Parent time
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We’ve been afar two years now. It’s a short flight (2 hrs) and my parents live quite close to the airport, so we see them about four times a year.
This is still not enough but their plan is to move where we are once they can retire in 2 or so years.
What’s been hardest is parenting without parental support. Wife and I have had to really make an effort to build community with our neighbours, school parents, etc. In two years we have built a good foundation, which is a life saver! It really does take a village and I feel we’ve forgotten how to form that village. (The challenge was exacerbated due to COVID lockdowns)
Hardest days are long weekend holidays when all the neighbours and friends go visit family (nearby). It’s usually not worth for us to fly so we stay in the quiet city. Sometimes it’s great, other times it’s hard and I miss my family.
Either way, we just booked Christmas flights and we’ll be with them for two weeks. I’m looking forward to it.
My wife and I followed my parents to the low-COL city where they retired, and, while it's been nice to see them somewhat frequently, we were a little dismayed to discover that they kind of feel like they've "done their time" and don't take my son nearly as much as we'd like.
Maybe we just don't ask enough, I don't know.
I've resolved to be the opposite kind of grandparent. I really don't have a lot more I want to do later in life than spend time with the grandchildren I will hopefully have. I like my time alone and plan to travel extensively, but picking kids up from school, spending weekends with them 1-on-1, getting lost and doing interesting things are the magic of a childhood.
As a working parent we are burdened with so much other stuff it's hard to truly enjoy the simplicity of being around a child. I plan to shrug off all my other responsibilities and just enjoy it for what it is.
Writing this as parent, having small toddler, leaving abroad, far from both mine and wife's parents. It is harder without support, but manageable.
I was just curious. It seemed stantaylor was happy the kids were out of the house. I was wondering why they were in the house to begin with.
> people deserve also "me time"
Of course, to each their own. Not having kids is a good way to have a lot of "me time".
> As we settled in, George asked about my life and how I was feeling.
> “I’m good. Busy!"
> He stared blankly through my empty words.
> Feeling the pressure of his gaze, I adjusted myself and added that living in California had begun to wear on me, it being so far from my parents on the East Coast.
> George: “How often do you see your parents?"
> Me: “Maybe once a year now.”
> George: “And how old are they?"
> Me: “Mid-sixties."
> George: “Ok, so you’re going to see them 15 more times before they die.”
...
> It wasn’t meant to be rude—it was just…math.
There's something to think about in all this but I really can't get over imagining what a weird dude George is.
It surprised me how hard this hit them, and that they've talked about it many times since then because yeah, its just a little strategic thinking about the world.
Sure, there could be back story that fed that interaction, but I'm betting that didn't happen and it is a way of framing an unpopular decision in a flattering light.
I only know this because when I saw these people two years later they had an extra kid in tow and thanked me for convincing them to make a plunge. I have no idea what I said, but they were adamant that I shoved them over the fence.
Another time I got a kid in undergrad admit to me that he wasn't going to the job fairs because he was expected to go to grad school.
I pointed out to him that applying to a job is a skill, and a hard one at that. I also told him that just because you apply for a job doesn't mean you'll take it. His jaw dropped at that realization (he's first gen Korean-American).
If you want to be George all you need to do is say basic, obvious, truths everyone pretends to ignore.
Unless he's a real estate agent.
Making perhaps unpleasant but relevant and topical observations that help a friend isn't weird. It's charitable. The author brought up the fact that he would like to see his parents more often. George simply threw some light on the obvious in order to help a friend who is waffling and hesitating and wasting time instead of making the right decision. It was an obvious inference based on the stated facts and an important thing for the author to understand so that he could live a better life. It wasn't arbitrary, it wasn't nosy or intrusive or rude (if the author's story is accurate).
It's of course quite pointless to speculate about the truth or fiction of an Internet story starring people you don't know.
I wonder about the people who think it's implausible however. Do you never discuss difficult things with your friends? Whether to marry the girl/guy/human, how many times you'll see your parents again, how's your cousin's health, that kind of thing?
