Musings of FIRE dream and parental responsibilities

[FiguringItOut]

Not sure what I'm asking here, but this came from a recent conversation with a friend.

For those with growing/grown children (upper teens or older) what would you want to see/accomplish/help with with regard to children before you feel comfortable moving away from them?  Relocating to a different part of the country or even abroad.  At what point in your childrens' lives/accomplishments do you feel it is ok to leave them physically, not financially (if you choose) or emotionally of course.  College graduation?  Graduate school graduation?  Wait until they have steady jobs and are getting on independently with their lives?  At what point is it not selfish to go pursue your dreams of traveling the world (covid notwithstanding) and not have a 'home base' in the 'home town' for them to drop by on weekends on a whim or if they are in some sort of a bind (fight with roommate/boy-girl-friend, between jobs, etc)?

For discussion sake assume you expect to hit $1M mark in NW at age 50. You consider $1M sufficient for FIRE.  Children will be 21 and 23, so potentially younger one would just graduate 4-year college and older one would be in the middle finishing 2nd year of 4-yr grad school.  The younger one may end up not doing 4-yr degree at all and choose 2-yr associate or trade school and the older one will be in the middle of med or dental school.   Assume that both children receive FI education from the parent (RE part is their future choice of course) and both are showing signs of future financial savviness.  Both have brokerage accounts at the ages of upper teens and invest in the likes of VTSAX, have small RothIRA accounts, discuss budgeting, etc.  Younger one will most likely be debt fee or with very little student loans (unless makes stupid choices with consumer debt which is not expect but also cannot be controlled) but will have lower earning potential at least to start.  Older one will be heavily in debt from med/dental school but will have prospects of high income in the future and understands that debt has to be paid off as soon as possible (i.e. live like broke college student while making Dr salary and pay off loans). 

Friend and I were discussing this the other day and there is a lot of guilt wrapped around this type of situation.  We are similar age, but at different financial stages in our lives.  Kids of similar ages.  Different future goals for myself and my friend, but assumptions above would give both of us some perspective. 

Would being a married couple or single parent change how you view this situation? 

I'd welcome all views.  This is for discussion purpose only to give myself and my friend things to consider and think through and to figure out what is best of each of us and our families.



 

[bigblock440]

Personally, I'd think once they had steady jobs and could afford/do have their own places to live.  If they're a bit slow on leaving the nest due to their own doing (i.e. not recession, etc.) we'd take more measures to encourage them to do so, not sure what those would be since it's still 15+ years off before I'd have to worry.  I'm also not planning on leaving the house we're in now, so that may be biasing my view as they'll always have a "home base". My siblings and myself were all out shortly after college though (early 20's), some local, some several hours away.  Even though we still had a room to return to (and did many weekends to visit), I don't think it would have been an undue hardship on us if they had decided they wanted to move or travel.

[lindy_zag]

I think there are two things to consider here:

- Do your kids have a level of savings and professional experience that makes them and you confident they will never need to move home? (For me, the last time I lived at home was the summer after freshman year of college, but I wouldn't say I had this confidence until 24/25)
- How connected are they to your community? During college, I enjoyed coming home during breaks to see my family, but a big part of that was also to reconnect with my high school community and friends from my time living there. By 24/25 most of those friendships had naturally gone away, so that when I would go home to visit I would only have two or three non-family people I was excited to see. At that point, it wouldn't have really impacted me for my parents to move elsewhere, since I would have just maintained those friendships on my own.

Ultimately, I ended up moving halfway across the country from my parents and they still live in the house I grew up in. If they were to leave now (I'm 29) it really wouldn't matter. I think you aim for a year or two after your kids graduate college, and keep in mind that you'll get a better sense of whether there's some special reason they need you closer when the time comes.

[ROF Expat]

I find it hard to imagine a situation in which I wouldn't expect adult children with jobs and educations (and without major developmental or health challenges) to be able to survive and thrive on their own.  You don't have to be physically present to support them if things are difficult.  I'd let my kids know that I expected them to make their own way, but that I loved them and would be there to help them in an emergency, physically, morally, and financially (but in the case of the latter, they should expect a questions about why they couldn't handle things on their own).  Then I'd give them a mobile phone # that would work internationally and I'd be on my way to see the world.   

[RetiredAt63]

This discussion seems to assume it would be the parents moving.  With my friends (and me) it was the kids moving. Both generations, we moved away from our parents because of school and jobs, and our kids moved away from us.  Plus it depends a huge amount on the individual families.  I had friends move to be closer to their grandchildren.  They see them a bit more, but not nearly as much as they had thought they would. 

So part of the discussion should be, how likely is it that the kids would return to their home town? 

Plus remember that part of our jobs as parents is to become unemployed, or as I like to think of it, I am retired from parenting.  I was semi-retired once she graduated university, now I am full-time retired.   My DD knows I am there for her in an emergency, but otherwise she is an adult and runs her own life.  And I run mine.

[FiguringItOut]

Thank you all for your thoughts so far.

To address couple comments - I thing the main concern here is not who will move away (kid or parent) but that there will not be 'home base' for the kid.  That parent may not be available on the moment's notice if traveling/living abroad, etc. 

[Cranky]

I don't want to move away from my grown kids, but one of them has moved away from us. After much discussion all around, we plan to move to where that daughter lives as she has the only grandchild. One other adult daughter will also relocate there. I was unwilling to do this as long as the third daughter was determined to stay in this area, but she and her significant other have said that they no longer plan to do that, so we'll hope that they eventually end up closer to our new area.

We are a pretty close family, in part I think because we don't have a lot of extended family, and my girls have all said how they regretted that as they were growing up.

By comparison, both my parents' and dh's parents' made big moves while we were still in college. My parents moved across the country for job related reasons, and my in-laws retired and moved. As a result, we saw them only occasionally after that point, and our kids grew up with pretty minimal grandparent contact. This is strong motivator in our decision to move once dh retires next year.

[ixtap]

Home is where the heart is!

My parents moved for a job my freshman year of college. I wasn't thrilled, having chosen a school close to home at their insistence, but the real problem was their health. I transferred closer to them and they did it again my senior year. While I was in grad school, they transferred to China. I thought that was awesome because I spent most of my breaks there, even once I got a job. How much cooler if they had been moving around! My brothers never did visit, they never even got their passports.

It does take some planning to get the family together if there isn't any home base. It is worth calculating this into your dreams. Will the kids visit? Will you visit them? Will you plan family vacations near your home base? The actual plan might change, but it should figure in the budgeting.

None of the moving or traveling had the slightest negative affect on the closeness of our family. Other people tell us that visiting family isn't really a vacation, but my family is actually fun! My parents often come to see us more often than we go to see them. My brother found a job near their settling down place, so they get to see him and his family all the time and they all make an effort to be there whenever we are there.

[AMandM]

This is a real thought experiment for me, because all but one of my adult children have moved to within walking distance of us. I would never want to up and move away from them and our grandchildren.

But for parents who do want to move and/or travel, I'd say you should feel free once the kids are old enough/ready enough to move into a place of their own.

[Laura33]

Do you mean a home base, or this home base?  I figure I am entitled to sell this house and move to another wherever or whenever I want, although (a) I am personally not willing to move the kids once they are in HS, and (b) I would need to reconsider if one of my kids were living at home through college to save the cost of room and board.

On the other hand, I am always, always going to have a home base.  I need that -- I'm a homebody.  As much as we plan to travel, I need a home to come home to, a place that is stationary and mine.  And no matter what or where that home is, my kids will always be welcome there.  Even if we follow the dream (that we're probably too scared to do in reality) and actually move abroad, as long as I have a sofabed and enough extra money for a plane ticket, my kids will always have a place to come if they need to in an emergency.

We're not planning on making any big changes for the next 4 years (see "high school," above).  But once our youngest is off to college, we will feel free to travel and do whatever we want.  But we will still have a home for him to come to during breaks, if he wants to; it just may not be this one.* 

*But it will, because I am going to be pulled out of my house feet first.  ;-)

[FlytilFIRE]

It does take some planning to get the family together if there isn't any home base. It is worth calculating this into your dreams. Will the kids visit? Will you visit them? Will you plan family vacations near your home base? The actual plan might change, but it should figure in the budgeting.

