[dclowd9901]

And they kept saying "I didn't want to uproot my family blah blah." Is there no value in exposing your children to unique and different experiences? I'll have failed if my kids grew up in the same town/city all their lives.

[iamphilrae]

I grew up in the same small Scottish town my whole life, as did all my friends. I'm now 32, live in London, have travelled the world, but best of all, I still very regularly see my old school friends. Giving kids culture growing up is one thing, but giving them the gift of being friends with the same people since they were 3 is amazing. My uni friends have come and gone, I barely see them, but I see my old school mates every few weeks and every time it's full of laughter and reminiscing from a lifetime together.

My dad worked in the oil business in the 80s and 90s and spent months at a time in places like Saudi, Norway, etc. In hindsight, I would never have wanted to move around with him as a kid. Sure I would have liked him at home more, but at least we all knew where home was.

[brianmcc]

+1 for small Scottish town :-)

we want our daughters to have exactly that, it's great to see our 2-year-old make friends that she could reasonably expect to finish High School with, and that might even last a lifetime

[tsotha]

I agree with this. My dad was in the military, and we moved every three or four years. I was always jealous of kids who had lifelong friends, and tired of always being the new guy.

[dclowd9901]

Its unrealistic to have expected to make lifelong friends with people whose only commonality you have is where you grew up.

[tsotha]

And yet a lot of people do just that.

[shalmanese]

Different strokes. We moved all over the place as a kid and I felt like it immensely broadened my horizons and gave me a richer life. I feel like I learned a great deal of humility through the experience, seeing radically different world views contrasted side by side gave me the ability to dissect my own beliefs and know just how fallible they could be.

[dba7dba]

>> I'll have failed if my kids grew up in the same town/city all their lives.

I grew up in a family that had to move around a lot, to the point where I attended 3 different elementary schools, 2 different junior highs and 1 high school. We were not rich but poor. And I SO WISH I had grown up in same neighborhood so that I could've have made some friends in my childhood.

You can go live in different towns/cities when you are older. For kids, I highly recommend for kids to have stable environment with mostly same friends at least until college time.

[voidz]

I agree, having grown up similarly. It's very important to be able to grow roots. Not being able to because of frequently relocating can cause a permanent feeling of being disconnected throughout adult lifehood as a result.

[dclowd9901]

News flash: I grew up in the same area for 30 years and still feel disconnected. What you're experiencing is ennui.

[voidz]

No, that's what you're experiencing I think. And 'news flash' makes you sound very condescending, can't help but wonder if this was intended.

Anyway, you might feel disconnected. I actually was disconnected, multiple times, from my friends, environment, and had no other possibility but to start from scratch. So I don't even understand why you feel the need to compare, to be honest.

[saiya-jin]

fully agree, stability first. mine story is similar. one can travel for rest of his/her life if wanted, but friends from childhood/teenage years are often something special and irreplaceable in life. if you don't nourish those relationships, usually they fade away.

you're not doing anybody any favor dragging kids around the world because of your crappy career goals, it's just being selfish.

If you want to be super good parent, take them each year for a month long vacation somewhere far and exotic (ie very different than their usual environment), that's more than enough.

[Terr_]

It isn't just geographical either: I spent many formative years in a single school-system as an expatriate in Hong Kong... But despite being a long-term resident everybody else (or at least, those who spoke English and went to my school) kept cycling in and out. (Executives' kids, military service-members' kids, etc.) I wouldn't be surprised if the yearly turnover was 10-25%.

[cafard]

I don't think that moving a thousand miles or so between 8th and 9th grade was that helpful for me. I suspect that for a lot of the people who make such moves, it is a matter of moving from one suburb to another, with fairly nuanced differences in outlook.

[x5n1]

Depends on kids, some adjust very well some not well at all. If they don't adjust well you are abusing them and creating psychological problems that will haunt them for many years to come.