That's supposed to be normal, I worry that what y'all would call friends is what I would call colleagues or casual acquaintances.
I genuinely plan on mentioning this to my wife this evening. Not in a "let's move to live near my parents" way, but just as a way of bringing up that time is valuable.
If she then mentions to someone that I said this, will they say "I don't believe you, I've heard this story before?"
Then again, it could be true. More likely to come up in conversation since people are reading it everywhere.
I could easily see more blunt-autistic types being so practical, straight-forward though.
It demonstrated that many of us have already spent between 95-99% of the time we will see our parents.
Eg:
* presume your parents have you at ~30
* Live at home 18years x 365 days per year = 6570 days
* You see them a week per year for the remainder of their life = 50 years * 7 days per year = 350 days
therefore at 19yrs old you have 350/(6570+350) days remaining ~= 5%
1) quality of the time spent (I have more meaningful conversations in a couple of hours now, than months as a child + much of that time was spent administratively / logistically)
2) voice / video / text communication is not meaningless (I’ve lived >1,500 miles from my parents for the past ~12 years, but on average probably talk to them one a week? Those conversations matter, and shouldn’t be discarded for in-person time)
I use the word conversation as a short hand for being present with someone.
Just look around a restaurant and see families eating a meal together where some or all of them are lost in their phones/devices, in some respects those people are having dinner on their own.
Put another way, I’ve seen plenty parents that are physically present, and emotionally absent, and other parents that may have have less physical hours spent with a child, but are more are more present and involved in their lives.
Call/text/etc your parents.
> It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.
Around that time, I attended an offsite of a larger private equity firm and there was a organizational psychologist who gave a talk on work life balance. He said something I'll never forget. He said that you have about ten to twelve years to connect with your kids and then they turn into teenagers, tune you out, then turn into adults and build their own lives. I thought about my kids who were five, three, and a baby and realized that time was short and I needed to be present in their lives in every way that I could.
And maybe you make them take care of your children.
Sounds less bleak that way.
Doesn't make the insight less valuable, though
ETA: One set of parents could have moved from east coast to west. They had enough savings and could have found a modest place in a nice peripheral location. We had good SV jobs and would have helped them. They never really liked where they lived, never made the most of it, and only stayed there out of inertia; I hated the weather and sprawly shabbiness, would never have moved back. We spent a lot of time looking for nice places for them and got a lot of excuses.
Our jobs became fully remote. The other set of parents got sick. So we moved to their clean, quiet, beautiful, small town in the northern UK. It sucks, you’d hate it, stay away.
This despite me going back to see varying people roughly twice per year. I've sadly learned that many of those relationships are a one way street of convenience. They're happy to see me when I come, to walk down memory lane. But they'll never put in the effort to come see me. Sadly this realization has been the demise of many of those relationships that I was carrying.
Also, too, sometimes the strength of the relationship is in a shared context — like co-workers. When a co-worker moves on, goes to another company, retires, there is less to chat about were you to meet up later, less shared context.
Your oldest friends though will often always have that shared context of having grown up with you in the same environment, same "era". You act as a foil to one another in the degree to which you turned out differently (also to the degree you stayed similar). Your eyes and theirs will gaze upon the same landscape from the same vantage point: "Look at those kids and their phones, we were out riding bikes when we were their age." (Ha ha, etc.)
I get a few visits just because I'm at a large crossroads and a good driving distance away to stop for the night. (they might go a few more hours if I didn't live here, but since they can have supper with me that makes stopping here worth it.
I have a friend who moved to Switzerland for example, being from Argentina it's impossible for me and almost anyone else to go there and visit him, but he chose that
If they could afford to move to SF they could also afford to fly to SF to visit. The author would already see them more than once a year.
Selling the east coast house and coming up with an extra $400k (wild guestimate) to move to SF is not spare change most people have lying around.
just sayin'
My grandparents lived around two and a half hours away from their daughter (my mother) and I and half an hour away from their son (my uncle). We were pretty poor after the financial crisis so it meant we could only really go visit once or twice a year. My uncle was away a lot (works in the military) so they didn’t get particularly frequent visits from him. We asked them to move closer to us, but neither of them liked change and my grandfather was fond of the view.
