<p>My daughter is going to attend ND this fall; it took us about 8 hour to drive there when we first visited. There are job offers available for my husband and I in Michigan, where is much closer to ND (3 hours driving). Should we consider about it?</p>
<p>I would say yes if you don’t have other children at home. We are thinking of moving if our son goes to out-of-state college because our younger son is only 8. We would like them to stay close together.</p>
<p>Don’t move unless you sell your house first!</p>
<p>Wait a year and make sure your daughter is going to stay where she is before you move unless you were planning a move anyways. I would think long and hard about moving just yet - I know a lot of college kids who have a difficult time when their parents move their first year away because they can’t come “home.” They love to be in their old rooms, drive their old streets, run into neighbors at the store, etc.</p>
<p>^ Agreed. If your primary motivation is being nearer your daughter’s school, moving in her first year could also put a lot of pressure on her.</p>
<p>I assume that you’ve discussed this with your daughter, and that she would be okay with your moving closer? Personally, I loved my college, but disliked a lot of the region in which it was located. I couldn’t wait to get back to my own area, and I appreciated having my family there to anchor me. That said, I was a 6+hr drive, but a pretty cheap and easy flight away, so travel between home and school didn’t always have to be a huge hassle.</p>
<p>Just make sure that you’re all on the same page. If there are other big reasons for moving, then that’s one thing, but if your daughter’s location is a (or the) major factor, make sure she’s on board :)</p>
<p>Do you like your current jobs? Your current neighborhood? Do you have other friends and family in your current hometown or in Michigan? How will you feel if four years after moving your daughter graduates and decides to go live in California, England, China, or your current hometown? </p>
<p>In terms of getting home, does your daughter have a car that she can drive and bring to campus with her? Are cheap flights home available?</p>
<p>I’ll also second post #4. I know people whose parents have moved right after they start college, and none of them have been happy about it.</p>
<p>First year students long to come HOME with familiar friends, faces, and hangouts. Knowing you have somewhere to return to sometimes makes going away easier.</p>
<p>I had a roommate who’s family moved fall of our freshman year and she went to the new place over Christmas break. She was in shock about the whole thing and took quite a while to get over it. She would say, “I thought my mom might turn my room into an exercise or sewing room, but I didn’t think she would take away my entire house.”</p>
<p>What will you do if your daughter, 3 or 4 years after you move to Michigan, chooses to take a job or go to grad school in Florida, Texas or California ?</p>
<p>What will you and your son give up by moving now? Jobs/neighbors/ connections/friends?</p>
<p>I feel much like Corr in post 6. I’d go on to say, Don’t consider d’s college as a motivator. If it’s in your best interest to move do it; if not, then don’t. To me, moving specifically to follow the (soon-to-be) adult child you’ve raised seems silly. To stay so that student can come back to “old home” seems just as silly.
One has to assume you’ve raised this child as best as you can to be a happy, self-supporting, productive member of society. So let her become that. Just as it’s her time to start making adult choices based on her needs and wants, with her out now it’s your time to make choices based on your needs and wants.</p>
<p>After D left for college in SoCal (where S also went to school and now lives) in '05, H and I seriously considered relocating there - there were some appealing job opps. D was appalled b/c she has close friends from elementary and HS and couldn’t fathom coming “home” to a strange neighborhood. (Also, she didn’t especially like the idea that we could be living much closer to where she was!) We made the decision to stay put at least until after she’s graduated. Emotional ties can run deep, so it’s important to meet your D’s needs as well as your own. Would you be leaving strong friendships/family? And atomom’s advice is very sound - the real estate market could put a damper on relocation plans.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>We have been thinking to move during my daughter’s freshmen year,and we did have very good job offers,but we did not move because we would like she finishs her high school.We are both not happy with our current jobs and think now it is time for us to move.</p>
<p>I would be wary of moving to a location (or closer to) where my child was attending college, if that was the primary reason I was moving there. Your child will graduate and most likely herself move from South Bend. Are you going to move again to her new location when she does? And what if she moves to yet another location after that?</p>
<p>If you truly have legitimate reasons for moving closer that go beyond wanting to be near your daughter, then by all means, go for it!!</p>
<p>MY sons would have hated that LOL. They wanted to to head out and not have us tagging along.</p>
<p>They enjoy coming home and seeing old friends who went to different schools in the summer which would not happen if we moved.</p>
<p>Move for your career, health, and retirement reasons not to follow the kids around the country. I agree with others who knows where they will transfer to move to when they graduate.</p>
<p>Every family is different; but I would consider these thoughts/questions before making such a move (in addition to those others have already suggested):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Your child may have selected that college in part because it IS 8 hours away. Not that s/he doesn’t love you, but that she wanted the independence of being a long way away for whatever reason(s).</p></li>
<li><p>A move can be a big adjustment. If yours goes roughly, or even just not as smoothly as you anticipate, your child may feel responsible or guilty about stresses created by the move. Even if you try to take care not to overtly share any concerns arising from such a move.</p></li>
<li><p>Your child may feel that you do not trust that s/he can negotiate this life transition on her own and that you feel you need to be close at hand. This can have the unanticipated consequence of diminishing to some degree his or her confidence. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I realize that you are thinking of moving 3 hours away, not next door, lol; so that mitigates some of what I am suggesting. I also realize that I am bringing up the possible negative consequences when there could be as many or more positive ones. Just food for thought.</p>
<p>My parents moved multiple times, soon after my sibs and I graduated from high school. We all agreed that we came home to visit them LESS than our friends went home to see their parents, because their new houses weren’t our homes. Also, there were no highschool friends, familiar haunts, etc. to draw us back. </p>
<p>Selfishly, our long term plan is to stay put and hope they come back to visit often, whether it’s DH and me or their buddies, and that they want their children to experience some of the same hikes, ski hills, and backdoor float trips that they did growing up. </p>
<p>Maybe some who are willing to make a change at this stage don’t have those strong ties to “place” that I seem to, or if family/home life wasn’t a particularly pleasant memory, this is a chance at a fresh start. Perhaps I’m overthinking this part…</p>
<p>Even tho I’m about to get on a plane for my Michigan 4th of July vacation…isn’t the economy terribly depressed in Michigan and are you sure that would be the wisest move financially? And although it’s a buyer’s market and prices are depressed, you’d have real issues selling, if you decided to follow your daughter once again.</p>
<p>Don’t move. Your D needs some space. Save the money you’d spend on a move for plane tickets to visit her once or twice a year, and to fly her home for holidays. If she has friends and a sense of home where you now live, your moving will only upset her equilibrium and sense of groundedness, and put pressure on her to come home more often than would otherwise be the case—and possibly more than is healthy for her to adjust to college life and throw herself into her studies and campus activities. And where will it leave you when she graduates in four years, and moves beyond South Bend? It’s just a bad idea all around. Hard as it may be to accept, the start of college is a time for parents to let go a little and accept that their kids are starting out on their own. Be supportive and keep the channels of cummunication open; that’s the appropriate way to remain a part of her life, and to keep her a part of yours. A physical move in unnecessary, and possibly counterproductive.</p>
<p>Nuttiest idea I have heard in some time.</p>
<p>Decide where you want to live and work based on your own long-term best interests, not the transitory advantage of being closer to your daughter’s college. You can’t move the nest every time she flies farther from it!</p>
<p>We live in CA. If we drive 8 hours, we are still in the state; eg Bay area kids going to school in San Diego area. It’s really not too far.</p>