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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask how you would feel if your adult child decided to emigrate to Oz or NZ

727 replies

CaraBosse1 · 16/01/2018 10:23

Be honest and don't say you'd be "cool" about it if you wouldn't really Smile

OP posts:
CheapSausagesAndSpam · 17/01/2018 13:06

I think the people saying they'd never do it...couldn't do it...probably, in the main have pretty good lifestyles already and don't really NEED to do it.

PecanPieFace · 17/01/2018 13:08

Maybe some of us genuinely don't WANT to leave our families behind regardless of the circumstances.

Shocking I know.

speakout · 17/01/2018 13:11

Fir those saying they ‘couldn’t do it to their parents’, do you all live close by?

In fact my elderly mother lives with me.

She is spending her later years ( she is 84) surrounded by love, in the warmth of a family.

speakout · 17/01/2018 13:11

I saw the pain my mother suffered when my sister left.

I could never do that to someone I love.

Evelynismyformerspyname · 17/01/2018 13:15

Pecan plenty of people live in the same town as their families and never see them.

I wouldn't want my children to limit themselves for my sake. I didn't have them to provide me with company or an emotional crutch.

If you don't want to leave your family that has nothing to do with the thread whatsoever. The thread asks how you would feel if your children wanted to move away from you, not whether you want to move away.

If your children wanted to move would you assume that they should feel the same as you did, and guilt trip and emotionally blackmail them to stay near you until you die?

starray · 17/01/2018 13:15

I'd be devastated at not being able to see my child on a regular basis. But that's part of what being a good parent is about - giving your kids the freedom to follow their dreams. I would not want to hold him back or have him feel like he cannot be the best he can be because he doesn't want to upset mummy. That will only build resentment in a child.

juliesaway · 17/01/2018 13:17

Some people are homebodies and not suited to flying the nest or migration. People who are in and out of their mothers house daily and live in the same town they always have are usually very miserable if they migrate and end up returning “home”. Others choose to broaden theirife experiencing living in different countries and cultures. Guilt tripping by parents is very immature. Migrants who’ve moved away don’t love their parents any less. There has to be a realisation and expectation that children will and do move away. Before I lived in Aus I lived hundreds of miles away within the UK from parents but saw them as often as I could. Same applies now. It’s no reflection that you’re “not close” in terms of a living relationship.

speakout · 17/01/2018 13:18

If you don't want to leave your family that has nothing to do with the thread whatsoever. The thread asks how you would feel if your children wanted to move away from you, not whether you want to move away.

I think it is very relevant.

juliesaway · 17/01/2018 13:18

Loving

Ski4130 · 17/01/2018 13:29

I think the people saying they'd never do it...couldn't do it...probably, in the main have pretty good lifestyles already and don't really NEED to do it.

I don't think that's true, certainly not for us, or any of the ex pat friends we met whilst overseas. I lived in the same town I grew up in, as did dh, and our families (siblings. nieces, nephews, parents) all live there too. We had/have (we've moved back) a good life, with good jobs, nice house etc and a close family.

We still left because we knew the 'we should have done that when we got the chance' conversations weren't ones we wanted to be having when we we were older. Regret is far worse than doing it and coming back. I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I had my time over, but also love our life here, so feel we've had the best of both worlds.

Ski4130 · 17/01/2018 13:30

What I'm trying to say there is that we didn;t need to do it, nor did many of our friends, we choose to give it a go whilst we had the opportunity.

cleofatra · 17/01/2018 13:33

I'd be cool with it. I'd go with home though :)

cleofatra · 17/01/2018 13:33

how did him turn into home...freudian

RaininSummer · 17/01/2018 13:40

Jassy - yes a poster above somewhere said exactly that which was why I responded as it was so daft and unrealistic.

In another life I would have loved to live abroad so it isn't about fear etc but family is very important to me and we would never all be able to go so I would not like it to happen. My own parents almost emigrated to Spain whilst my kids were young and changed their minds when they realised the reality would be one or two visits a year and they would not build a great relationship with their grandchildren. Those same parents almost went to Aus as ten pound Poms but didn't because of their own parents at the time. My partner talks about retiring abroad but I think he will be going without me unless my family have already moved away. Sometimes people have to move obviously but family is more important to us and I imagine becomes even more so as you get older and the grandchildren arrive. My dad spent his last three years in a care home near home and it was lovely that he had visitors regularly and got to meet his great grandchild which would not have happened if my child had emigrated. We are not all the same and families are not all the same.

