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?

I am in your Son's age group and I would be proud that my child had found a way of progressing up the property ladder in such a way.

As the kids are so young even school changes would not necessarily phase them that much. My friend was an RAF kid and moved often. However that isn't an issue here.

Good luck in your ventures.

They're probably jealous.
I hate this argument. It's like nobody can disagree with someone's decisions without being dismissed as jealous.

One of my sibling's friends has perpetual renovatiors for parents and they didn't like it. During the time they were friends (juniors and early secondary) we'd hear how fed up they were moving, they'd live in a building site for a few years, get their room decorated and then move to another building site. They didn't like having friends round and there'd often be months where they couldn't have friends round. They'd regularly feel frustrated and disorganised because they'd spend time living with relatives but things they wanted or needed would be in the house. They'd often not do things on a weekend because the houses needed work.

Mum's are group not Son's!!!

Not cruel at all if they are maintaining their contact with family and friends and school as they grow older.

My DSs were in their 3rd home by the age of 3 and 2. We haven't moved since and they are now at uni, I wouldn't have ruled it out though in the circumstances above or if we'd needed to for work etc.

I went to 5 primary schools and we moved loads as a child for Dad's work. I turned 10 in my 9th house since birth. It would have been more, but Dad did some longer commutes to minimise the moves.

My parents agreed to keep me in one secondary school though as I didn't want to move during exams.

It hasn't done me any harm. I'm 30 now and in home number 15.

My 10 year old had lived in 6 houses by the time she was 8. I was renting and I got moved on by landlords! Couldn’t be helped. She has always been at the same primary school and it hasn’t bothered her, she’s very settled, confident, doinG well aT school etc. We’ve bought now so hopefully we’ll stay where we are but if we had to move again she is resilient and would manage.

You are setting your kids up for as comfortable and prosperous future as you can. Don’t listen to naysayers if they are happy and not showing signs of upset!

It's how you earn a living. Are you cruel to put food on the table? Obviously it's a bit disruptive for DC never to have a clean, safe place to call home because every house they move into is in constant flux from being renovated. And builders dust etc is bad for lungs and eyes. So long term, you'd hope to settle somewhere so they feel it is home, But no YANBU. You're doing what loads of parents of young kids do, which is, put up with less than ideal circumstances in order to create better ones long term.

As an Army child who went to 11 schools, I can tell you a child's security comes from being with their parents. Go for it!

I was moved from country to country and then boarding school and I didn't die. They will be fine, it's only one more time.

The consistency is you and their dad being together and providing a loving family. You know your kids best, it's no one else's business. I'm quite envious you've got a dp that will do this with you.

Keep going OP. We stopped doing what you are doing when our then teenagers protests about moving again got too loud. I wish we hadn't - we'd have been a whole lot more financially stable approaching retirement than we are now. And the kids inheritance would have been a lot bigger
They are all adults now and in a recent family chat told us they all actually quite liked getting new bedrooms. It turns out they weren't traumatised, nor were we cruel parents. It appears they were happy going along for the ride after all.
They have all upped and left us now so me and DH are putting the house up for sale as soon as we've made it nice again. To be fair the older the kids got the harder it was to do up. Little children are much easier to contain and keep the house show home ready for selling than moody teens so probably the best time to renovate is when they are little.

It depends how far you're moving. My parents moved loads. I was always "the new girl". I never felt settled and safe. I always wanted to make friends but also tried not to as I felt I would just have to give them up.

Unless you have a wider reason not to trust your mother - that she's previously shown herself to be upset by your success, for instance (sadly not uncommon) - I would trust her, as a person who actually knows your children, who (I hope - see first caveat) cares about them and you, and sees the details of all this and how it affects them, over some people on the internet saying it's fine.

Forces kids do this all the time. My DH had lived in 17 different houses by the time he left home. I think it is a bit different, well it was with the family I knew. The issue was moving into a house that was a bit of a wreck, maybe 2 years of living with no kitchen/bathroom/heating for periods, seeing the house transform into something beautiful and then moving out for someone else to enjoy it. Well that was what his children said, and when they were old enough to articulate that they did their last move.

Personality has to come into it as well I'm sure, we moved once with a 5 year old and 7 year old. I don't think the 5 year old ever forgave us, the 7 year old loved it.

I have friends that have done this and their youngest child (8) finds it very unsettling. They decided to stop doing it and were just weeks away from moving into their new build forever home when lockdown happened. It’s pushed things back by several months and their children are more upset than they are.

You know your children best though.

Horrible thing to do. But then again I never recovered from 4 moves in sharp succession as a 9 year old.

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."

you obviously believe this, but didn't they tell you very directly that it wasn't the case - they didn't like it and didn't want it to carry on?

Ever heard of attachment theory?

I dont think moving them is the biggest problem, they must be fed up living in a building site and fed up at not having their parents attention.How do family feel about you using their home so you can make money ?

You're actively working to improve your family life. Some people who haven't done this take it as a reproach when they see someone else doing it, especially someone younger. Ignore them and good luck to you.

Based on what you have said I'd say no YANBU - it is noticeable that you don't say what the DCs themselves say (unless I missed it when skimming). What colleagues or your DM says is surely not relevant really. What your children think is relevant - not a reason not to do it, but something to pay attention to.

The moving isn't necessarily the issue. Do you talk to them about where you're moving and why beforehand? Do they have any input? What have they said about previous moves? Do you make sure that their rooms ae the first to be renovated so they have somewhere to go that isn't a building site? Are you and DH so wrapped up in working and renovating that they are left to their own devices too much and end up feeling like appendages that you drag round while you're doing the thing that really matters to you?

The answers to all these influence whether I think it's selfish or not.

I know a few people who moved a lot as children. I do find it's affected them - they tend to be very good at getting to know people but not particularly good at putting down roots anywhere or at forming proper bonds with people, almost as if they're always preparing for the next move.

My children are 9 and 7 and are on their 6th home (including living abroad for a few years). We also moved the oldest to another school after a year because a place became available in our first choice.

I grew up in the same house (parents moved in just before I was born and stayed there until I was in my 30s) so I used to worry a bit that it would negatively affect them. Then I realised that to my children “home” is just wherever we’re all together and where our possessions are.