How do people relocate closer to their families?

[ellabellaaaa]

Hello everyone!

Myself (33, F) and DH (34, M) live in Scotland, which is over 300-400 miles away from our families in SE England. We moved away almost a decade ago for new jobs, and have both been lucky to get fairly well paid and flexible jobs in the public sector. For the past few years we have been talking about moving closer, conscious that our parents aren’t getting any younger and our siblings are having children of their own.

Last week we found out that I am pregnant after a year of TTC. I can’t help but feel a bit sad and apprehensive about bringing a baby into the world without any nearby family support. I know both sets of our parents would be very hands on grandparents and would help us to give the child experiences that myself and my DH couldn’t. I'd also like the baby to have a relationship with their cousins.

All of this worry is clouding what should be a happy time. I'd be really grateful for outside perspectives on what we should do.

Would you:

(a) Stay where we are. The advantages are that our jobs are MUCH better paid and more flexible than we’d be able to get closer to family. We currently have minimal commutes, potential for career progression, WFH 4 days a week. The area where we currently live has cheaper housing than near to our parents. The massive downside is that we live an 8hr drive away from family and already feel very lonely where we are.

If we did stay, we’d still need to move house locally before the baby was born as we currently live in a flat with a dog, which already isn’t particularly practical. Adding baby into the mix is likely to be a recipe for disaster.

(b) Move down closer to our families in advance of the baby being born. We’d need to rent initially for the period of the maternity leave, and hope we could both find new jobs during that year. Potentially we could rent out our current flat for the yea as a safety net in case we needed to return to our current jobs. The advantages are that we’d get at least a year with our families when the baby is small, and my maternity leave would be much less isolating. The disadvantages are that we’d take a big financial hit with renting and my DH needing to travel back several times a month for in-person work events (at our expense) and any jobs we might get would have worse salaries and, most likely, a requirement to commute into London. I’m also worried about out ability to get a big enough mortgage after the baby is born to buy a house in the future.

(c) Something else we haven’t thought of?

My head is saying (a) but by heart is saying (b).

WWYD? Thanks 😔

I think that you and your husband have a good set up with stable jobs and with the current cost of living in your area. At the moment your living in a flat and you could probably buy a house for a reasonable amount by standards in your area.
Your jobs are stable and pay well. You also have the potential of good pensions in time.
Now you have found out that your pregnant and your thinking of moving back to where your parents live. You giving up jobs and have to find other jobs. Then your going to end up
renting in a far higher cost area. Along with that your housing costs are going to be higher and I am sure childcare will be more expensive in there area.
Then I think you mentioned that your parents are not going to be in a position to help out with childcare either.

I would stay in your current area. You will meet other mothers to be in the next few month's. You will have paid maternity leave and in time be able to buy a house. Just because you live near your parents and other relatives does not mean you have them for childcare and or that you will see them on a regular basis.

I think that living in a lower cost area can give you more options when you have a family also in that your not borrowing a high amount of money for a mortgage, have lower costs for childcare and in time you may be able to work less days to keep childcare costs down.
You could also be in an organisation where you can move up the ladder or do further training paid for by work to get up the careers ladder.

I have seen family and relatives being very reluctant to do child minding or being willing to call to other family members

I would have said B. BUT - this is what I did and it didn’t quite turn out how we expected it to. I made this choice because my own GP’s lived 300 miles away and growing up, we had no family support. As a child, my parents relationships with their own parents was a weekly phone call on a Sunday. My parents both worked hard but I was in childcare mostly and I remembered the days of the school play and having nobody there to watch while my friends had several family members. (I know that working parents have more rights now).

So we moved. GP’s ended up being very hands off, the cousins grew up and being very different to each other have very cordial relationships via facebook (if that) and some family members turned out to be extremely toxic and we are now NC with them. Meanwhile, we are stuck in a very expensive area having never escaped the rent trap after moving/redundancies and felt unable to move because it was never he right time. the children are now at that point where they still need to live at home but all have their own lives here.

I wouldn’t say I regret it. Nothing can replace the ability to nip to my mum and dads and have a cuppa but over the last 5 years, I have become more of a carer which has taken a toll. My children have been able to commute to top universities in London and gain top jobs. They also had excellent childhoods that I could never regret.

I do feel like we are waiting for the children to move on so that we can move and finally start giving back to ourselves.

I have had a great life but my future is full of uncertainty due to the choices we made. I fret daily now between the choices of having house security over living nearer to my children.

You can love any time don’t rush into it!

you can spend maternity leave taking lots of trips home to visit ! I spend both my maternity leaves in Ireland for huge chunks with my family ! Popped back and forward and spend 6weeks at one point and husband went back and forward to London for work.

we plan to move back eventually but decided to wait until daughter is in school now I think as we have decent childcare here and my baby is due to start soon.

but we’ve just been winging it the last few years as we aren’t 100% sure what we want to do yet.

