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Comment by einarvollset | Hacker News Reader

Give your mum a call (you’re clearly young, so she’s likely alive), tell her that she has to move to somewhere 5x cheaper. There are lots of places all over the world that would make sense. I understand why that might be uncomfortable for her - that doesn’t mean i should give her one ounce of sympathy. Amirite?

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Plenty of people move for economic reasons in the transition to retirement. You're exactly right to put this kind of economic trend in personal terms - we should seek to do this. Nonetheless, I feel like a reference to "your mum" is more intended to shut down the conversation than anything else. I speak for plenty of people when I say that my own parents moved cities as they retired.

For many of those who move for retirement, the place they most love doesn't perfectly align when the best place to work and raise children. That makes it an easy decision. My parents moved to a place with more family, lower cost of living, and easier access to commercial areas. The fact that it is hard to find a job in this place no longer played a major role.

Sure, there are people living in Berkley and NYC who LOVE those places and want to die there. Still... that's not necessarily representative or even common. Many people move further away from urban centers even when starting a family.

"Hey Mom, you have been complaining for years how expensive it is to live there. Why don't you move to a smaller town close to us where a fixed income will stretch a lot further, crime will be lower, and it'll be easier for you to get out. The kids would love to get to spend more time with you. We can help you get to your doctor appointments. It'd just be better all around."

Unconscionable!

Further, making financial decisions based on a plan with facts and figures rather than mere emotion is what responsible people do.

My mom has moved plenty of times in her life. It's not like moving is a crazy abnormality—tons of people move when they retire.

Of course - but if you worked hard all your life to live in a place that YOU like, I think it would be quite hard to accept someone else telling you to move,no?

Sorry, the subject at hand is whether the grandparent commenter's mum should be forced to accept a legal subdivision in her neighborhood which will likely make parking a little harder and just perhaps could reduce the growth rate of her real estate holdings via dilution effects.

And the answer is "yes". Come on.

> Give your mum a call (you’re clearly young, so she’s likely alive)

This was unnecessary. Don't make attempts to map a person's opinion to their age. That's a first step towards implicitly invalidating their opinion because of their age, which isn't a substantive rebuttal.

Ad hominem argument, yes.

"you’re clearly young, so she’s likely alive" <-- why the youth-based insult here when you could have made your point easily without it.

This is something I never really understood. Because you have money (and maybe only marginally more money) some people feel your fear/suffering etc are trivial. I don't think money really makes it any less. While you might have better access to therapy or distraction peoples hurt is real. For example I thought it was kind of shitty when people were crucifying Notch after he expressed personal/emotional problems he was having.

My parents are divorced and both moved to separate cities away from the coast when they retired (Mom went to Illinois, Dad's in the Cascade Mountains). The move hasn't been terribly good or bad for either of them (although my dad is probably happier in hill country).

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