Adult children, how far away from parents is enough?

[Anonymous]

Plane ride until you have kids then walking distance/ local emergency contact

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plane ride until you have kids then walking distance/ local emergency contact

Only if our parents moved near us (which will never happen).

My wife and I are not idiots and the plan is to see where our kids settle and then move near them. I just think if you want/expect your kids to be near to you...it is you that has to move to make that happen.

[Anonymous]

Live 20 minutes from my parents. It's fine. They don't push boundaries and frankly are just not that interested in us. They are busy with their country club and whatnot. My in-laws live 3 hours away. A little farther would be preferable. We see them more than we see my parents. They come to visit very frequently.

[Anonymous]

One of our parents lives an hour away by car, and it’s perfect. There is no dropping in unannounced, but it’s an easy day trip.

Another parent lives 2000 miles away, and that is also perfect, for that parent.

[Anonymous]

Opposite coast. But then my sibling realized they were the closest one so they raised the bar and moved to an island off of the opposite coast. Well played, sibling.

[Anonymous]

If you don't like them....far enough that the drive is a schlep, but close enough that when you make the schlep you don't have to stay overnight. Definitely not a flight away, where you have to spend several days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is really going to depend on the parents.

My parents, god love them, do not and never will understand basic boundaries. They are also emotionally immature and prone to manipulation and bullying if they don't get what they want. So for them, I have to live at a minimum, a 3+ hour flight away. It preserves our relationship and is why we are somewhat functional. My sibling who lives a mile from them no longer speaks to them, my siblings who live a 1-2 hour drive are on speaking terms but fight constantly. I have zero problems with my parents, and it's because we have to get on a plane (or drive for multiple days) to see each other.

Meanwhile, we currently live about 5 hours from my ILs and that was okay for a time, but with MIL approaching 80, we're looking to move closer, within a could hours.

I have a hunch your parents are better people than you are.

Right. These posters seem to have no powers of self reflection. The scenario they depict is SO one-sided. Like no part of the problem rests with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plane ride until you have kids then walking distance/ local emergency contact

Only if our parents moved near us (which will never happen).

My wife and I are not idiots and the plan is to see where our kids settle and then move near them. I just think if you want/expect your kids to be near to you...it is you that has to move to make that happen.

I’ve been thinking the same too. Wherever my son settles, maybe we can get a small condo/apt close by while still keeping our current house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re choosing to live away from your parents and family because of job opportunities, etc but wish it didn’t have to be that way, that’s normal. If you’re choosing to live away from them because you don’t want to be close to family, that means you have a dysfunctional family. There’s no middle ground.

I mean, your black and white thinking is dysfunctional, but I'm guessing you will reject that.

Something you don't seem to understand is that sometimes living further away from family can make your relationships more functional. A lot of families struggle with the transition from having minor kids who are dependent on parents, to having adult kids who are independent and may even have dependents of their own. For families that struggle with this, some distance can actually help to avoid a situation where either the parents or the adult children (or sometimes both) try to retain the same dependencies as existed when the children were actually children. Sometimes parents don't know how to move into more of an emotional support and advisory role, and insist on maintaining control over their children's adult lives. Sometimes the adult kids fear independence and try to retain financial or emotional reliance on their parents when they need to develop more independence. Moving to another city or state can force both parties to acknowledge the change in status since childhood, and it can prompt functional relationships.

Sometimes people also move away because they see dysfunctional patterns emerging between other family members, and they want to distance from those dynamics. For instance a parent who is an addict and one who enables the addiction. Or a sibling who is enmeshed with parents in a way that can impact everyone else's relationships. In these situations, moving physically further away can enable you to maintain an emotional relationship with the family members without getting drawn into their dysfunction. it can also be a way to protect your own family unit from being impacted by that dysfunction. So while the reason for the move is dysfunction, the person making the move is often making a functional, healthy choice.

So yes, actually there is a middle ground. A family might be dysfunctional but the choice to live further a way might promote great function and harmony. It might also enable the creation of a functional family unit when the adult child has their own children, as they will need to create new patterns in their relationships and it may be easier to do this away from the dysfunctional patterns of their family of origin.

Nope. If all of that thinking and analysis has to go into the decision to move away from your family, it means that your family is dysfunctional. It shouldn’t have to be so complicated.

Yeah, you pretty clearly have ongoing issues. Nobody is taking advice from you,

[Anonymous]

Do we have a Mars colony yet? Because that would be ideal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't like them....far enough that the drive is a schlep, but close enough that when you make the schlep you don't have to stay overnight. Definitely not a flight away, where you have to spend several days.

+1

[Anonymous]

I’ve lived overseas and that felt far enough.

My family of origin is horrible

[Anonymous]

My SIL lives in Europe. Her parents and brother (my husband) live in the States. She is ridiculously close to her mom in a way that I think is not normal. She loves living overseas and is getting citizenship. She has no plans of moving back. She has no desire to live in the city she grew up in but she still sees her Mom a LOT. Her distance has nothing to do with dysfunction.

[Anonymous]

I think some of the people with difficult parents would be better off living closer. Have dinner and go home, rather than having them stay with you for a week or vice versa.

[Anonymous]

I love my family in CA so after a decade on the east coast we bit the bullet and moved a 20min drive away from them to a more expensive area on west coast. Aside from cost of living this is great — we see each other at least 1-2 times a month but each go home to our own space, they are incredibly helpful with our kids and dog, and we can help them as they age. If I had done this right after college though it might have worked less well because it would have stunted my adulthood and boundaries to have so much family time and help right away.

We also live a short 1-hr flight away from DH’s parents which is also great because we enjoy seeing them but they help out a bit less and this way the families don’t feel competitive about our time on a regular basis.