Flat is fine with a baby too until they need own room that’s like 2 years away

relax op

@ghostbusters That's a good point about maternity pay. I checked this today at work - I'd need to work a month after coming back from mat leave to avoid having to repay. I think that'd be do-able either coming back up to Scotland if needed or WFH. But it would be really difficult to get a job lined up to start straight after then, and I'm not sure a new employer would be quite as understanding as my current one in terms of working pattern, flexibility etc

I really do, I think. If it weren't for jobs, I'd have moved closer to family years ago. Finding out I am pregnant has just made that feeling 10x stronger. It's not just the being closer to family, it's also about not feeling 100% about a raising child where we currently live (not sure why, it's perfectly pleasant and has positives over SE England). When I think about raising our child, I just can't imagine doing it here...

My DH is supportive and is a very optimistic person. I've asked him to consider what he thinks is best for us because his default is just to go along with whatever he thinks I want or will make me happiest. He's said that he thinks he could find another job, but it would unlikely have the same salary and flexibility as his current role. Plus he's wanting to drop down to 4 days a week when my maternity leave finishes. For that reason, I think he's erring on the side of staying where we are, which is funny because he spent years when we first moved to Scotland wanting to move back (it was never meant to be a permanent move) whereas I wasn't so fussed.

This thread has been really helpful. I fully expected most replies to say to move and that family is most important. The fact that isn't the case is interesting. I think it comes down to whether I can make my peace with staying where we are for our jobs (which I fully appreciate we are lucky to have).

I realise you are probably just using "for your jobs" as shorthand for this but I would just remphasise that it wouldn't be just the jobs themselves but the flexibility that would allow you both more time with your child that you would be giving up

Move and end up with jobs with a long commute means a lot less time with your child day in day out, swapping it instead for how much extra time realistically with your parents?

I'd stay put for the time being and see how it all evolves. It may work out well. If not, I'd consider to move then.

Are you in the sort of area where other parents at the same stage would be open to making friends? Or is it more likely everyone will already have a full diary with their cousins and best mates of 20 years who've also got kids the same age?

@ThePartingOfTheWays We're in a city so in theory there should be other parents open to making friends, although it does feel that everyone at work with small kids have family nearby (even if they're not from here themselves originally). I don't think I've come across anyone in our situation of not having any family whatsoever nearby

Is there another solution to this? You mentioned flying; suppose somebody waved your Mum off at Departures and you met her at Arrivals? If she is vulnerable or has a physical problem, you could ask for her to be escorted by staff on and off the plane.
Your mum might find that travelling on her own once or twice gave her confidence. And there would be the incentive of seeing her grandchild.

We moved to a new area about four years before we had children and I made some new friends but not a huge amount. Once my first baby was born and I started going along to various baby groups I made some fabulous friends who, ten years later, have become some of my very closest friends.
I've also made some great friends with the other mums in the 3 DC's classes as they've each subsequently started at school.

I very much looked upon baby groups as a way to meet new people, I didn't want more than a casual acquaintance with some of those I met, but those I liked I invited over for coffee and play dates and the friendships grew from there. I have built a fantastic village off the back of this and now have friends who've been through thick and thin together and I could call them up at 2am in an emergency in a heartbeat.

Having a baby is great route to meet new people and you're never stuck for conversation in the early days of meeting them as you always have your babies to talk about if you're shy (I am fairly shy until I get to know someone so it helped me hugely to know there wouldn't be awkward silences when I didn't know what to say because I could always talk to the other mums in about her baby)

OP, you obviously need to work on this with the dog, this is a ridiculous situation. Prioritise sorting this out now by reading a book on it and implementing a plan.

You need to think beyond your lovely maternity leave, which is only a very fleeting few months, and imagine yourselves in jobs that don't allow WFH, may well have more of a commute so baby is with nursery or childminder from dawn till dusk (and dog with separation anxiety is ????), and consider if you will regret your choice to leave the AMAZING flexibility which would have allowed you to spend more time with your tiny baby.

On the face of it, choosing B means more time with your parents at the cost of less time with your baby. My parents and siblings are on a different continent, so I understand the distance is hard, but your baby will be your family now.

I might consider taking baby down for an extended holiday visit during mat leave. I would definitely prioritise sorting out reliable dogsitters for the dog, who sounds like a huge drain on your time and energy (and moving to less flexible jobs in a more expensive/smaller housing area will 100% make that worse).

You sound like you really want to move, so I think you're probably going to, but to avoid resenting your choice in future you need to be very clear on what you're giving up. It's a lot.

I've literally posted kind of the same thing except with me it's that I want to move back because whenever I see family and they leave my house/I leave theirs I'm an emotional wreck for the rest of the day. After a few days I'm fine but feeling like this a few times a year is horrible.

We are unable to move and every time they leave I search the internet for a solution and it's like a punch in the gut each time