[quote EsmereldaMargaretNoteSpelling]@Pacif1cDogwood
A pandemic might not have occurred to you perhaps, but did you genuinely not consider the possibility of never being able to see them again? Sudden death on either side? Financial issues? Regime change? Even war? Given everything that happens across the globe on a daily basis over the decades?
I lost both my parents as a teenager so have have a longer and perhaps more dispassionate perspective on not seeing people. I can't imagine not discussing the possibility if I moved abroad.[/quote]
I have raised this very point in connection with Australia, having had a lot of experience with very close familiy migrating each way. Every time it comes up on MN, people assure the poster who is thinking of immigrating to Australia that it will all be fine, their parents can fly to see them and there is always Facetime.
It really doesn't work like that once parents become sick and frail. Even before Covid it was just too far for parents to fly once they reach a certain age. Add to that something happening like the migrating person divorcing or losing a job and suddenly not being able to afford flights back to the UK and you can easily have a situation in which you won't see an elderly parent for some years. Possibly before they die.
We were 'fortunate' that my father died in December because my brother wouldn't have been able to say good-bye if it had been three months later. As it was, the financial repercussions of a divorce after he migrated and a redundancy have made it hard for him to come over here. My parents were far too frail to fly to see him.
Now obviously if you or your parents move to France or Spain or it's (outside Covid times) not the same at all. But I think people do need to think about moves to the other side of the world and the implications. It can all seem fine when the migrant has a stable marriage and job and the grandparents are relatively young and in good health--there's lots of flying back and forth. Not the same ten or twenty years down the line, in my experience.
Of course people should immigrate and go and live somewhere else if they think it's good for them/their career/their children. But it's really worth thinking about the longer-term consequences.