If you moved house frequently as a child

[Nosleepforthismum]

How do you feel about it now and what’s your relationship like with your parents?

My DH and I are nearing the end of a big renovation with lots of upheaval and two temporary sets of accommodation in the last 5 months before moving back home. We have two kids (2 & 1). It’s been stressful but also weirdly enjoyable and we’ll have made some decent money on the house when we come to sell.

I can’t help but feel like I want to keep going and sell up in a years time and do it all again (and maybe again after that). We’d be able to be mortgage free and financially we’d be able to set our kids up for life if we keep going while they are little. My DH is a builder and would work in between jobs to reduce the impact on family life but the kids would move house fairly frequently (every 2-3 years) and would spend some of that time living on a part building site.

A family member has expressed her horror we were considering this and thinks the children will be negatively impacted if we go down this route. Lots of “money doesn’t buy you happiness” chat but my overriding feeling that getting financial security is will be far more beneficial in the long run. The only thing I do agree on is not moving schools. Once they are at school they will not be moved.

Just wondered if anyone had experienced this with their parents and how it’s impacted on your life? Good and bad.

Don't they do decimals and fractions in US?

My son is on his 5th home and he’s nine. It’s he’s to say how it’s affected him but he’s pleased we’re staying in this one for the foreseeable future!

Probably also depends if it would involve a school move. I went to 3 different schools in 12 months. Did fuck me up tbh as I started stress eating and do to this day!

We are here for the long haul as don’t want my kids to have to leave their schools.

My parents divorced when I was very young (can't remember them together) and each remarried. I lived mainly with my mum and stepdad but regularly visited my dad and stepmum and always had a bedroom at their house. Both sets of parents moved houses every two or three years during my school years (though in the same area so I never had to change schools). I had loads of different bedrooms over the years.

I've since always enjoyed moving house. It's an adventure. I really don't get the idea of buying a 'forever home' , how boring! I don't get that emotionally attached to houses - it's just bricks and mortar, and always feel it's the people in a house that make it a nice place to be - a home, a family.

I moved with my kids between rentals then long distance moves for work reasons. You do what you need to do. However I'm not sure long term living on part building sites is good health wise, I've done renovations and the dust can't be helped.

I moved every couple of years (military brat). I have to say the house moves never bothered me, but the school moves were difficult. I remember crying in the playground on my first day at a new primary because I didn’t know anyone.

Once I hit secondary my parents kept me at the same school, with two house moves in that time which weren’t an issue at all. As long as the (same) school and extracurricular stuff can continue as usual, I’d say go for it with the caveat that towards gcse and a levels you need to stay put.

I found the transition to University across the country easy. As an adult I’ve moved country and across the country for jobs within quite a dynamic career, and I’ve found all the moving quite easy although I’m settled now where I am. Lots of my peers from secondary haven’t moved more than 10 miles from where they grew up (which is great and works for them) and say they couldn’t move away from their school friends and family at all. So I think my confidence to do all this might have come from doing it as a child.

One negative/potential consequence: both my sibling and I are very independent and self-sufficient, and my lovely but very needy mother often laments at the fact we don’t live round the corner, pop in constantly for tea or call her twice a day to chat local gossip and deep feelings (we obviously do call regularly). I do wonder if this independence comes from not being able to put down roots properly as a child, and while I am very happy with my outlook on life I think my mother would have done it differently if she suspected it might have led to this! 😁

My parents moved frequently for work and I lost count of the number of schools I went to. I don’t feel it impacted on my relationship with my parents but it did affect my ability to make friends, something I still struggle with.

I think if you intend your children to have stable schooling then this will minimise any impact.

I think a lot has to do with how far you have to move. I went to three different primary schools and it certainly had an impact.

Had we moved three times and I could have stayed at the same school it would have less impact.

I also think you need to do the children's rooms first.

Similar to @TheStateOfTheArt both my brother and I live hundreds of miles from where we were brought up and found moving as an adult undaunting.

I moved every 2.5 years, father's job.

I never thought it was weird, just accepted it. Never had trouble making friends, but did always lose touch when I moved.

However recently my dad has been talking about growing up in a small village and having friends still from when he was young.

I recently went back to that village (I know it well due to grandparents living there) and, at the age of 60, I literally cried for the childhood I could have had. Up until then moving had never bothered me.

I was really surprised that it affected me so much.

I had to move my kids several time during their childhoods, but the didn't change schools. My eldest (now 29) told me that it was one of the things I got right. It meant they maintainted riendships, which they still have.

Things weren't perfect, but the same school thing helped.

I moved 3 times, including changing country once. Not nearly as many times as lots of posters here! It means that I don't have any real attachment to a home and moved around a lot before I had kids.

I don't want that for them though. They have lived in the same house and will probably move once in their childhood, as would like to move after dc1 starts secondary. Renovations are very disruptive and living with no kitchen for a month with a toddler and heavily pregnant is not something I would want to have kept repeating.

From the answers here, it seems it may mess them up, or they may love it, but not moving schools is key.

