How important is living near family as a single parent?

[Freddie15VES]

just wondering, out of curiosity. How important do you feel it is to live near to family as a single parent?

I live approx 12/13 miles away from my family. I’m close with my sister, she has 2 young kids a similar age, her husband works shifts at the hospital so I do have times where I think, she’s on her own a lot like I am!

our kids all love each other and would potentially be in the same classes at school, definitely the same year for the younger 2

when myself and their dad first split we spoke about where I would live and he was/still is very supportive of what I choose to do. We have a great relationship in all honesty! It’s very healthy now

he has the kids every other weekend, and every Monday night. Obviously if I moved further away we’d have to reassess

do you think it’s important to live as close as possible to family?

Do it!!! I’m not single but my biggest parenting regret is not moving closer to my sisters and their similar aged kids. Even if there’s no potential for sharing of childcare, it’s still lovely to have that wider group and people to make casual plans with. Extended family is very much lacking in many kids lives.

If you are 12 miles away why would you need to move closer? That’s pretty close already isn’t it?

@ToKittyornottoKitty erm I guess it doesn’t feel close when you’ve got young kids and the risk of danger maps makes visiting times pretty tight 😂

there’s no real, main road to their house from mine it’s all country/back roads so can take around 40 mins some days! (Took me nearly an hour this morning with a road closure!)

I lived near my family and as a result never felt like a single parent

Will the dad still be able to get the kids to school when he has them school nights? If so then it sounds like a good idea. My sister is about 20 miles away and that’s plenty for us, so 12 miles sounded quite close but I see your point!

Awwww okay, this is how I’m feeling. My sister and I didn’t have cousins, and they get on so well. I couldn’t think of anything better than easily being a 5/10 minute drive away from them. Even just being able to nip round for tea would be so lovely

This is where I need to speak with him. He likely would for the 1 week day that he has them! He only has them on a Monday evening currently. He’s very good though and completely supports that I’d want to live closer to my family. It would likely take a bit of travelling on my part but I’m happy to help him with that as I work less than he does

It really would be. I was just thinking how if we lived closer to mine, we would be doing the whole barbecue thing for the England matches with the kids running riot! Just little things like that, but it all makes a childhood. I had so many cousins and some of the happiest memories I have was of summer days playing with them.

@Sheismycherrypie yeah see we can’t do that, cos of the travelling it just wouldn’t work for bedtimes! It’s too much of a battle and messes routines up too much which sounds stupid but is really hard to navigate when you’ve got 2 overtired kids yelling at you 😂 I’m outnumbered!

I’m not single but I couldn’t imagine living away from my family/support. Currently live max 5 mins drive away and love it

12 miles is surely fine for Monday nights unless you’re in London 12 miles is ok?
I am moving to be closer to my parents in a couple months, mainly for babysitting for short periods

@Unexpectedlysinglemum this is it, I find myself extremely stressed out if something unexpected happens at work and I run over, I have nobody. It’s all on me to go and collect them from school and nursery. My sister works from home, rarely has to go into the office and has said if we get them all into the same school she could pick them up, take them to hers for tea etc which would unload so much pressure

I wouldn’t move for the sake of 12 miles. Much more important to live close to dad, especially as they get older and into teens so they can come and go between houses, and remain near friends at weekends etc. really important in early teens imo

I am thinking about when they are older and want to see friends etc at the weekend, it will be more important to be close to dad so they can still do clubs/go out with friends etc on their time with him

@millymollymoomoo @FortyFacedFuckers oh my god guys i hadn’t even thought of that. I guess it’d kind of make them not want to visit him if they’ve got no mates here….wow. Yeah that hadn’t even crossed my mind!!

Depends on the family, I moved to be closer to mine as they offered all kinds of help. None of it ever materialised

Single parent here, no father around and no family in this country. You adapt.

I can only speak about my own experience and that of my friends/ but having stayed very close to ex for this reason im
glad I did. As the children started secondary school and made friends here and started becoming more independent it was much more important to them to be able to simply just go meet friends, hang out, get the bus to town etc, walk to snd from
school and arrange things spontaneously and much less about structured weekends with each parent. They’d move pretty freely between houses. It meant they had continuity of sports as either me or ex took them, didntt miss out things with friends as they were here and go arrange things on the fly.

friends whose children went to dad at weekends or eow started to miss out on that and gradually reduced time with dad as they didn’t want to
miss out on things or friendships.

and in your case your family are close / you can meet fir coffee or lunch, or if you need help they’re near. Mine were 3 hours away but it was still the right decision to stay close to their dad