My grandfather ended up getting ill and dying. We only got to see him a few times between diagnosis to death because of how far away they were. My grandmother ended up living alone in the house for about two years and getting Parkinsons. She’s now bed bound in a care home, again with hardly any visits because of how far away she is and the fact that we’re still not financially recovered, even after all this time. This whole sorry state of affairs could have been avoided if they just decided to move closer to us. They had more than enough resources to do so. But no. Primarily because they didn’t like change and my grandfather liked looking at the sunset over some hills.
To anyone reading this, do not bury your head in the sand about the realities of aging and dying unless you want to end up living a similarly tragic story.
Personally, if I’m in terminal decline and have enough forewarning and ability left to do something about it, I think I’d be inclined to take myself out of the game and save my family the pain of having to spend thousands on care costs and watch me slowly wither away. I’d rather go out on my own terms with a bit of dignity and for my family to spend the extra inheritance money on whatever they want. But obviously that is a very personal decision and I wouldn’t ever cast judgement on someone for being for or against it. I will however, cast some judgement if you’re past seventy and burying your head in the sand about what’s coming down the pipeline rather than having a plan in place to lessen the burden placed on your loved ones.
Yep, that's really it. Just had something come down the pipeline today :(
And that’s presuming the reason for the financial distress is work related. There are tons of other reasons why someone might be in a poor financial situation. Maybe their spouse left them or died and now they’re a single parent. Maybe they’re a victim of fraud. Maybe they lost their house in a wildfire. Literally thousands of reasons.
Or should children just be happy to not have their own interests in life and instead just be slaves to whatever their parents wish until the parents die and the children are finally released of their bonds?
Leaving the community you grew up in to live in a tiny rental home while your kid dodges junkies' used needles in the playground just so you cam afford to take a vacation in Aruba is a uniquely modern phenomenon.
Ironically, living near family is a privilege that wealthier and more educated people are less likely to enjoy. My wife’s family pretty much all lives within a 2 hour radius of the old family homestead on the Oregon coast. Holidays are great—we just rent an AirBnB and everyone comes and visits.
A few months later my parents _bought the house next to ours_, and our lives are incredible: We support each other and enrich each other's lives, we feel like we've made incredible leaps in our relationships. We now have a kid on the way and my parents are ecstatic to be so close to us as we start this next chapter of our lives. None of this would be possible without the ability to be remote.
If I were you, I’d be deeply concerned about only having 15 years left to yourself. Enjoy hell while it’s still warm and toasty down there.
My kids are still young (10, 6, and 6), and my parents are in their early 60's. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, my kids will spend the majority of their childhood with nearly daily time spent with their grandparents. Similarly, a lot of end of life questions/complexities are already answered. My parents are in a home where they can age in place and we can provide care for them when their needs increase over the coming decades.
I had some reservations, if I'm being honest (it was my wife and my mom who were the primary drivers of the plan), but having spent ~2.5 years in this arrangement so far, I really wouldn't trade it for anything.
It is natural to fly the nest. The ridiculous housing market that is forcing generations to live together is not. In tribal cultures, when people come of age the tribe comes together to build them a hut. In modern societies, you come of age and it’s “Get lost, I don’t want any houses built round here or my house price will go down. You can get a house when you inherit one or earn one. Now get to work serving me and don’t complain that your earnings are far outstripped by house price, rent and utility inflation.”
Live close to your parents by all means, that’s probably the sweet spot for most. But what really is the point of modern societies if we can’t even replicate things our ancestors had long solved? For the love of god can someone sort the fucking house crisis out.
To make matters worse, I don’t even think I’ll get five more years with my mother, let alone fifteen. She’s 70 and has quite severe COPD that puts her in the hospital with some regularity (yay, smoking). So I probably should visit her more often, while I can.
