Reply to Choosing to live near grandparents?

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Choosing to live near grandparents?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Hi all, hoping parents and grandparents can help me with some perspective here. My thoughts are muddled, so thanks for your patience as I try to get them out.

We live in a nice, smaller town in the DMV with our 3yo. My parents live near the Great Lakes, while DH’s live across the Atlantic. Both sets are hard to get to, and we see each side maybe 3x a year for 2-3 weeks at a time if we’re lucky.

I grew up like that, with no grandparents close by and seeing them for even less time every year or two. DH, on the other hand, had both sets of grandparents within a two hours’ drive. He saw them all the time and would spend several weeks alone with both sets in the summer.

Both sets of our parents are awesome grandparents to our son. Last Christmas, he had so much fun with my mom that he called her his best friend. He’s been asking to visit my parents again for a couple weeks now, and gets excited each time he sees a plane.

At this point, I’m wondering how selfish it is to keep living in the DMV and deprive my parents and son of that relationship. My job is remote, and I am the breadwinner, with my husband making a couple thousand a month and taking care of our child. We live small, and are therefore able to save on two incomes. My worries are that a) my DH will lose his income (private music teacher) if we move, which is still ok for us financially but will be a blow to him. He can teach in the new town, but for a third of the money per hour that he makes here. B) we will lose the friends we love here. c) I don’t see us living in my parents’ town for longer than three or so years. (We are planning on having our child go to school in one of our European home countries, which solves the issue of him seeing my DH’s parents. And my parents will retire at that time, so they will be more mobile and can stay with us for a while overseas.) Would it be worth it to move?

On the other hand, I never had the grandparent relationship I wanted growing up. I know from experience how hard that is to build the older you get. And I’m not worried about controlling behavior from my parents concerning my own parenting. They’re really good about that. I wouldn’t feel great moving overseas yet because my DH’s parents are controlling in that regard, so I want my kid to be older and able to stand up for himself better before we move there.

The good thing about my hometown is also the surprising amount of opportunity for kids. There’s a new forest preschool, an environmental/waldorf charter school opening this year, and a big children’s museum where a dying mall used to be.

Thanks in advance for any responses here! I’d also love to hear any alternatives to the two options above.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics