@HeartsAndClubs
I do wonder wether this pandemic will make people think twice about e.g. accepting jobs abroad.
So often people post their dilemmas asking whether to move to x or y country, and people are so quick to say “well, you can always visit/they can visit you,” but now we see first-hand that that isn’t necessarily true.
I think it’s shit for people to be abroad and away from family at the moment, but I do also think that in future those who might want to consider moving abroad need to be realistic about the possibility that if they do they might not see family for years during which time their children will grow up and have a limited relationship with them.
I grew up abroad at a time where people really didn’t travel home regularly, it just wasn’t the done thing, and we didn’t come back for 10 years. Now I have a whole load of extended family, cousins, aunts, uncles etc who I have 0 relationship with, because I just didn’t grow up with them in my life. They’re family in name now only, and I think that is a reality people need to consider when they’re also thinking of moving abroad in the future.
Agree. Not a popular view
@HeartsAndClubs but you have made some good points.
I have to admit, I would never move to another country thousands of miles away unless I had no-one in my life here who meant anything to me. No-one in my extended family has ever moved abroad, and neither have any family members of most people I know.
I just don't understand why people do it to be honest. I get why people travel of course, and have done so myself quite extensively in the past, and I even get why people want to work abroad for a short spell, like a season or two... but not PERMANENTLY moving away to another country. I don't understand it. As I said, I would only move abroad if I had no-one here who means anything to me.
Of the few people I know who have moved abroad over the past 20-30 years (several to Australia, several to Spain, and several to NZ,) they have ALL become disjointed from their family and are really not ever included in anything. They have completely separate lives, and their children don't know their extended family in the UK. They mean nothing to them.
My neighbour 4 doors away had her parents move to South Africa 4 years ago, and she had her first baby in mid 2019, and she bitterly resents them not being here with her and for her. Especially through the covid pandemic. She has only seen them twice in that 4 years; once in mid 2018 when she popped to see them for a week, and once, when they came in August 2021 for 10 days, but even then, it was awkward as she felt so detached from them. She also felt like they had let her down. Maybe some will say she's unreasonable, but this is how she felt...
Someone said further back in the thread, 'people who don't have family abroad don't have any empathy or understanding' but why should they? 
Most people can't fathom why people move away from people they purport to love.