I moved a lot as a kid, it wasn’t too bad at primary age but I really struggled with it at secondary age. I did move schools and areas each time which didn’t help- never felt settled, always the outsider, no sense of having roots. I will also add I felt betrayed and struggled to trust my parents as I was assured “this is the last move” a few times only to move again 2-3 years later. We have gotten closer since I had my kids but I do ultimately regard them as selfish for how they handled things. I don’t think anyone can regard doing that to a teen as in their best interests- especially as they bounced me between the Scottish and English school systems.

Incidentally they’re still at it and their current house is up for sale! I genuinely think it’s like an addiction for them

I did but it seems to have affected me very differently to you. I am now borderline terrified of moving and renovations and change in general and want my house to stay as it is forever. Had no effect on my relationship with parents though.

I could have written this. Moving house every few months and having to start again at 7 different school before I was 11 was not enjoyable in the slightest. I have tried to create a stable and predictable environment for my children as a result.

If you are going to do this make sure you always stay within catchment of your kids' school.

If you keep them in the same school you'll be fine. I moved every couple of years as a child and then boarding school at 11 - I'd say it had a hugely detrimental effect on my life and my relationship with my parents. That being said I don't think I had attachment to the houses themselves.

We moved once when I was seven. It was a total pivotal point for me as I was a shy child but had a group of friends in a lovely local primary school and was very happy. I was told I had to move schools on the Monday, on a Friday.

It was catastrophic for me as I felt so upset and out of palce at the new school and because I was shy and didn't speak to anyone I became a target. I was bullied a lot and developed an eating disorder (binging) and just became a very cynical, unhappy child. Definitely shaped the way I am now and destroyed any confidence I may have had as it totally interrupted my development.

I'm still quite bitter about it if I am honest. It taught me that my wellbeing didn't matter to my parents whereas before I'd felt quite safe and happy. It still gets mentioned now and again.

I have/had a good friend who moved many, many times down to father's job. He's an alcoholic and a terrible hoarder. An intelligent, interesting man but speaks of never having the opportunity to keep friends or belongings and how it affected him. Sad.

People will say they relocated often and their kids were fine. My OH 's parents (armed forces) say this, 2 of their kids say different.
OH unfortunately was shifted into a job which meant constant relocations, one of our kids didn't cope at all well and her only wish was to stay in the same high school, she struggles with friendships and is very insecure. The others coped to varying degrees.
I wouldn't do it by choice, some kids may thrive, others won't.

Oh I also absolutely cried buckets at ‘The Sign’ in Bluey, stuff about kids moving house really gets to me!

Wow yeah that’s me too. Moving and bingeing at 7. And still stuck with the repercussions. I’m going to try EDMR therapy, my friend had great success. I went to 3 different schools in 12 months (2 moves) and looking back it was definitely the defining year of my life.

DS had several moves, including one international one, before turning eight, which is why we’re determined to stay where we are till he’s finished school now. I grew up in one place, but my best friend moved a lot because her parents renovated old houses while living in them and sold them — while this was all within the same large city, and no school moves were involved, and they did make sizeable sums of money, she says one of her main childhood memories is of thinking ‘This house is no longer leaking, freezing, draughty and covered in plaster dust, so there’ll be a FOR SALE sign any day.’

It's a horrible idea, I can't believe you're even considering it OP and I'm glad you have a family member with a bit of common sense.

Children need stability.

I moved frequently as a child and was awful. At a very young age it was scary, at an older age it was stressful and frustrating.

I echo a PP's point about feeling envy for my friends who had a normal family home. I didn't really have a home, I felt completely untethered and that carried on into adulthood.

I don't agree that it's fine if you stay in the same town. It's horrible constantly getting pulled out of an environment you've finally got comfortable in.

Other people in the town will think you're weirdos too, I was so embarrassed every time we moved and I had to face the barrage of questions at school about why I didn't have a proper home.

Please be sensible here.

Go for it I'm a therapist and want to train in EMDR, it's meant to be fantastic. I'm sorry you went thru similar.
I've had eating disorders most of my life. Just getting to a point in my 40s where I'd say I eat quite normally but I'm still very weight focused and quite prone to unhealthy attachments.

Well I’m all for taking on other peoples views but this does seem to be quite an extreme one. I’m not disputing at all the need for children to have stability but financial stability is also a big consideration.

I’m not sure we’ll be considered weirdos either, at least not by other adults but I’m sorry you had such a tough time of it in school.

If we’re talking about large sums (enough to be mortgage free and give your children a deposit) I’d consider running the numbers to live in a smaller home yourself and renovate empty houses. Same idea, less downside and much quicker and easier to renovate an unoccupied house.

I would also take a great deal of care to be cautious in your calculations. Having such a large part of your assets in domestic property is high risk- inflation on building materials, housing market etc. I’m sure you know this as you are married to a builder but the days of easy money for renovating are long gone.

People will say they relocated often and their kids were fine. My OH 's parents (armed forces) say this, 2 of their kids say different.

I think one of the reasoons they say this (along with children being resilient) is that you don't see the impact in childhood - so children appear to be fine.

It's often only as an adult, when long term behaviour patterns emerge and you start to wonder why they are, that you can connect the dots to events in your childhood.

That said, financial security is also important (as a child and adult) and they may grow up grateful for the help. The risk is that they may instead see you as selling off a stable childhood in pursuit of money. That's a tricky balance, imo.