Adult children moving away - visiting etiquette

[Nothrown]

If your adult children have moved away from where you live, and now have children. Both parents work, kids have clubs all small / young kids.

You are retired, no major health issues (just aching / more nervous about driving in darkness)

Is there an etiquette on visits? Would you expect to visit the family with small children more than they come to your house?

Would you be offended if they didn’t visit often and expect you to go their house more, with a 1 hour drive?

Probably depends on who enjoys the visits most.

Depends what type of full time work (some people work an easier job with no commute, some very long hours)

I have moved away from my mum (only half an hour) but tend to drive to see her every 2 - 4 weeks as she doesn’t like driving

if I don’t come to see her for whatever reason we always FaceTime , she also has my son over for a sleepover every 1-2 months

i wouldn’t be offended if they didn’t visit more often if I was the one with more free time, might just be worth saying you’d like to see them more and go from there?

I'd mix it up. 1hr is not far at all with kids and I feel that is just an excuse. I think both parties should make the effort, if you really wanted to see someone you would, regardless of how far away it is.

If both parties can drive then they could meet in the middle, for a pub lunch and walk in the park nearby. My fil lives 2 hours away, we've always taken turns visiting. However now mine have weekend commitments, I can't visit much. He now visits during easter/kids birthday and Christmas. So I think it all depends if the children have commitments.

A one hour drive is near by in my view!! I'm 3 hours from my parents and the same from my kids.
Yes if your kids have young family and work full time then you travel to them as it is easier for all concerned.

There are just too many variables here.

In MY family, in a situation like this, there would most likely be travel both ways with regular discussion of what that would look like. So we'd pre-arrange, "I'll bring the kids down to see you this weekend and perhaps we can go to that animal farm down the road" and then next time, maybe it would be, "why don't you come down here. The DC have sports this weekend and I'm sure DS would love you to watch his football game and we can go to the pub for a late lunch after".

And ditto based on time, effort, safety, health, convenience, activities etc.

So my only real advice is that it shouldn't have to be set. 1 hour is not a million miles away, so why not a bit of give and take?

My very elderly relative however, does not like to drive far. So we always go to her. But then, she's not a direct family member and we only see her a few times a year.

We have this scenario with 3 children under 7 and grandparents just over an hour away. We do a bit of both although generally speaking we go to them in the winter/darker nights and they come to us in the summer. We go after clubs in the morning, stay for dinner and drive back at bedtime - I've always been able to transfer mine to bed asleep it appreciate this wouldn't work for everyone. That said there are times they come to me and leave before it gets dark if I need childcare or will stay in a local hotel.

Absolutely not. Children are happier in their own home, especially if there are ornaments or knick-knacks in someone else's house. Parents are far more able to relax and not be hyper vigilant. Such visits are much nicer - plus, the adults can drive back to a peaceful house, abandoning the necessary chaos that is part of being around children.

If night time driving is difficult, why not have a lesson or two with a driving instructor? It will boost the confidence.

A few posters have mentioned night time driving - it’s often because issues like cataracts can start to affect night time driving even a decade before they become apparent. Wearing glasses for long distance does help but not everyone realises that they need them just for this.

@Londonismyjam it's not just older people lots of young people are finding modern LED headlight coming towards them far too bright and blinding.

I think it was the AA who did a survey during the winter and the government said they'd look at it.

My grandparents had too many grandchildren to visit so we always went to them, best memories there and with cousins

I disagree there.

My dcs always had a whale if a time at either set of grand parents.
Theyve done stuff they would never have done with us.
They've developed a close relationship with all of them.

Im not sure why grand parents would less relaxed than parents tbh. If anything they've all been more relaxed than us lol!

Yep.

Issues with might time driving often gave noth8ng to do with how confident you are as a driver.

I am a confident driver. I drive a lot.
I still get night time driving due to the glare from other cars - that’s to do with astigmatism and no amount of driving lessons will change that. (A change in lenses brought only a small improvement too)
my ds who is in hies early 20s has similar issues too.

Who enjoys these visits the most?
Grandparents?
Parents?
Grandchildren?

I think this is relevant.

With our in-laws they weren't great parents or grandparents. We saw them infrequently and only at their request, mostly at their house but sometimes they invited themselves to ours. We only saw them at all from a sense of duty. DC didn't enjoy the contact and GP had little interest in their GC. They lived half an hour's drive away.

I don't think my in laws viewed themselves as poor parents and disinterested grandparents, but DH & I definitely viewed them that way. Is this kind of dynamic going on here?

When the kids were little we were usually the ones to travel, as the grandparents preferred that and we didn't mind.

Then the DC started having sports matches every weekend so the grandparents would come to us.

Now the grandparents are elderly (all over 80) and find driving difficult, so it's back to us travelling. The DC are teens now and still have sports matches every weekend so this means we see the grandparents less often than we used to.

It all depends on the relationship between you. I'd say there's probably always going to be a mismatch in expectations. Parents want to see their DC and DGC as often as possible, usually. That doesn't necessarily follow the other way around. Not necessarily for any ill feelings. Parents are busy and stretched thin in both time and energy. Children are focused on their own lives and don't think of extended family much. If I was determined I wanted a close relationship and to see someone regularly, I wouldn't move an hour away from them though.

