Seeking advice from people who “moved home” to be close to family

[gypsysoule]

My partner and I moved away from our families in the Southeast to live in sunny SoCal 6 years ago. We now have a 13 month old baby. Our families don’t visit as often as we’d like. Even before we had the baby my mom and brother only came 1 time in 5 years. The last few years have progressively gotten harder for us to travel to see them. C*vid, getting extended time off work, $$$, and now flying with a baby is just…difficult. We see our families 2-4 times every year with 1 or 2 of those visits being us going back “home” to them.

Previously I knew in my heart moving to SoCal was right for us. We have both always wanted to live here and have created a beautiful life. We have a nice house in a neighborhood we love. My partner has a great job that allows me to be a SAHM. We are living our dreams here. However, we don’t have many friends in SoCal. My partner was depressed all summer, and we feel isolated.

Now that I have a baby I find myself wondering if living here is selfish of us. I want my baby to grow up having close relationships with her uncles, grandparents, our “village.” I just want to give her the best life and idk what to do.

Tell me about your life. Do you regret moving away from home? Do you resent living close to family after previously moving away?

 

[patticakez]

@gypsysoule Im not in your situation, but my mom moved to be close to her family when i was young and she says she regrets it. She overestimated how much help her family would provide.

 

[katrina2017]

@patticakez Yeah. I know a handful of people who assumed having family nearby would mean seeing family... it doesn't necessarily. Let alone having family help with kids.

 

[spiritofdiscernment]

@patticakez I live 20 minutes from my parents and they have provided zero tangible help. Well, maybe like two meals when he was a newborn. And my mom always goes on and on about how much she loves babies and little kids. Sure Jan.

That being said, I still have an amazing village of friends and found family, so it can be done! It does take a lot of conscious effort, but it's possible!

 

[gypsysoule]

@spiritofdiscernment This sounds like my mom. All she talked about after I gave birth was she couldn’t wait to come and help us. 3 weeks postpartum she came, ate all my food, didn’t cook a single meal, no laundry, no dishes. It was so disappointing.

 

[spiritofdiscernment]

@gypsysoule Ugh I'm sorry you also had that experience. I suggest definitely weighing that heavily in your decision

 

[maddyvstheworld]

@patticakez Ooh interesting. I also feel like if money isn’t tight for OPs family, they may just not be interested in being involved.

 

[xsmnthu7]

@patticakez This was me. We had a nice life and moved home once the baby was born. Turns out i had moved away from them for a reason.

 

[katrina2017]

@gypsysoule I have a similar situation: moved west from the east coast, although my family is scattered across a few states and not just in one. When my first was born, I was growing resentful at the distance. It was hard. It was lonely. It's been 16 months, and I'm glad we've stayed. Our daily life here is our dream life and enriched because of it.

Making friends made the biggest difference, easier said than done. I joined Peanut. It's an app to help find other local moms in your area. My husband is a STAHP and opened himself up for opportunities at baby storytime at the library. It's not much, but between the two of us, we have 4 families we've befriended and that's made all of the difference. I have two people I can text and make plans with. We have people to do play dates with on the weekend. Getting out of the house has helped us remember why we moved here in the first place.

Of course, I miss and love my family. But they visit. We visit. And for now, that's enough because we love our life here.

 

[gypsysoule]

@katrina2017 I just joined Peanut! I’m excited to try it out

 

[francolepza]

@gypsysoule My kids are 6 and 2. We didn't have family support for the first child, and my mom moved near us for the second. My experience is that the first two years are difficult and isolating, even with support (though support does relieve some day-to-day burdens). I just wanted to share that we were able to start building a "village" with new friends and community around the time my oldest was 3-4. It's a great age to start meeting other people with kids you age and start doing activities together. If you decide to stay in CA with the life you've built, you may find new ways to meet friends as your child gets older

 

[puddintain]

@gypsysoule Moved back and it's been amazing (I also get on stunningly well with my family). My daughter has an incredibly close relationship with her Grand parents and Aunt and Uncle. There's a lot of "economy of scale" type things (like if I need a pickup I can borrow my brother's and he's constantly borrowing our more intense cooking supplies). There's also just so much larger of a safety net. Like I'm a SAHM and my Mom actually watched my toddler for me yesterday when I sick and I know I'll be helping her out in the spring when Dad has knee surgery. I'm really excited my brother is looking at starting a family soon as well since we'll be able to have all the cousins grow up together and I imagine we'll be trading off date night baby sitting a lot.

