Be brutally honest are we cruel parents or is my dm and older colleagues being ridiculous?

[Awbu]

In a nutshell me and Dh buy houses and renovate them while we live in them.
We have two dc 7 and 4.
Eldest has lived in 3 different houses, ds 2. This has meant we’ve be able to increase money in house from 15k to over 100k and move dc to a much better catchment school in last year.
Obviously it has been disruptive for the dc slightly we had to stay with family for 4 weeks during last renovation as walls knocked down etc.
We are hoping to do another one before we can buy our forever home (hate that term but a home we would stay in forever).
People at office all openly criticised this idea and accused me of being a cruel mum moving them from house to house (these moves btw have been from one village to another 2 miles away). They are all women in their late 50’s/60’s who have had one family home after marriage so I can see why this doesn’t seem ideal to them.
Anyway my dm has gone batshit today after I said we’d move depending on the effects on the market within a year- and accused me of the same ‘cruel to unsettle the children’,
I don’t get this every move has been better than the last more space for dc, nicer village etc but am I being harsh on the dc?

Oh FGS how very interfering of people.
It's your family OP, you know your kids best.
Loads of families move around a lot, travellers and the military for example.
There is more to a stable home life than having the same bedroom forever.

My DM said the same when XH and I did this when the children were small. We always lived in them while renovating them (was interesting sometimes).

The children are now 15-18 and made me promise not to buy another renovation project when XH and I split up though I bought one anyway, and don't regret it as it was an excellent solution to a huge financial black hole

They in fact liked it when they were little. I absolutely love renovations, and I love having builders around and general dust and chaos, so that probably helped. The DC largely saw it as an adventure, because XH and I did. They became very friendly with the builders too.

I'd say that if everything else is generally stable, it's absolutely fine. And you are after all doing it so that you have more space and a nicer environment for them.

I'm not clear if you are doing it on top of full time jobs or are able to be more flexible? So working on the house during the week if self employed?

For me it felt like my parents valued money and a nice/fancy home (the ultimate goal) over our wellbeing. I had a particularly awful time moving in sixth form to a very rural area.

It's also not just about having a nice house or living in a finished house as you argue house has been finished for 18 months. But it's about being settled.

I think small children are more resilient than people give them credit for and they probably find it exciting if anything? And as you say, it’s not forever - just until you find somewhere you want to settle.
I think you’re being perfectly reasonable and - fair play to you!

I moved several times as a child, I never moved school but I hated it.
Children get attached to their bedrooms and houses etc.

If the school stays the same it’s fine. We moved into our forever home when I was 7, having lived in two houses before. I have zero negative memories about the moves. My parents built the second house in the garden of the first, sold the first, and we moved into the new one. Then the third one was a new build on a plot across town. We even had to move in when it was half finished due to project overun and even that was great fun for a child. It also allowed my parents to move us from a pretty basic 1980s estate house in a mediocre part of town to a fabulous big house mortgage free in the best part of town due to value increases. Obviously the market back then in the early 1990s was shooting up which helped but they also made money from the properties themselves.

Well, I know someone who was moved into a fixer-upper when she was young, and she still talks about it now. Not in a good way. There's pluses and minuses I guess, but don't assume just because the kids are going along with it at the moment they won't look back and decide it wasn't the greatest aspect of their childhood.

I think you’re earning a living for your family and doing welL out of it and they will be benefitting from that. If they were having to move schools that’d be different but they have their mim and dad and each other and as long as school and routine stays as consistent as possible I don’t see an issue!

Sorry for the typos I’m multi tasking (well trying to)

Depends. Do you spend time with dc at weekends? Do they get involved and enjoy decorating/helping? Or are they left with relatives all the time while their parents work 24/7 on renovations?

Moving isn't an issue as such if you are there for them spend time as family do fun stuff

We were chatting a bit with the kids about houses a couple of days ago - different memories from different houses. They all have very similar recollections (remembering the layouts of each house and in particular what the gardens were like). They each have favourite bits and all agree that one particular house had THE BEST garden (a giant rhododendron that they spent hours inside building dens) and they remember way more than I do (remember daddy and grandad trying to build the climbing frame in Scotland? Remember when we had lunch in the garden in x and the red arrows flew over? Remember when you and your friend y tipped every single toy box out in the playroom in z? That was a cool playroom. Remember how the doggies waited by the front garden wall in q and the squirrels threw sticks at us when we moved in? Remember when we were all at the same school in b and could see it from our house? Remember in s when mummy made daddy cut a hole in the wall and there was a squirrel nest and they ran everywhere? Remember when that bear was in our garden in w and mummy was freaking the fuck out? Remember when c visited and we kept the craft things in the utility room and he found them and squeezed blue paint all over himself? Remember when grandma came for Christmas in s and the ceiling collapsed? Remember that house at the end of the road in f where they had fireworks and I had my birthday party and dB sat on the puppy?)
Families make memories wherever they are. You don’t always need to live in the same place for kids to feel connected and valued and loved. If you do, you’re doing something wrong. Life is about the people you spend it with, not the roof you are under.