If I moved any distance from a friend I'd mentally say a quiet goodbye to them and expect to barely see them again if ever, despite either of us saying we'll visit, the way people do. Even if I cared about them and we'd not fallen out. Travelling any distance to visit just isn't practical with the demands of modern life. If downtime isn't used for relaxing people burn out. Travelling all over and staying overnight isn't remotely relaxing. It's not the same as if it's a holiday with your nuclear family.

I see part of growing up as moving away and truly living your own life. Being independent to me means being self sufficient and also being freed from the constraints of wider family expectations that bound you as a child and teenager, as well as into your early 20s while you still lived in the family home. Not to say that these expectations are unreasonable or unpleasant, just that it's impractical, with life expectancy these days, to wait for parents to die before you have total freedom. I know a lot of parents have a hard time letting go and think it's sad when they get resentful of their DC breaking away and going off into the world to live their own lives.

If it was me I'd use some annual leave (assuming I could and it didn't all have to go on providing childcare when the DC are off school on inset days, half term, ill, school holidays etc) to visit parents around Christmas time (not Christmas Day, that's not for travelling or hosting in my eyes, it's for relaxing in my own home with the family I've created) and again in the summer. Any other visits would have to come from parents travelling to us. I wouldn't be putting them up overnight they'd have to use a hotel. Otherwise they'd be in my space too much and I wouldn't be able to relax, so I'd return to work on Monday stressed before I'd even started.

I do have sympathy for the night driving issue. As I understand it it's to do with rods and cones in the eyes, some are better for night vision and they reduce as people age. It's not something that can be corrected with glasses and doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the person's eyesight. I imagine this is where the desiring to cease night driving comes from in many people. Feeling you can't see as well as you'd like would make a lot of people nervous. I'm not really sure that's something that can be "got over" because there isn't really a fix for it. It's something you either accept or you don't. You could stay in a hotel though and travel back next day in daylight.

We tend to visit the grandparents as it's a day out for kids ( they go stir crazy at home)
We sometimes invite them to ours for a meal.
If they babysit while we are at work (very rarely) they come to us.
They are in their sixties and about an hour away.

Why don't you do a mix sometimes offer to host and others go to theirs (I sense you are grandparents)

I guess grandparents are usually the ones that have to travel as they’ve got more time.

However, I do think if you choose to move away then you can’t then expect everyone to travel to you all the time. I’ve seen so many friends move away from family (usually half way between both sets of parents which in reality means no where near either!) and then feel resentful about traveling to see parents.

Also for those saying it’s only an hour, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an easy drive. DB moved to the outskirts of London which technically is a 90 min drive but journey for DM is on the worst stretch of motorway, through Ulez and then greater London driving which when you’re used to a village is really stressful.

My parents generally visited us, they were a bit narky about it as they'd moved an hour away to somewhere where they thought we'd never want to stay away (seaside), but unfortunately the move meant it became difficult to manage the 2 hour round trip with parties/sports events etc, so visits to them were limited to school holidays.

They were/are young though. Retired early etc, in very good health, so no reason to not be able to travel. If that hadn't been the case we probably would have had to make visiting them work out

@Flowersandforests isn't that resentment mainly because they don't really want to visit though? Rather than because they want their parents to travel to them. I think a lot of visiting is done out of duty and parental expectations.

To whoever said "there's bleach etc type hazards everywhere and dog poo throughout the garden and nowhere for them to play but we go for the sake of DC"

I'd reconsider that. I can't see how that's in the best interests of DC, myself. If grandparents cared that much about having a relationship with DGC, they'd do something about making the environment more suitable. Or they'd make the journey to you.

I think this depends on how small the kids actually are and other circumstances.

Generally it‘s a hassle to move small kids and diaper bags and toys etc around, especially if that other place is not adequate for small kids (no toys, decoration that could be knocked over, child savety concerns). I‘d say the grandparents should come unless its for a grandparent birthday or grandparents are allergic to a family pet for example.

However, my parents house(1.5 hour drive) is childproofed because of my niece and they have toys and diapers and a chair for the baby and the toddler and i visit them about once a months over a weekend(1.5 hour drive) abnd they come for daytrips maybe twice a month whereas the other grandparents live closer (15&30 minutes) and they rarely ever visit and i don‘t bother visiting them either, as it’s too much hassle and they don’t show much interest in their grandkids 🤷‍♀️

What does this have to do with moving away though? You either want to keep in tough with your parents/kids/grandkids no matter who moved where(life circumstances like jobs or meeting a partner i assume) or you don’t.

Yikes!
Moving away is no crime. We have the opposite case, the „close by grandparents“ rarely visit or invite(only birthdays). I don’t think your kids will benefit from those stressful visits so maybe cut it down to once per year🙈

My DM never visits unless we go and pick her up. Even when we lived within walking distance she never came unless invited for something like birthdays or Christmas. I did visit but it can get wearing when you have young DC and are the one always having to do the lifts or travel. I think she's missed out on so much. The DC aren't close to her at all.

We mainly went to grandparents. They had a bigger house and garden. We didn’t really have a spare room for them to stay in.

I think it is nice for children to have another house they really know. My grandmother’s house was a constant in my childhood whilst ‘my home’ with my parents changed because we moved house twice. Same with my children - they love going to visit their grandparents.