[nerdjon]

This just seems insane to me.

I purposefully graduated early from highschool (1 semester less and it only worked because of where my birthday was) to move 853 miles from where I grew up to where I currently live. My partner did a similar move (before we met).

When I talk to most of my friends it is a similar story.

I just can't imagine not wanting to explore a new area and have distance from your parents. I love my parents, we talk a couple times a week, but I don't need them physically close to me. (last couple years being the exception for obvious reasons).

Maybe this is because I am gay and I needed out of the south (as are many of my friends), I also wanted to move to an urban city like so many in my generation.

This just seems insane for me to think about.

[atomicnumber3]

Here's my 2c (I'm 30 for the record):

I was born in a flyover state. There's ~no coding jobs here, and the ones that are here, pay pittances compared to anywhere not adjacent to a (feed)corn field.

I moved 250 miles away (to the other side of my state... dang is the US huge) to take a tech job that payed closer to what coastal companies will pay.

The next step was probably to move to Seattle or SF and take a "real" tech job there. But two things happened at the same time:

1. remote work really grew up. now I can work from anywhere and (mostly. geo-adjusting etc. luckily that seems to be on the decline.) get paid well.

2. We had our first child. Now suddenly close access to our support network (parents etc) is both logistically important ("hey mom can you watch the kids for a weekend so we can sleep") and emotionally important (grandparents getting to see the kids every weekend or two instead of significantly less often).

So now instead of looking to move an additional 2k miles away, I moved back to be ~2 miles from one set of parents and ~20 miles from the other set.

I'm not really thrilled about the local jobs or local politics etc. But family is incredibly important to have physically close, and so here I am. Thank heavens for remote coding jobs.

[nop_slide]

As a new father I'm dealing with this scenario in my head. We only live 3 hours from our parents but the topic of moving back has come up multiple times.

I feel like I would lose a little bit of my soul moving back to my hometown, but like you said the support network is extremely important.

Not sure what we're going to do.

[piyh]

Seconding this as my exact scenario too.

[why5s]

> I just can't imagine not wanting to explore a new area and have distance from your parents. I love my parents, we talk a couple times a week, but I don't need them physically close to me. (last couple years being the exception for obvious reasons).

We want to. But between housing prices and student loans, we can't afford to.

[bluGill]

I've live many hours away from my parents, and I no consider it insane to do so. When I lived with my parents I could make a few phone calls and have a dozen people on my roof - now if there is a problem I have to pay a crew even though I know how to do the work (since there are things that cannot be done alone) When my wife and I want a date - too bad: there is no babysitter nearby that will work on Friday night that we trust, so we don't have that option. There are many other similar things about being close to family that I miss.

I enjoy exploring the world. However eventually I want to come back home.

[caned]

> However eventually I want to come back home.

Make a move before it's too late. Or convince them to move close to you.

If you love being with your parents, your window of doing so is fast shrinking.

I wish I had understood this sooner.

[bluGill]

My dad is already gone, I know exactly what you mean. My wife's family (her mom is gone) is from very far away from my family, so there is no great option for us.

The above isn't just about parents. My siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts.

[duped]

It's probably helped by just the difference in scale between urban and rural communities. Most people wouldn't share your feeling to move to an urban city, because most people are already in one.

I did the same thing though and moved away from my family. I moved back during the pandemic and while I know everyone has a different family dynamic, I can't believe what I was missing. The physical, financial, and emotional support system of having family 15 min down the road is hard to quantify.

[_jal]

I left the south and never looked back, too. (Not gay, but I am non-conformist, which didn't play well in an evangelical town with more cows than people.)

In talking to people who got out vs. some who didn't, there seem to be three main, interrelated things that hold people local: money, class and fear.

- Obviously money makes moving to the Big City much easier, and more of it is always better. But below some point, it becomes incredibly hard to make work - if your parents are in the bottom half of the income gradient, first, last + deposit on a San Francisco apartment and a couple $k on moving and move-in is a huge expense.

- Class matters a lot, in that it colors how distant, urban places are perceived. Some members of my family have an almost cartoonishly apocalyptic fantasy vision about what cities are like, and the fact that nobody's sucked the marrow from my bones in 30 years of urban living will never change that.

It also effects the likelihood of knowing people who did move away. If nobody you personally know has done it, it really does become much harder to do for multiple reasons, both psychological and concrete.

- Finally, fear of "not making it", of something Bad happening, and of making a costly choice that you regret, of having to "slink back home" for whatever reason really weigh on people. Of course if you don't know anyone who's ever lived in a major metro, and if the cost of trying is big enough, that fear can massively amplify.

I moved to SF almost 30 years ago. It was a leap of faith - I landed with enough money for food for about two weeks and slept on a friend's floor for a few months while I worked shit jobs to get established. That path is harder now - I wouldn't now be able to get an apartment here now washing dishes and serving drinks. So if anything, I suspect the above is more salient now than it was a generation ago.

[paulcole]

It seems insane to me to think about taking to my parents weekly. I know they exist, I don’t need to talk to them.

What seems unimaginable to one of us is not just normal but desirable to the other.

The same is true for deciding where to live.

[brewdad]

I'm in the same boat. Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with the way I'm wired but while I love my Dad and we've always had a good relationship, I don't need to talk to him regularly.

Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with the strong family bonds that so many in this thread have. We lived 2.5 hours away from my Dad's family and saw them about 6 times a year. We lived 1500 miles from my Mom's family and I probably visited my Mom's parents a dozen times in my entire life. Now, my wife and I live 2500 miles from our parents. Half the year it's further than that since one set winters in Florida and the other in Asia. At times I feel like I've totally missed out on something but at the same time I wouldn't move back "home" probably ever. I've lived in my current house for 18 years. It's the longest I've ever lived anywhere. This is "home" now.

[nerdjon]

Just to clarify, what I find insane is the numbers because it doesn't line up with my experience within most of the people I generally talk too

[kcb]

The differing cultures in the US. I come from an Italian America family in the the NYC suburbs. All of my siblings and extended family live within like at most a 30 minute drive and I have 4 close family members within like a 2 block radius. There was never any idea of having to get out of here to make it because we were already in commuting distance to Manhattan.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Whereas I can't imagine leaving everyone I know, my entire social support structure, to run off to some strange new are where I know nobody and need start all over again.

> Maybe this is because I am gay and I needed out of the south

...well ok, that makes a lot of sense.