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*hugs* I don't have kids but I know what you mean. I have a lot of family around and it would be hard to leave it if DH and I had a little one.
When my mom and dad first came here they were away from all their family, but they developed a "surrogate" family of friends and neighbors to help out, who truly are family now--they were all just at my wedding and I had dinner with my "other mother" just last night! She was an old coworker of my mom's who seriously took care of us ALL the time when we were little. Then when she had her little girl, we took care of her. She's like our sister!
We aren't near any family except for one of my cousins. The closest, my parents, are about 4 hours away by car. Truthfully, It's not awful, but we do sometimes wish we had them closer to see Liv grow up and to watch her, etc. Sorry you're so anxious about it :o( if anything, there will be more frequent visits after the baby comes! And they'll cherish the time that much more
I do! It can work nicely. When my oldest was born my grandma called to sing her lullabies every night. I would put the phone in her room on speaker phone and my grandma would sing or hum until she no longer heard my daughter moving around. It was their time. My grandma died shortly after.
My parents call my girls once a week and talk for hours. Though my youngest tries to shove things in the phone to show papa. They get care packages from them every couple of months. When we go to visit, my parents aren't strangers because they make such an effort to be a part of my girls life. Which is nice!
The hard part is that you have to work on building relationships with other people you would trust with your kids. If you end up in the hospital you need someone to turn to quickly. My friends have kept my eldest for two weeks while we were in the hospital with the youngest. We had a half hour to find someone for an indeterminate period of time. Even though life is hectic make time to build strong connections. They are essential when you have no family closeby.
I pray your family goes the extra mile to be a part of your kids lives. Congratulations on your coming baby!
I never lived around extended family throughout my childhood (or now for that matter...). That just meant our vacations (spring break, winter breaks, etc.) were always spent with family. It was just a no-brainer. I think it works out nicely and I'm still extremely close to my aunts, uncles, and cousins.
During football season we do a family football pool so it all makes us stay in touch at least once a week! It's great :)
Our closest family is about 5 hours away, and my in-laws live about 17 hours away by car. To be honest, it's not that big of deal for us. We Skype with our families weekly, and my parents come up to visit at least once a month. My daughter "talks" to them on the phone pretty often and we mail them her pictures or cards. They send a lot of little presents in the mail, too.
To be honest, I think a 5 hour car ride from family is just about the perfect distance for us. My parents are close enough that we can see them on a regular basis, and if we really needed something they could be here pretty quickly. But we get to retain our family autonomy, and we don't have to worry about my parents dropping by unexpectedly or monopolizing our free time. We don't have free babysitting, like we would if family lived close by, but we're so busy as it is we hardly ever have time to go out without our daughter.
I think it can work. My parents moved away from family to get jobs (8 hours away was the closest) and I think it worked ok. Yes it did make for some interesting holiday plans, but we always made it work. In addition to havng my biological grandparents who I saw probably 2 times per year, I had several adopted grandparents in town who I did things with as well who either didn't have children or didn't have granddaughters. It worked out well and I feel plenty of love all around. Adopted grandparents were always there for the school events, graduations, etc even when the biological grandparents couldn't be.
Thank you everyone for your input. It really helps hearing those that are going through the same situation and are making it work. I hope we are lucky enough to be able to find an extended family of sorts here.
My family never even lived in the same state as anyone from our extended family. Every single grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, etc. was a plane ride away. Like everyone else mentioned, we developed a bit of a surrogate family of close friends, but we did tend to stop being in such close contact with them when we moved again. I never missed my extended family when I was younger because I never knew what I was missing, but now that I'm becoming ingratiated with FI's family, I'm discovering all the things I missed: Thanksgiving and Christmas with the whole family, being buddies with cousins, knowing family history, having that crazy uncle who does insane stuff but the family loves anyway... I kind of regret now that I never had any of that while growing up. Like I said, it didn't phase me then, but it's still kind of sad.
I would think that this is probably a good idea! With exception of grand parents and immediate siblings you don't really need any other extended family in the picture. They just tend to make things more difficult for you rather than make life easier. 
I didn't grow up with ANY extended family. My dad was in military, so we were moving around constantly, and it was never a problem for us! We visited grandparents a couple of times a year, except when we were out of the country. We turned out just fine!
I don't have anything to add, because I don't have kids. But I', interested because my entire extended family lives within an hour of each other (with one cousin 4 hours away). I am as close to my cousins as I am my own sister! So the idea of growing up far from family is totally foreign to me, but since Mr.D's family lives in England we will always be away from at least one of our families. So, nothing to add but I appreciate everyone's input and the OP for starting this thread.
We live away from our familes. They come and visit and we try to visit often. We plan to use skype video chat and we hope to move closer within a few years. We know we will never move back to our home town, but we would like to be closer.
Well, I don't have any children and I don't live very far from my parents, but I can tell you all about my own childhood! I was raised here in TN, and the closest that ANY of my family have ever lived to me is 2 hrs. Most of my family lives spread out over NC, with a bunch up in WI as well.
As a child, I always found it weird that some kids lived like, a block away from their grandparents. I always thought that was strange. I kind of just assumed that when people grew up, they moved away. My parents moved around a lot when I was young, and I just assumed that was what people did. And I can tell you, going to visit my grandparents/aunts and uncles/cousins was sooooo much more exciting when it was a "rarer" treat. I have very fond memories of my childhood.