I think if you are staying in the same area and keeping them in the same school, this is fine. I had my fair share of moving when I was younger but it was always in the same town and school so it had no real effect on me. Good to do this while they are young and not doing their GCSE’s / A levels.

If you keep moving them to different schools, then this is a different story. This can be very hard on children.

We wouldn’t move schools, our middle little one would really struggle, she’s in reception but had her friends from pre-school since she was 2 but each child is different and they do adapt.

As for the home moving and renovation, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Our first home was a wreck, put our heart and soul into renovating and loved every minute, it made a tidy profit and got us into our forever home (although hubby has grand designs on another move) However we didn’t have the younger 2 at the time, we’d do it again but couldn’t buy another wreck, it would have to be habitable.

If you’re like us you’re doing this to benefit your children, we wouldn’t be in the home we are now if it wasn’t for our little family. Short term upheaval, long term gain.

It’s their formative years and emotionally I imagine it is hard on them to keep moving.

When I was with my first husband we moved on average every 2/3 years for his job. My children went to about 4 primary schools and 2 secondary schools.

None of the moves effected them and they settled in well at all their new schools and made friends easily.

Do what you feel is right for your family and don't listen to those who don't know what they are talking about.

I think it sounds fun and exciting! But then I'm not your average parent. I'm thinking how many new bedrooms your kids will have had. Mine lives new stuff

FGS no you are not being cruel.

Children need loving parents and stable families. Settings to a large extent do not matter. Especially if the changes are about making a good life for you all.

I was born into a diplomatic family and moved around alot. I have friends from all over the globe and I think it made me flexible and able to see outside a small and narrow world.

They're probably jealous.

At the end of the day, if you're renting you can move around as PP said.

It's the family unit that is the strength, not the building you live in.

If the school and village is now staying the same as you say there is no problem whatsoever and everyone is being utterly ridiculous I get their point and constant moving especially changing schools is unsettling but god one of them is only 7 they will be bloody fine just ignore everyone and if you want to move to give your family a nicer house (and inheritance) bloody well do it. Just keep them at same school!

I think it sounds fine! You're not moving miles each time. The kings will feel safe and secure with you and your dh. And type doing it for their future! Nothing wrong with that.

It’s what may parents did when I grew up and what H and I have done to some extent. It made them a lot of money.

My dad was an electrician and all his friends were trade. When I was born my parents bought and did up a flat in Harlesden. When I was 2 they bought a shell of a 2 bed terraced house for 2k and a government grant of 11k in Chiswick - it had no kitchen, bathroom, utilities, floors or stairs. When I was 8 the day the house was completed they put it on the market. Sold it and bought a 4 bed semi in Brentford ‘in need of modernisation’. Did it up and lived in it for 12 years then bought a tiny 2 bed Ex council house in Kew, extended it and turned it into a 4 bed. Lived in it till 5 years ago and sold it and left London for Kent and retired on the profits.

Before ds1 was in school we moved 7 times in his first 5 years once abroad for 6 months. I think as long as schools are the same it’s fine. I always saw it as an adventure and I loved helping dad decorating - which is probably why I dreamed of becoming an interior designer and am starting a property development business now.

@Thisismytimetoshine

"11 different schools is outrageous, OpenWheelRace hmm. What possessed your parents to live like that?"

My Mum left my Dad when I was 1, so it was just her. I never really understood why we moved so much.
We spoke about it recently and she says she feels awful about it. My (half) sister and brother have a lot more stability, they both attend/ed only 2 schools - primary and secondary.

It's totally fine. As a child I moved house (hundreds of miles each time) 5 time in 9 years. 5 primary schools. I was fine, it made me adaptable and able to make friends quickly and easily.

Not cruel.

But I remember my eldest at 2 hated any sort of change at all (something we laugh about now), so he’d have found it hugely unsettling.

Are the kids also missing out on your time at all, whilst you are renovating? It can be extremely hard to balance it all. Also, in these uncertain times, will this really be the last one? Could it go wrong? It also depends on the living conditions for the kids during renovations.