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

[CaraBosse1]

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

Although I would not let her know, I would be extremely upset if my daughter moved 10,000-12,000 miles away. She never would though. She has said this several times. (After a couple of people she knew left their country to live somewhere many 1000's of miles away...)

I also would never ever do it to my own family. Then again, I have never harboured the desire to go to Australia or New Zealand to live. I also have no idea why anyone would want to emigrate there to be honest. On holiday, or to backpack around, yes, but moving there. No way.

Over the past 13 years or so, I have known around 10-11 people. from Aus and NZ who have moved to the UK. And the reason many of them moved, is that there was nothing for them there. No real huge opportunities, and too far away from most of the world. Aus and NZ are so very far away from the rest of the world. You can literally fly for 5-6 hours and still be in Australia.

The cost, the time spent travelling, and the weeks you would have to take off work, are ridiculous. As many people have outlined, you never get to have another holiday anywhere, ever, not if you want to see your family now and again, because you spend the time, and money, and holiday-leave travelling back to the UK.

As I said, I have no idea why people want to go there to live. To 'start a new life,' for 'better opportunities,' new pastures, and so on... But those opportunities are available on this continent (Europe,) including the UK. My daughter and her boyfriend have degrees, and very successful careers (on six figures between them,) and they are only in their mid 20's.

They are professionals with a good future ahead of them, a beautiful home, and a great life. And they didn't have to move 11-12 thousand miles to do it. Why go all that way? Just to have a bit more sun? My daughter and her boyfriend literally only had to move 50 miles away to have everything they wanted and needed in life.

I have to agree with the posters who say that I would only move all that way (and stay there,) if I didn't care much about anyone in the UK. ... Because IMO, if you loved and cared for your family/ parents/ siblings/ nieces/ nephews, and your friends, I just can't fathom how you would want to go to Aus or NZ forever.

I know a few people who did move there - and they have virtually lost touch with their UK family. Their children don't know their grandparents or aunts and uncles and cousins, and they often regretted going, as it wasn't the bowl of cherries they were expecting it to be. Thing is, some people go on holiday for a few weeks, and enjoy it, but living there and working there, and paying bills and being a citizen, is not the fluffy little picnic that being on holiday is.

Also, I know a few people (who live near me,) who are totally responsible for caring for elderly parents while their sibling is in Australia, or some other country far away, (after emigrating there,) and it causes huge resentment, and chasms in the relationships and the families.

As I said, I would never go to Aus or NZ to live, as I love my family and friends too much. I know that will sound rude to some, but I honestly cannot fathom how you can possibly say you love and care for your family, and then buggar off to the other side of the world, knowing you will probably only see them every 5 years at the most. (For just several weeks!)

Also, your kids will never really know their grandparents (or if they knew them before you went, they will lose touch with them,) you can never be there quickly in an emergency, and your kids will have no relationship with their UK family.

Some of the people I know who moved to the UK (from Aus and NZ,) are in their 20's and 30's. Their parents moved there from the UK when the kids were young, (7 to 12 y.o,) and the first chance the kids got, they moved back to the UK.

Thank goodness my ancestors didn't guilt trip their children into staying.

You cannot possibly know if your 'ancestors' guilt-tripped their children. Maybe they did. Even so, in most cases, when people moved 1000's of miles away, (one or two centuries ago or so,) the whole family moved together (3 generations sometimes.) Young adult children didn't generally piss off to another continent, and leave the parents and the rest of the family behind, without a backwards glance.

A few people have asked 'what if you marry a man from a foreign country?' But to be honest, that doesn't happen that often. Most people in the UK, marry someone from the UK... I can count on the fingers of one hand, the amount of people I know who are married to someone who moved from their country to be with them...

Honestly. I find it a bit weird when people say they'd be 'devastated'... Surely if you do parenting properly, you're raising your kids to fly the nest!

Well yeah, we all want our children to fly the nest, enter into a relationship, make a home, and have kids (if they want.) But what most people don't want is for the children they bore and raised, and loved and cherished, to piss off to the other side of the world, where they will be lucky to see them twice a decade, and will end up not knowing their own grandchildren. Surely to God you can see there is a difference?!

I think acquiring a partner from a far away place does indeed present issues and I certainly felt strongly enough to avoid those potential partners!

Curiously, I felt pretty strongly about my now husband as the only person I’d be willing to spend my life or have children with. Should I have avoided ‘acquiring’ him to avoid those issues?

Of course, then my parents wouldn’t have half their grandchildren. So they would have been denied grandchildren from me, albeit in a different way.

I wonder if they’d rather I hadn’t had my boys, or my interesting career, but had stayed in my home town and popped round for dinner three times a week. I’m not sure they’d choose the latter.

My best friend who I grew up with moved to Australia years ago now, for about 6montjs her mother would ring/text me every single day asking me to persuade her to move back which was interesting to say the least . She seems to have a really good life these days and I'm very jealous, id be tempted to move to New Zealand if I had the funds.