Believe me, your child will be just as close to your/your SO's parents as they would be if they lived closer. I really don't think I missed out on any bonding experiences with my family. And I honestly think my parents would have gone crazy had they lived closer to my grandparents. You can DEFINITELY make it work!!
Well, I'm the oddity here...I find it VERY hard to be as far from family as we are (14 hrs). On a day to day level, I don't mind so much. But when stuff hits the fan (FI sick, child sick blah blah), it's really hard. My FI and I both work full time, on very opposite ends of the city. If there is an emergency, it's crazy, and we have no one really to call on. If our son gets ill, one of us has to take time off (usually me). We miss out on a lot of family functions, which have always been a big part of my life, so that's unfortunate, and I really miss that part. I am extrememly close to my family, and I really find it tough.
But, anything can work if you put your mind to it! And it is very important to form a social group, FI and I have not really done that, and it sucks.
When we have kids, my parents and his parents will be at least a 5-6 hour airplane ride away. I do have an uncle who lives in CA but that's about 17 hour car ride away or 1-2 hr flight away.
Yeah, I know it's going to be hard but I think we can do it.
My parents brought us up in Indonesia, and our extended family was all in New Zealand and Australia, so we only got to see them every three years. I thought that was just the way things were for everyone back then, and even though we didnt see them much we still managed to have close relationships with our grandparents. I cant say the same for aunts, uncles, and cousins though. I dont feel like I know them very well. However, in Indonesia we were very close with other families and called them aunt, uncle, etc, so I never felt like I was missing out. Now that I have married an American, wherever we end up living we will be raising our kids away from at least one side of the family, but, in my experience, that wont be too bad. Skype, etc, has made communication so much easier now for families who live far apart.
we're in that boat. we just had our first baby and we live in georgia - my parents are in pennsylvania and dh's family is in minnesota. we also have older siblings that live in california and michigan.
throughout my pregnancy, the distance really brought me down. we have both always been super independent and content with one or two family visits per year. we love our families but we also enjoy our own space and building our own life! but with a baby in the picture, we're both sad at the thought of our children not being as close to their grandparents and aunts and uncles as we were. my extended family was about 45 mins away growing up, which meant every holiday and several weekends throughout the year were spent with grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins. dh lived in the same (small) town as all of his extended family, so they were all super close. so it's weird for both of us to realize that our babies just won't have that.
finding childcare for when i return to work took a lot more work and feels more like a shot in the dark too - i would have loved if my retired parents could watch our baby for the first year at least, or at least recommend an old family friend looking to be a nanny. without family close by, that part definitely feels more uncomfortable.
on the other hand, in the weeks after the baby was born, we had a rolling roster of family members coming to visit for weeks at a time. it was nice to have the help and support, but it was also nice knowing that once we got the hang of things we would have our home to ourselves again! i personally like having that space most of the time. plus we skype with family members weekly and post lots of photos and videos on youtube so our families can watch the baby grow from afar - technology def makes staying in touch easier.
like a pp said, we will most likely make trips to our home towns our main family vacations, and each of our families will probably travel to us 1-2 times per year. so our kids will get to see their extended families several times a year.
PLUS we both realize that even though we own our home now, we may move closer to one of our sets of parents at some point. nothing is permanent :)
This is something I really worry about. DH and I live in Australia and the only family member we have around is DH's brother, although he's talking about moving to London in the near future. DH's parents moved back to the UK just before our wedding and my family is in the States, so when we have children, we'll be a 24 hr flight from his family and a 20 hr flight from my family. It does make me nervous....
We're also moving to a new town next month and will be a 6 hr drive from the good friends we have here (DH moved to Aus when he was 4 so he has a pretty good network of friends here). We're planning on TTC in the next couple of months but it's a bit hard accepting that DH and I are going to be completely alone as we go through the process.
On the plus side, last minute airfares from the US aren't any more expensive than airfares booked far in advance, so we can fly my mom and dad out soon after our future baby is born. :-)
@Marriedandlovingit: :( We're there too. We live near zero family members and both have big families. Ah, the *joys* of military life. We also don't live on base, so I've been really isolated.
I think I need to read and absorb all the lovely advice from the PPs. Thanks for starting this thread!
Us. *raises hand*
We live 2.5 hours from the closest family and 4hours from my parents. the rest of our extended family is between 10 & 30+hours (driving) away.
It's hard not to have the fam close by, we cant just swing by grandma and grandpas, cant have impromptu family get-togethers, there's no emergency support system to speak of and it makes holidays ridiculously hectic and stressful.
It's a love hate relationship; while it is nice to have all our family at arms length (they can't just show up unannounced) it is difficult for both myself and my husband because we come from very large, very family oriented families & growing up it was all about family gatherings with food and tons of kids running around, which is something we feel our Only is somewhat missing out on.
It's also really hard to please everyone, we've already had 4-5 phone calls from family asking us where we're going for Thanksgiving.. it can be hard to tell folks that maybe, just maybe, we might be staying home this year.
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Just something I've been thinking about lately now that I am pregnant. Are there people here that are raising a family without having extended family living nearby? Is it difficult?
It's something I have been struggling with. We live in the south and our families live in the midwest. The thought of having to raise our children away from our extended family is bringing me down.