which we had not seen all year. I remember bugging the crap out of my mom constantly asking "who all will be there." My kids don't have anyone they get to look forward to seeing. Our Christmas get-togethers were just like the family dinner we had a few weeks before, but with presents.

We ended up moving out here when our kids were 10, 8, and 6. It has been great. We have made friends. Our family and friends from back home actually come visit us and the kids love having house guests and being little tour guides. When someone happens to be in town for one of the kids' games or recitals, it's actually special to them and they don't take it for granted. We go back at CHristmas and it feels so warm and cozy. Everyone is thrilled to see each other and the kids get a full week to hang out with their cousins 24/7. we go back in the summer for a week and it's the same way. Since our life is no longer in that city, we have no other obligations so we don't feel burdened or overwhelmed with our moms' non-stop itineraries! We get to have several days with nothing we need to do but catch up with the family and have fun.

basically, we get to have 2 separate worlds. And it works for us.

OP, I think you said that you don't have kids yet? Once you do, you will develop friendships in no time. Kids have a way of helping their parents make friends. Try to live somewhere with great neighbors. You will become each others lifelines. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

To the PP: thanks for the nice post. If we ever do move closer to my family, it would still be about 4 to 4.5 hours away so we'd have some distance but not the "we're never going to see you guys" kind of distance that we have now. I think it's a nice in-between where family isn't all up in my business but at the same time I actually see them with more normal frequency.