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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think wanting to live in the area you grew up in is normal?

97 replies

Fallingovercliffs · 28/11/2014 15:12

I've just seen someone on another thread say, in passing, that a man who has bought a house a few minutes away from where his parents live must have issues?
I live about ten minutes drive from my mother. Loads of people I know have bought houses and brought up families in the area where they grew up and went to school.
AIBU to think there is nothing wrong with liking the place you grew up and having family living nearby and to use this as a criteria when choosing where to buy a house?

OP posts:

Bittersweetmammaries · 28/11/2014 21:43

I suppose it depends what your idea of "success" is. I've never been particularly motivated by having a shitload of money and a big house. I want to have the time to see my friends and family with my daughter. We are pretty lucky that we live in a big city with decent transport links. I've taken her to all sorts of places. She loves getting on a train and having an adventure. Seeing her happy is my "success".

CharlesRyder · 28/11/2014 21:44

Oh lord, I seem to be being royally misunderstood.

What I am trying to say is that MY family have got into a habit of thinking that each generation must jump a social class and they think this involves being geographically mobile, usually southwards- now maybe abroad.

I am saying I don't agree with this.

IamMummyhearmeROAR · 28/11/2014 21:47

I've been a bit of a boomerang. I tended to move away for 4/5 years then circumstances have just brought me back to my home town again and again. I left at 17 returned at 21, left at 24 returned at 29, left at 32 returned at 36. Been back for 7 years and can't see me moving. It's funny but tonight I was in town and was laughing thinking of all the fun times. Within a 5 minute walk I passed the pubs I went to with my friends, the cafe where id sit as a child with my now long dead grandparents ,the student house where I kissed an inappropriate boy at a party and the spot where I kissed him goodbye a month later never to see him again and finally the church where I married my husband. Ît warms my heart and I'd never change it.

ThursdayLast · 28/11/2014 21:57

gah - 'unadventurous personality'.
I take umbrage at that!

I live 20 mins from my parents, 5 mins from the in laws. DS will most likely go to the same secondary school as both me and his father (eventually).
I've been to uni, I've been travelling, I'm well read, I'm curious.

So I guess I agree with OP. YANBU

MissBeehiving · 28/11/2014 22:52

I live next door to my dad and sister and her family and my ancient great aunt in a beautiful rural area. We lived abroad when I was younger, the whole family has been away to University and we're all in professional jobs. Our family has moved 12 miles in 400 years We obviously appreciate the quality of life where we are!

superstarheartbreaker · 28/11/2014 23:00

I'm back in my home town but more through circumstance than choice. It is lovely but then I have travelled the world and did uni away. Tbh I wish I'd stayed in the big smoke at times but I have support here.

superstarheartbreaker · 28/11/2014 23:02

I'm very adventurous but to me, it was an entirely practical decision to move back home when pregnant. Security of familiar surroundings cannot be underestimated.

ThursdayLast · 28/11/2014 23:04

And also where I grew up is NICE

Hassled · 28/11/2014 23:07

It all depends on upbringing - there are people like me who moved around a lot and don't really have a "place I grew up", and then there are people who were deeply unhappy where they grew up and can't wait to leave. All variations are "normal".

superstarheartbreaker · 28/11/2014 23:08

Yeah.. My hometown is " nice" but also deathly dull!

Lomega · 28/11/2014 23:12

Depends on the reasons as to why you're moving so close to your parents.

If it's for the reason OP outlined, as in they love the area they grew up, fine.

But if someone moves across the road from their parents so that mummy dear can still do man-child's washing/cooking etc and he uses them as personal maid service then yes that's weird! As is a whipped man who can't risk upsetting his parents by daring to leave their close proximity by -gasp- moving somewhere away from them. Everybody Loves Raymond comes to mind haha.

