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Living Far from Family

Posted 28th January 2008 by el-e-e

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It's so hard to live in a town that's not close to any other family members. My son was sick yesterday with fever, so of course I can't take him to daycare today. However, he feels FINE now and just needs to have someone spend the day with him. If we lived near either set of grandparents, voila. It would be so easy. But we don't -- we chose colleges 5 hours away from our parents and then got jobs here. I wonder why it's so honorable and respected in our culture to move away from family? Seems like we need to go back to staying together.





4 comments so far...

  • You are lucky to have grandparents that are able to help... Ours are not all that helpful and they do live close :(

    Flag as inappropriate Posted by Victoria on 28th January 2008

  • I hear you! My family lives in three different states (with the closest relative about 8 hours away). It is soo incredibly difficult when family is not close by. (I was so desperate when caring for my newborn, that I flew two different relatives out over a 2-month period.) In another 1.5 years, we will be up for a (military) assignment in the same CITY as my sister/her family. I not really a politico, but I've already started campaigning for that spot. (Recently I wrote my boss an email telling him that we bought a new car and the salesman told us that every fourth car in Colorado is our new car, and so "we have the car. we just need the assignment." ha ha.

    Flag as inappropriate Posted by KC on 28th January 2008

  • I know just how you feel and my in-laws (whom I love) live only 45 minutes away. It's close but just far enough to be inconvenient. We're working on all living closer.

    Flag as inappropriate Posted by Mandy Nelson - Dandysound on 28th January 2008

  • We live far from our families, too. When I was growing up, I thought that was normal -- my mother's parents lived in India, my father's parents were in Haiti, and we grew up in NJ. But my brother moved back to our hometown a few years ago, and is right around the corner from my parents, and I really do now see why so many people choose to stay close to wherever their parents are. All that free childcare and the automatic support network!

    Flag as inappropriate Posted by Lylah M. Alphonse on 28th January 2008

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