want to relocate when DD goes to uni - AIBU?

[MrsMiniver]

I'm a single parent with one DD who's likely to go to uni next year. We've lived in the same town since she was a toddler but I've been wanting for a long time to move back to where I grew up so I can be near my family and elderly parents in particular. I wouldn't have considered this before now because of her dad, schooling, friends etc.

It's about an hour's drive away from where we currently live. Am I being selfish in moving away from her home town or doesn't it really matter now, seeing as how she'll be away during the term? When I left home for uni I hardly ever went back but things seem quite different these days.

If two people live in a house, and disagree about where that house should be, who gets the biggest say?

The person who lives there full time and pays for it?
Or the person who lives there less than half the year and doesn't pay for it?

I think that as long as you do have a room that is "her room", you should do it.

It sounds like her dad still lives in the town where she grew up, so she can spend some of the holidays there if she likes.

How much people stay in touch with their friends from before university is very variable.

No, not selfish.

Unless you are moving from somewhere like Monaco to somewhere like Wolverhampton

She may not be happy but she is nearly grown, can travel back by herself if she wants and will be making her own life from now on.

You are not being selfish but how it is managed probably depends on your daughter. Where she goes to Uni, how she settles, how she feels about leaving you etc.

When my son left for Uni he asked we keep his room for him and wanted to use us as a base to visit friends in his hometown. Within a month he was happy to crash on a sofa anywhere and had no money to visit friends. Basically he was happy and settled at Uni and coping with adult life, therefore happy for us to do whatever. We are planning to relocate next year for the benefit of his younger siblings. He doesn't care!

My friend's parents did this when we started uni. I don't think it bothered her too much, she still kept (and keeps) in touch with everyone from school, and we left school 16 years ago! I think once you're at uni things shift a bit anyway, and she will meet new friends and also may well find her old friends will move on too.

I'm finding now that I am mid-30s that many of my old school friends are moving back to our home town to be near parents/good schools etc but certainly when I was in my early 20s everyone pretty much moved away (including me for a number of years).

An hour away is nothing anyway - she is able to travel to visit if she wants, she's old enough to do that independently.

I want to do this too! Exactly the same scenario - family needs me and I am too far away.

YANBU - but prepare her for it, don't just spring it on her next summer just before she leaves, or wait until she's gone and spring the fact she needs to come home to sort out her stuff. Give her time to sort out her stuff and pack up what she wants to keep but at your new house. Make sure she has a bedroom with her stuff in there at your new place.

Also be prepared for the fact you'll see less of her than if you stay where you are. If all her friends and her Dad live in your current town, then she might chose to do weekends back from uni at her Dad's house rather than yours if the primary reason for going 'home' is to see her friends.

Im planing to do this as well although i have another 2 years until my DD goes to uni, if she does not go plans might change as we live in London and i cant see her affording to rent her own place her. She and my son are both happy with this, i have stayed here this long for them to be near their friends and Dad.

Personally I would stay put for the time being. Your dd will be going through a huge change and having the security of knowing there is still her old house and room and the town she has known for years to run to if things get tough - or just to come back for a weekend to recharge her batteries in the place she is familiar with and catch up with her friends from school/college is too important. Wait until you know she has moved on emotionally as well as physically

My parents rented my room out when I went off, I came back for reading week at half term and my df picked me up from the station and told me I'd be sleeping in my db's room. Wouldn't have gone home if I'd known. Felt as if I had lost my haven and it was never quite the same after that. Going home for that first Christmas to sleep on the settee instead of in my own bed was truly horrid which is why I'm making a concerted effort not to change too much around here now that ds has gone.

Thanks for all the replies - really helpful. Interesting to see that I'm not the only one planning this...Dontmind it is quite probable that when she comes back for w/ends she might choose to stay at her dad's more, will have to weigh it up. And definitely won't spring it on her as I want to give her plenty of time.

I would seriously stay put: I have heard of numerous folk whose parents moved away from their "home-town" as soon as they went to uni, and they found it really alienating and upsetting. When they come home in the holidays (which are quite significantly long), they would want to be somewhere familiar, where some of their old school-mates have come back to as well. Otherwise, they are coming home to a strange town with no-one they know of their own age to get to know, and they have no desire to invest in the new place either.

Me and the husband want to do this for a couple of years maybe 5 when dd2 decide whats she wants to do just because we fancy it we will probably come back to where we live though my mums here she isn't elderly yet and still working dd2 said she might come with us and dd1 said she will have moved out by then we have at least 2 years to decide, I dont think it is selfish I think you have done everything for your DD and now it is time to move on and do what else you need and want to do

This is my plan. I'm going abroad when DS2 finishes school. If I wait any longer, I will be too old to enjoy myself, and possibly too infirm, since I have a deteriorating health condition.

I think parents often put their lives 'on hold' for their kids, have a right to do things for themselves when those kids have grown and flown.

And I say this as someone who was 'cut off' very dramatically myself: my mum died a week before I went to uni, and my dad had a nervous breakdown and moved house without remembering to tell me. :( Obviously, this was an awful experience, and not one I'd want anyone else to go through - especially not my own children. But if my dad had communicated with me, it would have been ok. Practically, it worked out alright, because friends and friends' parents were always happy to put me up if/when I wanted to visit.

YANBU.
I do not even have the luxury of keeping a room for my child. I have a mesher order so that once my youngest goes off to uni, the family home has to be sold and there will be minimal equity. I will not be able to afford to rent somewhere with 2 beds just so youngest can have a room all year round which he will only use a few weeks of the year. His DF has a spare bedroom so he won't be homeless but it just won't be with me.
I was seriously thinking of relocating somewhere hot as I have lived and worked abroad for a number of years previously.
I am quite shocked at posters who think you should stay put so as not to put your DC nose a tiny bit out of joint!!!

I dont think we have to as parents always be at home for our kids they will be grown up we will always have room for them and it isn't abandoning them imo, we had our children quite young well dd1 so we didnt really do much before hand not that we resent it or her but I do think we are as anybody is entitled to a life after kids,