Adrianflank · 17/01/2018 13:51

I'm not a parent, But speaking as someone who went to Canada for 10 months at the age of 19!

I grew up around the army, my dad was a serving soldier from before I was born up until I was 17, he was away alot which is to be expected, I had a good relationship with my dad, couldn't fault him, But for obvious reasons I was so much closer to my mum! The day I told my parents that I was going to canada (forever, at the time) my mum got really upset, and my dad was his usual self, didn't show emotion much!
Anyway the day I left, my mum and dad and 2 brothers took me to Heathrow, I was expecting the water works from my mum, But nope, when I walked towards the security cheeckpoint, I turned round and my dad was in absolute bits, I think it was the 2nd tome i had ever seen him cry!

I was just so shocked at my dad's reaction, I knew he would miss me but I was not expecting that! I skyped my parents atleast twice a week, my dad never missed the call!
Once I realised that Canada wasn't working out (gutted) I skyped my parents and told them I wanted to come back, as it was the hight of summer plane prices where very expensive and would take a few weeks to save the money up, there and then my dad booked my flight home!

Wasn't until I was back home that my mum had told me that dad his got very depressed that I left, was on tablets from the Gp!
To the this day and me and my missus have said we will love to Canada, But I have said I will not do it until my parents are no longer around

NerdyBird · 17/01/2018 13:55

I'd be fine with Oz, I'm dual nationality so I could go too! 😉

I'd be v upset.

Wordsmith · 17/01/2018 15:36

I'd encourage them to do so. I think there's more opportunity there for them than here in Little Britain. Although I'd prefer them to go closer to home, somewhere in Europe would be ideal, if I can be picky ;-)

speakout · 17/01/2018 17:12

It's only really years later that my sister has realised the full and brutal impact of tearing our family apart.

My sister has young grandchildren of her own and has come to see what a sad situation it has been for our Mum- and her own children to live a life apart.
She now realises what she has robbed her own mother of, and it makes her very sad.
And now that our mother is frail and elderly she is unable to give any real support.
Our mother has pictures of her great grandchildren by her bedside- children she has never and will never meet.

Heartbreaking.

AthenaAshton · 17/01/2018 17:14

I would be terribly, unspeakably sad (I've only ever been abroad once, and it was to France so hardly a long haul), but I'd have to do my crying in private. I suppose you'd have to feel glad that you'd given your children the confidence and strength to go and do such things (surely one of the main purposes of parenting), but I would still be devastated.

Theshipsong · 17/01/2018 17:16

Speakingout Brutal effect of tearing your family apart. That sounds so dramatic.

People must live their own lives and make choices for the next generation as much if not more so than the previous generation surely?

Evelynismyformerspyname · 17/01/2018 17:17

speakout are you the namechanger with a chip on her shoulder who sometimes posts on living overseas under various names trying to upset people?

Butterymuffin · 17/01/2018 17:23

It's not as if speakout's post is irrelevant to this thread though, is it?

Evelynismyformerspyname · 17/01/2018 17:27

Buttery of course she's free too post, but I recognise her language - she lived abroad at one point herself and blames her sister for trapping her with her mother. If she'd got out first she'd be singing a different tune.

speakout · 17/01/2018 17:29

Not me I'm afraid.

JassyRadlett · 17/01/2018 17:30

My sister has young grandchildren of her own and has come to see what a sad situation it has been for our Mum- and her own children to live a life apart.

But equally, I imagine those cherished grandchildren wouldn’t exist unless she’d ‘torn the family apart’ - assuming her children married locals.

There are a lot of very nasty insinuations on this thread. I know my mother is much happier that I am happy, married to a man from a different country I met while on a working holiday and fell in love with, did the hard yards to build a successful life here from scratch. I know she loves and cherishes the grandchildren she doesn’t get to see so often, and would rather they exist, than wishing me home, less happy, and without my husband and my two boys.

I don’t love my mother any less or am any less close to her because I made that choice, than when I made the choice to go to university away from home or choose a career that only existed in a big city that meant I wouldn’t live in the same town.

As people say, people’s ideas of distance and place can differ wildly. As does not is needed to maintain an emotionally close or loving relationship.