I live about 45 mins drive from my parents and this suits us all fine. Close enough for visits, far enough to be a respectful distance. We are all still in roughly the same "part" of the country I grew up in but it happens to be quite large/busy/lots of traffic so it takes a wee while to get to each others houses :]

chosenone · 28/11/2014 23:31

For me it's a sense of belonging, being part of a community. I knew after uni id eventually go back but moved 200 miles away with DH for a few years first. It was a lovely coastal area and we made good friends reasonably quickly. But it was never home, id work down the street and a car would beep its horn and id realise itwasnt for me as II didn't know many people. I missed being able to bump into people I knew and have a chat/ impromptu coffee. We nevet really fit in with the locals either. We moved home and one by one so did all my other brst friends.

BackforGood · 28/11/2014 23:46

I agree with thursdaylast.
Living where you grew up isn't unadventurous/unambitious at all if you grew up somewhere that was great to grow up!

Roussette · 29/11/2014 07:56

Where I grew up was a wonderful place but if I'd have stayed round there, I would have never felt like I really grew up. It was all family everywhere and I had to spread my wings and show I could stand on my own two feet. I moved away at 17. It doesn't mean I'm not close to my family but I would have felt suffocated.

MorrisZapp · 29/11/2014 08:04

Totally normal for me, I live in Edinburgh. Why would I leave the best city in the UK? My whole family live in the same postcode. Aren't we lucky :)

feelingunsupported · 29/11/2014 08:05

I live 8 houses from my parents - so literally just round the corner. They had their house on the market when we bought ours but it's not sold and they're still there.

We're not in each others pockets all the time but mum has ds one day a week and drop off takes less than 5 minutes. It's handy having them close by and if one of us needs to pop in its just that - no need for planned trips / overnight stays etc.

We all get on and dp sometimes goes to the local with my dad.

I probably wouldn't have planned to live so close but in reality it works out well for us all.

thewalrus · 29/11/2014 08:14

The expectation in my family when I was growing up was that we would move away. My parents didn't exactly look down on the huge extended families all round the corner from each other, but were certainly pleased they didn't have it.
In my early 30s, with 3 kids under 2, we moved from London to DH's hometown on the SW coast. We live 3 miles from my PILs and less than a minute from my SIL and my kids 3 cousins. I love it and think I have the best of both worlds - family and a sense of roots without having to bump into people I grew up with all the time. My mother is (not unpleasantly) baffled though!

thewalrus · 29/11/2014 08:16

Meant to say YANBU, though neither do I think it's odd to want to move away!

MsVestibule · 29/11/2014 09:57

Quite a lot of smuggery/sneeriness on the first page; glad that's been toned a bit in recent posts! I'm living in DH's home town. His parents died when he was in his teens and I think maybe he needs the security of living near his brother and old friends. TBH, the town itself is pretty rubbish (old mining town, high unemployment, although DH has a good job half an hour away) but the surrounding area is lovely. We enjoyed travelling before DCs and wouldn't describe ourselves as unadventurous - but I don't suppose anybody does .

A lot of my friends here are professionals and love living near family. They get on well with them, can rely on them for childcare and enjoy spending time with old school friends and new friends. Housing is also cheap and they all seem to have a good quality of life.

I hate the stereotype that people who stay in their home town are boring. Some of them might be, but you find boring people in all walks of life.

SuperFlyHigh · 29/11/2014 10:02

I live 5 minutes walk from my parents bought a place near them as mum was getting older. Didn't always live as close. Areas got much better quite yummy mummy now!

pinkorange · 29/11/2014 10:50

Most people I know livr close to their family and came back here after university. The only friends I have that moved and didn't come back or moved here without family are people who don't really get on with their parents.

Life is so much more difficult without family around when you have children imo. I would never chose to do that.

I don't see what it has to do with not being adventurous.

TheFriar · 29/11/2014 15:28

Life is easier with family around but tbh life is also very much enriched by moving away, discovering other people, other ways of doing things etc....

In my experience, as someone who has moved away and whose parents had moved away too, life is much much richer.
So yes you don't get to see family as often but it doesn't mean that you can't forge strong links with them.
And yes you don't get regularly family support but it doesn't mean you can't do it wo ending up on your knees or not managing etc.

If I take the people in my small town who has, maybe, moved away for a couple of years to Uni (but never far away), it is about a fear/inability to be able to see themselves anywhere else than in their town.
And an inability to accept that people might act in different ways than them or to welcome people that they haven't known since they were kids.

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