Does moving four hours away from adult children make parents selfish?

[Whatthefork1]

Does moving 4 hours away from your adult children make you a bad parent?

Around 7 years ago my mum and stepdad moved a 4 hour drive away, down south. It was very upsetting for me at the time as I have always been so close to my mum. This was before I had children, my eldest is nearly 5 so a couple of years before that.

I was at the time 24 and in a long term relationship with my now DP who I have two children with, we owned our own home and had our own life, as we still do of course. However mum and stepdad knew that we were going to start a family very soon.

DP has always said it was selfish and makes them not great parents; because why would they want to move so far away from us. I have always tried to defend their actions by saying they have always wanted to move there it’s their dream etc. but on the other hand, even though my children are still small, I can’t see me ever wanting to move that distance away from them, and not having a close relationship with them and one day their children.

dont get me wrong, we are still very close and I chat to my mum on a daily basis. They visit us / we visit them probably every 6-8 weeks. But I can’t help but feel how much easier and how much nicer my life would be if my mum were still close by, being able to pop over to her for a cuppa tea, go out for the day together, spend time with the grandchildren etc. it’s been really hard not having that especially during the early postpartum days.

So i’m interested to hear other people’s views on this.

You’re right, but this was 20 years ago and well before Brexit was a real prospect to be fair. Though the distance and travel expense would still have been a problem, but I could have easily worked remotely and stayed as long as needed. Brexit put paid to that.

DM has since acknowledged they didn’t give enough thought to care needs, though that doesn’t help now. They never asked my opinion on the move though which was thoughtless.

DM has carers but no one is prepared to do the hour long drive to the hospital and escort her to appointments, even for double time. And there are so many appointments! For the last two months following her operation she had checkups every two days! The only other option is hospital transport which picks up at 6:30am and takes 2 hours to get to the hospital. It’s a nightmare!

I will certainly not be subjecting my DC to this. I will be firmly based in the UK on retirement.

This is such an entitled post. Your Mum is an adult and is allowed to move wherever she wants to. It sounds like she puts lots of effort into your relationship. I’m sick of 20/30 somethings that think their parents are there solely for the happiness of their children. We are human beings! I would love to move abroad but I know my daughter would be the same as you and feel it’s selfish. Unless your husband is perfect I would tell him to stfu.

Christ, entitled much? Your both allowed to live your own life. Time to cut the apron strings a bit op.

Of course it doesn’t.

I plan to move countries once mine have graduated. It’ll be a 4 hour flight.

No they are not selfish, how ridiculous.
You can always move closer to them if you feel you really want to…

I appreciate that you miss your Mum, but I disagree with your DP that it was selfish of them to move away. Parents aren't "just" parents, they're adults with their own needs. You were grown up and settled, so moving four hours away was reasonable.

If you love someone, you let them live their life and feel happy for them. Your Mum is still there for you, just not physically close by.

Yes @stardrops1, my children are close to my Dad even though we live in different countries. Whereas they're not as close to my in-laws (same country), because they've made less effort with them over the years.

It's their first time living too. Let them live how they want to live. They probably put a lot of things on hold for stability for you when you were younger, and now they've had the chance to go live out their dreams so just let them. I would be so upset and guilty if I knew my parents didn't follow their dreams to suit me. You see them every 6-8 weeks and speak all the time so I don't see any problems.

I find it a bit odd that your parents are being labelled as selfish and suspect that deep down this is because free childcare was fully expected or at least some childcare. Obviously it takes a village to raise children but potentially your parents have moved somewhere they always wished to live and had long dreams of moving there but felt trapped into staying where they were so they could support you to adulthood and ensure you were stable. If my parents wished to move to the other side of the world I would fully support them and would never consider this to be selfish. It would be selfish of ME to keep them close to me and away from their dreams

I think it's sad for you, sad for your DCs and sad for her. Four hours is a long way away and personally I would never move that far away from my DC's by choice as I think it would make me a thoughtless parent and ultimately be something I would regret. IMO your DH should button up because he will just make you feel worse about it.

I don’t think they are bad parents but I wouldn’t move that far away from my daughters!! I would miss them and my Grandchildren far too much!!

@Whatthefork1 I completely understand your wistfulness that your Mum would still be living closer to you and you and the children could see her more often. You have a good relationship with her and that is good. So yes, YANBU to miss her and wish she was closer.

But your DP is out of order to say that she wasn't a good parent for moving away. That smacks of Entitlement that somehow she and your step dad owe you now you have children. They absolutely don't. Your Mum was quite young when she had you, too and once you and your sister became adults and you, at least appeared to be settled, it was their turn to put themselves first. Sounds like they put you and your sister first for a very long time, while the two of you were growing up.

Yes, right now, you can't foresee not living close to your adult children when their turn comes - but when they are full grown, they may very well end up living a long way from you. No-one can predict what may happen. It is also naïve to say that there is no way you will ever move from where you live now. You can't see into the future. People find themselves living all sorts of places they never dreamt of when they were younger.

We bring up our children to be independent, in the hope they will fly and be happy. But as parents, we do have a right to make the best decisions for US once our children have spread their wings.

I agree with this actually.

But your children may want to move away from you in the future, to go to university for instance. Then find a job there. You can't limit people's lives for your own ends.