Anyway, this makes me a bit sad considering I've recently moved a 15 hour drive away from my parents. Happy that they have a guest room and for remote work though.
It also makes me ponder the differences in western culture and other places. I know in some cultures family is much more integrated, e.g. the grandparents move-in instead of sending them to a home or something.
I love my city life but I do sometimes imagine living in a compound with my close family. I think it would be tolerable if everyone had their own space but was close in proximity.
Few months down, my father passed away. Complications that could have been prevented had he got treated early (he hid it because "didn't want to trouble us", typical asian parents).
My whole world turned upside down. I booked flights for the whole year to return home at least once a month. I treated my my mom and sisters family trips overseas. I didn't save up.
Few years forward, everyone's married and we can't travel together anymore, and my mom is very old. And now I'm saving up for my own family.
I'd probably richer had I saved up earlier, but I don't regret my decision.
It isn't possible because my family is scattered to the four winds. Various siblings are all over the world. It also isn't possible because the world has grown so hostile. I'm trans so living near my parents would be at best uncomfortable for me, at worst it would be dangerous, and soon possibly illegal (banning access to hormones, etc).
Here is one of such "insightful" reels.
https://youtube.com/shorts/kgPTJKwh6vc?feature=share
There are a million of these floating around.
It’s sad, because I’ve come to realize the asshole I was to my parents and I cannot help them now to make up for it.
Fortunately we have my wife’s warm side of the family as a counterbalance.
But those posts are most striking and upends my entire view on life.
They live about 150km away from me. Because it’s a relative long distance they will always sleep over when they come (and me when I go to them), and we get to spend the weekend together in one house.
My brother, who lives in the same city, meets them more often but for just an evening or afternoon. He always complains I get to spend more time with them even though he lives 10m away.
BTW, I realize that 150km would be “close” for US and other big countries. In the Netherlands that’s the difference between east and west. :-)
I grew up in Mississippi. I knew from childhood I would leave, because even in the pre-Trump era it was dominated by an ugly, reactionary, racist, homophobic, and sexist brand of conservatism -- blended with a side order of "Lost Cause" romanticism about the Civil War. It is, to be super super clear, a toxic place I yearned to escape from.
(It should probably tell you something that the more urbane, cosmopolitan, tolerant, and diverse city I've made my home in for nearly 30 years is in Texas. When Texas is trading up, you KNOW you started low.)
The author is privileged that his parents live in a reasonable place.
Yes, there is a poor standard of living in many areas, but there's also an amazingly rich cultural history (not just for whites).
The problem is you are choosing to view an entire state strictly through the lens of politics when there are different groups, viewpoints, and communities to be a part of outside of the "conservative" ones you despise.
You come across as the privileged one tbh in that you can afford to leave and move on to better opportunities in different regions. Many of the poorest people in the nation live in MS and they could use our help rather than our condemnations.
You have a weird measure of diversity; I suspect what you really mean is "nonwhite people," but that's not a very good metric on its own. Per census.gov, Vicksburg and Austin are about equivalent in terms of racial demographic split.
Vicksburg is about 2/3 black and 1/3 white, with little else in the mix.
Austin is about 2/3 white and 1/3 hispanic, with little else in the mix.
Where I live -- Houston -- puts both to shame in terms of demographic mix. There is nowhere in Mississippi that approaches the makeup of a city like Houston.
I left on the strength of scholarships, so yeah, privilege in some ways, but probably not the way you meant.
I stand by my assessment of Mississippi. Does that mean there aren't pocket communities that are tolerant and progressive? Obviously not. But you have only to look at the fortunes of the state itself to see how little power those pockets have. Does Jackson have drinkable water yet?
>Many of the poorest people in the nation live in MS and they could use our help rather than our condemnations.
This part is true, but other than voting for Federal policies that constrain rogue, reactionary state governments there's little one can do. The Trumpist majority controls the Magnolia state, and is likely to keep doing so. I was unwilling to live my life under such conditions.
You preach tolerance and reasonableness, and paint (at least) 10% of the US population as with the same brush.