 

[pcross39]

@gypsysoule I made a similar decision, to move back to where my husband's family was instead of living where I originally wanted to pick. We now live 15 min away, very intentionally.

I'm extremely happy with my decision. My in-laws are so supportive (after a learning curve,) and I'm never lonely now. You can't put a price on genuine companionship. My children love and trust their family, and see them at least once a week. My husband and I can go on date nights whenever we want, and my children adore their uncles and aunts. When I'm sick, my MIL and aunt will come over and take care of me. When I'm bored, my brother in law will play with my son when he gets off work.

It does take compromise. Lots of people want a village, not many are willing to put the work in. This help didn't just appear. I had blunt conversations where I told my family I expect their involvement and help. I also continuously looked for ways to help them. I also had to learn to relax and be less selfish with what I wanted out of relationships. But after I did, the relationships bloomed. My MIL was very tense with me when we first moved here, but after I gave her a genuine chance and tried to be kinder to her, she completely loves and respects me now.

The "village" doesn't just happen. You have to fight for it, you have to work for it, you have to give of yourself for it too. But man is it totally worth it! I'm so glad I chose to move back.

 

[iluvjesu]

@pcross39 What a great response. I am surrounded by my family and in-laws all within 15min to 1 hour away. It’s give and take relationship definitely. We help them when they need furniture moving, yard work, babysitting whatever and they do the same in return. My SIL watches our one year old as almost like a nanny for cash pay. Baby hangs out with her two school age kids after school. It socializes him as if having siblings. Both grandmas take turn to watch him for date nights. My mother came over every week for the first year to help with house work and baby care. As result, I didn’t have to send my kid to daycare even though I work full time.

It means every holiday is reserved to hang out with them. I prefer it this way. I’ve grown closer to them as result. I wouldn’t trade it for nothing. I was unsuccessful with making close mom friends despite my efforts. It’s hard to make friends as adults

 

[submariner]

@gypsysoule When I lived 8 hours away from my folks they didn’t visit. Said I lived too far. They travel regularly for leisure both domestic and internationally but a 90 minute flight was too much. Okay, whatever. We had no desire to live where they do, it’s not “home” for me, just where they retired to, and has no jobs for my husband. However, we moved as close as we could about a 2.5 hour drive, which in the Midwest really isn’t far. There’s even an awesome city with a ton to do halfway between us. We never see them unless we go all the way to them. It’s the same as when we lived further!

Now, I don’t regret the move one bit cause I like where we live now a lot more than where I was, it’s more aligned with our politics, the schools are better and we massively upsized our property to our probably-forever home. But if I already had my dream home and good school districts, I don’t think I’d have left that for only the hopes of seeing family more.

I think that if you’re moving because it is home and you have a network besides just family, the move won’t be a huge burden, and there are job opportunities it’s a fine idea. But if you’re moving there hoping for a dramatic change in their involvement and attention towards their grandchildren, and still won’t have friends or non family support, it is a very risky move.

That’s gonna depend highly on how close you are and the reasons behind them not visiting, but if you’re doing most of the work in the relationships now, I wouldn’t expect that to change just cause the distance got smaller.

 

[gypsysoule]

@submariner That sucks they don’t come to you. Honestly, I feel like that would happen with my side of the family. I moved away for college and never looked back and for the longest time it was always me doing the traveling in those relationships. But idk, my parents act so different now that we have a baby so I can’t say for certain

 

[submariner]

@gypsysoule How is it when you visit? Does it feel like going home or does it feel like visiting