Will your DC have right of residency in that country and will you be willing to fund their travel costs to support you with the inevitable declining health issues that will come with advancing age? Will you be able to fund carers to take care of all your support needs as you age?

If not, be aware you are setting your DC up for a whole world of stress and heartache trying to cope with the impossible task of supporting you with serious ill health from another country. Do you want to do that?

I had all four grandparents within walking distance when I gave birth. It was not a good thing, none offered support, one pair thought they were poor so lived with us for three years and the other I would never have trusted to be around my dc without me present. I had to tell my DH I would leave if his parents didn’t and even though they then left, this killed my marriage stone cold dead.
We spent a lot of money paying for uk holidays to get away from our situation in caravan parks near the sea.
Once both your dc are in primary school they will travel more easily (just let them take turns choosing the songs) and you will get free beach holidays.
I feel for your ds though as she was in a less stable position when they moved.

My parents did this 6 months after I left home at 24, but I’ve never thought they should not do what they wanted to do because of me. I finally settled down and had kids 10 years later. Yes, I would like them to be closer, be able to just have dinner together rather than it always being a 2/3 night stay and have them able to more easily babysit the kids, but they have their own lives and happiness to consider, not just my convenience (although they would come down immediately if needed).

Why don’t you move closer to them?

There seems a theme through this thread of “if you move away don’t expect care in your old age”.

pretty harsh imo. I don’t expect my children to give up their lives to care for me, regardless of where they, or I are living. Yes I do have enough put aside to fund carers, and my home will fund a good few years in a nursing home.

even if I lived locally I would not be expecting them to be caring for me in old age and ill health.

caring is brutal- we did it for mil and even living close it was a full time job. If you do need care it really isn’t a popping in to check on them job, it’s going round in the morning to get them up, taking them out, cleaning their house, making meals, sorting dr’s trips. For mil it was easier for her to move in with us, and even then dh had to go PT at work.

but I’ve also seen a lot of children who choose to care for parents rather than lose their inheritance.

all seems very cynical to me.

I really don’t get this if my mum chooses or needs to move away I am not going to put any effort into the relationship attitude.

And that is absolutely fine and I will support my children in whatever choices they make, but I won’t personally be making a choice to move away from them.

My in-laws used to live further away from us. When they moved, although it was slightly nearer, they didn’t use the opportunity to move nearer to us. Infact my mother in law got offended when I suggested it would be easier for us to help them when they got older (apparently it was very offensive for me to suggest they would ever need help). When my mother in law passed away my father in law refused to move nearer to us so that we could help him but kept complaining of feeling lonely in the evenings. Unfortunately our daughters were by then doing sports GCSEs which required them to do 3 sports which required them to attend matches on Sat & Sun including during school holidays. In the end he had to go into a care home & kept telling everyone we didn’t visit him often enough 🙄.

My mum & step dad also moved away from us when they found out we were trying to conceive. My step-dad admitted at the time to my now ex that it was to avoid doing childcare. My stepdad assumed wrongly as we didn’t want my mum to do childcare (the intention was always to put them in a nursery). Having said that it would have been nice & very much appreciated if they had been able & willing to have the children occasionally on a Saturday for us to go on a date. They also failed to take into account that once the children start getting invited to parties & doing sports clubs, etc. it’s very difficult to visit them regularly & to help them when they started having health problem especially when my mum got cancer. My stepdad kept telling my mum I was a bad daughter for not visiting her with the our daughters every weekend 🙄.

Needless to say my daughters didn’t have a close relationship with either set of grandparents as they didn’t see them often enough.

My in laws did this - I found it odd at the time as all thier children were very closely located with grandchildren on the horizon. Fast forward 15 years and they are very isolated. Don’t drive etc. They don't want to move from the area as they have friends etc but those friends are dying off and their social circles are getting smaller. We try and go and see them but lives are very busy. I compare them to my parents who moved a 10minute walk away and who we see almost every day (often very briefly!) and are on hand to help out (either way!). They will be supported far longer into their older age and grandchildren are also able to help with them now as walking distance.

So no, I don’t think the inlaws were selfish, but I do think they were very shortsighted.

@Whatthefork1 they may want to move away from you if they think you are too clingy.

People are talking like OP’s DM was in her dotage. She was 48 when she moved.

@Whatthefork1 when do you think your mum could have her own life? She had you quite young, so when is she able to spread her wings?

Do you think you have missed out never living somewhere different?

That’s very unfair. If my DM lived in the UK I would have been able to be with her much more during her cancer treatment as work would have allowed me to work remotely for an extended period. Unfortunately they can’t allow me to work remotely in Spain due to immigration laws so I’m limited to annual leave and a bit of compassionate leave. The Brexit rules would have put hard limits on the amount of time I could spend with her in any case. This isn’t even taking into account any longer term care. It just won’t be possible for me to do that with immigration restrictions.

I’m doing my best here, not entirely sure what else you think I can do. Oh, and I’m not doing this to protect any inheritance I can assure you. There really isn’t much capital to protect. I reckon I’ve spent more than any inheritance would be worth on huge travel costs over the last year and the cost of trying unsuccessfully to get a visa.

@TwinTeensMum did you move away from in-laws first?