Reply to WHERE will you retire?

Forum Index » Eldercare

Reply to "WHERE will you retire?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This discussion is fascinating. Having grown up overseas (although I am American), it still surprises me how many Americans move away from friends and relatives during retirement. It makes no sense to me to go somewhere I've never lived before and start all over at age 65+. And the whole notion of moving to some gated retirement community or any retirement community far away from friends and relatives is simply bizarre to me. I mean, we need the company and support of loved ones even more as we age. Most of all, I want to live relatively near my child--why the heck would I want to live across the country or the world from my child?! I can see traveling to warmer climates or overseas but completely relocating makes little sense at that point in life. [/quote]

Ahhh, yes.  But does your child really want you near them??[/quote]

Actually, I think it's a lot easier to be with family when you can visit more frequently and for shorter time periods.  I grew up 30 minutes from my grandparents, so we could have Sunday dinner and then go home.  Because we saw them so frequently, the stakes for each visit were lower -- if people were cranky one Sunday, they'd be more cheerful the next time.  That's very different from my kids' experience growing up 3,000 miles from their grandparents in California.  Yes, our visits out there were fun, but they were also fraught with such great hopes for togetherness and harmony that every little bump seemed like a mountain of antagonism.

We'd love to be near our kids and (future) grandkids . . . but the problem is that they might not all settle in the same place, and it might be a while before they do settle down.  (Oldest is in med school and youngest is in college.)  Our plan is to get a smaller place in DC (though not a condo b/c we like to garden and like privacy), where we have friends and community ties going back nearly 30 years, and be here from October through May.  From June through September we'll go someplace on the water (preferably an ocean if I can ease DH's concerns about sea level rise), near an airport, where our kids would like to visit.  
   [/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