I'm almost reluctant to post as was lambasted/bullied/trolled on here about 18 months ago on here for just giving an honest opinion on this subject of how I felt. I have real experience of this. I was brought up and still live in the North of England. All of my original family (DP and two DB's) have moved away 12,000 miles, two in 1999, two in 2002 and while they do have a good lifestyle and I see them once a year or every other year I miss them so much and know first hand of how much my own DC have missed out on time with their cousins as I have with my original family. And no I don't 'guilt trip' them but I do wish they hadn't made that decision privately. I hope so much that my own DC stay within a reasonable travelling distance and I am entitled to my opinion as much as anyone else is especially having lived with the situation for almost 20 years now :-) xx

petbear, I’m getting the impression you don’t have a high opinion of Australia or New Zealand.

You cannot possibly know if your 'ancestors' guilt-tripped their children.

Well, obviously they didn’t guilt trip their kids into staying, or the kids would have stayed. They might have tried and failed, of course.

But we’ll done! Your post wasn’t over-dramatic or hyperbolic at all!

A few people have asked 'what if you marry a man from a foreign country?' But to be honest, that doesn't happen that often. Most people in the UK, marry someone from the UK... I can count on the fingers of one hand, the amount of people I know who are married to someone who moved from their country to be with them...

I missed this gem. I need more than both hands just to count the couples I know who are parents at DS’s nursery alone where one half of the couple is a foreign national, most of whom met when one was living in the other’s country temporarily (university, working holiday, short-term migration for work, even one holiday romance).

There are plenty of us, I assure you. Even quite a few on this thread. Curiously, many of us didn’t rock up in the UK saying ‘my home country is shit! This is the place for me, forever, no backwards glances!’

So, engage the imagination, even if you think we’re rare beasts. What if? Should we not have married?

You cannot possibly know if your 'ancestors' guilt-tripped their children. Maybe they did. Even so, in most cases, when people moved 1000's of miles away, (one or two centuries ago or so,) the whole family moved together (3 generations sometimes.) Young adult children didn't generally piss off to another continent, and leave the parents and the rest of the family behind, without a backwards glance.

This really isn't true. It's quite clear you know nothing about the histories of Australia and New Zealand.

So, engage the imagination, even if you think we’re rare beasts. What if? Should we not have married?

Would love to get an answer to this!

Another one for whom it's more normal for couples to be mixed nationality, or both immigrants.

A few people have asked 'what if you marry a man from a foreign country?' But to be honest, that doesn't happen that often. Most people in the UK, marry someone from the UK... I can count on the fingers of one hand, the amount of people I know who are married to someone who moved from their country to be with them...

Oh dear. The majority of the people I know socially or have worked with are children of migrants ~ migrants from Ireland, Italy, China, India, America, Pakistan, Poland .......to name just a few. Many are themselves married to people of a different heritage.

The answer is for you to decide. For me, it was as important as having children, or not - we had to agree. So for me, well, I would have looked elsewhere And would have ditched him pronto!

"To maintain a relationship you generally need to do stuff together - difficult if you never see each other!"

Totally, totally untrue. I have an amazing relationship with my extended family, who as a child I didn't see for years at a time. In fact, when I moved to London I ended up house sharing with a cousin for almost a year.

When their children are of age, I fully expect them to come and stay with us on their backpacking trips. And mine will stay with them.

For me, it was as important as having children, or not - we had to agree. So for me, well, I would have looked elsewhere And would have ditched him pronto!

That’s an honest answer, thank you. For me, I’m glad my parents raised me with different values, and those are the values I hope to pass to my children even if it means they may live far away some day.

I wouldn’t want to face the lonely decades my uncle faces now. I know my parents wouldn’t want it for me, so marrying the one person I’ve ever loved in that sense was the right thing to do. I would want my sons to feel able to make a similar choice if the situation arose.

"I can count on the fingers of one hand, the amount of people I know who are married to someone who moved from their country to be with them..."

You must live in a bubble!

There seem to be a lot of pursed lips and cutting off noses to spite faces on this thread, from a few.

And in spite of the accusations of being patronising, it's clear that some people do lead quite sheltered lives. Which is fine. But it does mean a complete lack of understand of other people's 'normal'.

I am very glad that my parents, both of whom went off on their own travels when young, were so supportive of my brother and me. There is no white-washing going on - it is hard, hard, hard to say goodbye to beloved family members. But I know what sort of parent I would choose for myself, and that I would hope to be.

but I do wish they hadn't made that decision privately

So a round table discussion about whether they could or should go? Don't you see it isn't your place or business to get involved in their private decisions?

I understand you miss them. My (very close) sibling went in 1991. Over time we have lost the closeness but it is possible that if she lived five miles away from me, that could have happened too (possibly even more so). In the meantime, my elderly father's health has deteriorated, children have been born and family members have died but I would never think she should be here. It is her life, I admire her gumption at doing her own thing.

