To think that I'm the only person on MN who doesn't live near their family

[stopbeingadock]

That's it, really.

It seems that everyone on here lives near their parents, in laws, cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings etc, etc, etc (every other thread seems to be about grandparents providing childcare or providing inadequate childcare or not providing childcare at all, even though they live next door).

Among my friends, I'm perfectly normal, in that we all live where we live for a variety of reasons, from work to 'just because it's a brilliant place to live'. But I only have one friend who has local family.

Is it really that unusual?

I think it will depend a lot where you live. Where we are most of our friends are near the family of at least one person in a couple. I’d imagine many major cities and their surrounding commuter towns you are far more likely to see lots of people who have moved away from family for work etc

Nope. We live 1000km+ from any family. Ds is 3 years and he’s never been cared for by any family

Nearesr family just over an hour away. They help with occasional childcare though! (Usually stuff needing an overnight stay, as I sometimes work until 9PM, just every couple of months... or if I'm trying to get DDs to two different places at once).

I've no idea what threads you are reading, but the posters on MN are made up of a fairly mixed set of people. In fact I would suggest that I think most don't live near their family than do ...

We don't have any family closer than an hour away.

We moved last year for quality of life. We didn't get much help when we lived closer so it doesn't make any difference in that respect.

My family live scattered across several countries so my nearest relative is a plane ride away. I don’t think this is particularly unusual.

I don't live near my family either. We live near Husbands family but we don't get any help with anything. If anything they told me not to ask them for help but theyre more than happy to expect us to help do the elderly caring whilst i look after two very young children and one with additional needs. So just surviving and wishing I could live near my family because every day is struggle

you are not alone, I live 5500 miles away from my parents, takes 2 flights to see them usually. My inlaws also lives 400 miles away (not in UK), its one flight or 2 days of driving to get there. We are have no relatives in the UK.

I'm 140 miles from my nearest relative and they don't actually know my address anyway.

My family live over five hours away.

We don't have any family closer than two and a half hours away.

My family are over 200 hundred miles away and DH doesn’t have any family in this country at all.

My parents and older sister moved abroad when I was 19 and I don't have any in-laws. My younger sister lives nearish to me but that's it.

I don't have any overbearing MIL issues as I don't have one!!

Apart from my children, my nearest blood relative is 500 miles away, nearest in law 250 miles. There was never any possibility of them providing childcare or helping out, and I was a widowed single mother from when both DC were babies, for their entire childhoods.

My family are 2 hours. His are an hour. I would say nearly all of my local friends have family nearby

Well, I'm glad I'm not alone!

@redskytwonight Interesting that your thread-experience has been the opposite. Maybe I am attracted to the wrong threads.

We are a bit extreme, in that my ex husband's family are 10,000 miles away (maybe a good distance for a MIL?) and mine are a mere 200... There was never any suggestion of my mum coming to stay to look after the DC or anything like that. I was a SAHM and then a single parent, and muddled along somehow.

I found I gravitated towards friends without local family.
Those who have a grandparent or Aunt constantly available, have very different options of parenting compared to those of us who have to pay for any childcare.

I live about 30 min away from one family member but they've never been involved with childcare. My inlaws are about 1.5 hrs away and they do the occassional overnight childcare (maybe once or twice a year)
I think lots of people don't live close to family

You might be surprised, I was here since all this was fiends and most of us were leaving very far from family and friends. Mumsnet is a very multicultural and international collective, those who move around the world rarely have much family around.

Having said that, those who live close to their families and benefit from theirregularsupportmay have more spare time (and energy!) topmost in Mumsnet.

Fields, not fiends, obviously…

There’s a huge amount of posters on here that live far away from family. Some still expecting childcare.

Theres also a large amount that has no family or friends at all.

There are a lot of child care threads. But there’s also a lot of ‘we moved away and no one visits’ and ‘we moved away people want to stay with us for too long’ and ‘I have a hospital appointment and have no family or friends nearby to have baby’ and ‘we moved away and regret it’ or ‘we moved away and now I want to live back, dh doesn’t’ or variations on those these themes.

I live in England. But wasn’t born here but moved when I was young. I have some extended family here, but moved away when I became a single parent to afford a house.

I live in a different country to mine

I've no idea what threads you are reading, but the posters on MN are made up of a fairly mixed set of people

This.
Personally, I do live very close to where I was born, but my parents aren't still alive and my siblings moved away.
My parents had moved away from their respective families as young adults so we didn't have any local cousins, Aunts etc growing up either.