Oh god, SuperBeagle, I missed that. How staggeringly ignorant.

Some of the people I know who moved to the UK (from Aus and NZ,) are in their 20's and 30's. Their parents moved there from the UK when the kids were young, (7 to 12 y.o,) and the first chance the kids got, they moved back to the UK.

Yes, as mentioned above, it is considered a rite of passage to do this. Especially if you have a UK passport. See - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_experience

I can count on the fingers of one hand, the amount of people I know who are married to someone who moved from their country to be with them...

In my antenatal group alone (12 couples), over half were a one Brit, one Kiwi couple...must be a concentration of them here! My (central government) workplace of 220 people, I would estimate a third are European.

Yes, The Big OE.

All 20-somethings worth their salt head off in this adventure. Traditionally to London/the UK, but increasingly other parts of the world now.

Our role as parents is to 'grow grownups'. Grownups make their own life choices - where to live being one - and I don't think we have any right to hamper those choices. Some of those choices might make us feel sad - but that's part and parcel of being a parent.

Regarding the young people heading on their travels to the UK...they almost ALL come back to Oz.

My Mum (Kiwi) did her OE in the 1960s, when it took weeks to get there by ship.

She met one of her best friends (Aussie) on that boat - although my DM died nearly 14 years ago, my DB and I are both still very close to her lovely friend, and see each other in person whenever we're in one or other of our respective countries.

She's in her early 80s now, and still travels to places like China and Uzbekistan alone.

I know more than a few families where siblings didn’t move further than a few hours travel away and they don’t visit family often or help taking care of elderly parents and in some cases do more than make an obligatory firtnightly phonecall. . It wouldn’t make any difference if they were in NZ.

I once worked with a woman who was one of four sisters who all lived within a dtone’s throw from their parent’s house. They bickered constantly and were very competitive and jealous of each other. I’d say their parents wished some of them had buggered off to Australia!

@CheapSausagesAndSpam

Regarding the young people heading on their travels to the UK...they almost ALL come back to Oz.

Yeah but Oz is where they were originally from. So your 'point' is NOTHING to do with the original post!

@CheapSausagesAndSpam

Regarding the young people heading on their travels to the UK...they almost ALL come back to Oz.

Yeah but Oz is where they were originally from. So your 'point' is NOTHING to do with the original post!

Yeah I knew a bunch of people would come on here and claim they know DOZENS and DOZENS of people who left their country to be with their partner, and left their whole family and life behind.........1000's and 1000's of miles away.

Even if that IS true - that you know all these people - (and I doubt it!) they really can't think much of their family, or their own country.

What's more, I never said people DIDN'T move to another country to be with their partner, (for good!) just that I hardly know any. Very convenient that people seem to suddenly be popping on here to say they know DOZENS!!

And to be frank, most people who DO leave their own country, are often from less than desirable countries, or they don't get on with their family/have fallen out. Coz let's face it, why move to another country - permanently - if life is all rosy and wonderful where you are? Doesn't make any sense. At all.

As I said, you can have a great life and a successful career in your own country. I cannot fathom why anyone would want to buggar off 12,000 miles away - for GOOD - if they are close to their family, and have a good life in their own country. Not for a second. You can see other countries without emigrating you know! It's called 'travelling.....' and 'going on holiday....'

And to the people saying 'a third of my workplace are from a foreign land blah blah....' we are talking about people moving across the other side of the world to live permanently, not just someone who has popped across the bleedin' English channel from France, to work in London for a year or two, and who is only 3 hours away from home on the Eurostar!!!

And I don't live in a bubble; I just live in a place where family and friends love and care about each other, and don't piss off 12,000 miles away, without so much as a backwards glance, and leave their family behind, destroying the relationship they have with them. How sad that some people find this so easy to do.

As I said, I love and care for my family and friends too much to leave them. And they feel the same about me.

It's such a load of bollocks that people who don't move abroad are 'insular,' or 'live in a bubble.' Do you people saying this think that these people never leave their own town?!

Many people, including me, my DH, and my daughter, have travelled extensively; we have been to 5 of the continents over the years, and have also worked abroad a few times for 4-5 month stints. So it's breathtakingly laughable and ignorant to assume people who stay in the UK and don't emigrate are insular.

From some of the responses on here, it sounds like I have hit a few raw nerves.

Upshot is though, if all is good where you are, why buggar off to the other side of the world? What are you running away from? Who are you running away from? And as I said, all this new life, new opportunities garble is nonsense. You don't have to uproot your whole existence and virtually cut off your entire family and circle of friends to start a new life.

What's more, as has been said, many people regret emigrating to New Zealand and Australia, around two thirds actually. And quite often, it is too late to turn back the clock when you have turned your life completely upside down, and hotfooted it to the other side of the planet.