My father was military, so we normally moved every three years or so. We visited family for a few weeks in the summer. I then went military, and moved often, till my mid 30's. When I left for the Air Force Academy, I considered myself on my own, and bought my own airline tickets, etc. Visited my folks when I could.

My younger brother had some problems "launching". Nice guy, flunked out of college. Moved in with me to "go to school". Never happened. Had a crappy, minimum wage job and lived off of me. After about a year, I kicked him out. He was perfectly content with his existence. Got a lot of grief from my mother, but he needed a butt-kicking to start his own life. Everything worked out fine, and he's o.k.

Every family is different. Some families need/want constant contact, while others are perfectly fine reconnecting just a few times a year. As long as your kids are moving forward, stay healthy, and stay sane, feel free to do what you want with YOUR life. As stated by others, the most important thing is letting them know that they are loved, and you'll be there if the SHTF, but that's all they should need, or expect. Helicopter parenting is not a successful technique for humans, I believe.

Good luck.

[Captain Cactus]

My parents split up about 10 years ago and sold off the "family home" we grew up in as a part of the divorce settlement, split the proceeds.  My father was already living with the woman he was cheating on my mom with.  My mother moved into an apartment about an hour away from my home town. 

That was tough on me because visiting my parents meant I could come back to my home town, visit with friends, be nostalgic, etc...  With no "home base" this was no longer an option, and visiting family doesn't allow me to double dip and visit my hometown at the same time.

Of course I didn't have, and should not have had, any say in it because I was 30, married and had a place of my own out of state when all this went down.  But it's sad in a way because I'd love to visit my home town with my wife and kids...but it's not worth making a special trip for it since vacation is limited and if I'm traveling 5 hours in that direction I basically have to (because of motherly guilt) visit/stay with my mother.  And I don't really like staying with my mother with my family because she lives in a tiny apartment in an apartment building that is full of similarly divorced, older women.  Definitely not my home base. 

You'd think I'd be over it since I'm nearly 40 years old, but there's still a sting I feel from having lost my home base.  Oh well!

[K_in_the_kitchen]

We are in a similar place to what you describe: early 50s, net worth is sufficient for FIRE, children are 20 and 21. Both are living at home going to community college, with plans to live at home while attaining bachelors degrees, and possibly masters. Living at home and attending local, inexpensive state schools is part of the plan to have them get their higher education at the best price possible.

If we were thinking about moving, we would wait until they've finished their education, at least through the B.S. degree, because living with us is part of the financial plan. If the finish school and the economy is good, we'd allow a reasonable amount of time for them to start out on their own. We know many young people who've graduated college and still take a year to get a good job in their field. So maybe one year past graduation, working full time somewhere while looking for a job in their field, and paying room and board to us (which we would save to put toward their move out expenses, but we wouldn't tell them we were doing that).

If they graduate into a bad economy or recession, we might give them more time. I only say might, because I graduated into the '92 recession and got a good job 2 months later, just not in the field I'd planned on.

Of course, the other question is, at the point you're in your 50s and have enough saved to FIRE, what position are your parents in?  Do you live close to them, and will they rely on your physical help?  We expect to FIRE no later than 2026 (DH sees no reason to retire while the boys are still living at home -- why kill the cash cow and give up health insurance?).  At that point, MIL will be in her early 80s, and if she's still living she'll likely need help -- honestly we're probably lucky she doesn't need more help now.  DH's culture typically doesn't put their elderly into retirement homes, and I doubt we would unless she was a danger to herself.  Ideally she would stay in her own home as long as possible.  Luckily, DH has a sibling who might be able to care for her if we move.  FIL has passed already, as has my mom.  My dad lives in the area, but wants to move to another state to live near my sibling and the younger grandchildren.

In other words, you may find yourself a member of the sandwich generation.  We've moved in and out of caring for parents -- currently we aren't caring for a parent, but we each still have a living parent.  I know people have varying opinions about what we owe our parents, so maybe this won't apply to you, but maybe it will.  I'm not even talking about financial care, but rather, the need for help with everyday tasks and errands.

[enFuego]

Wow, a very timely thread for me!  DW and I have been chatting often about this as of late.  Starting to think of options for the next phase of our lives.

To answer the OP's original direct question, for us the official line to cross is all kids graduated college and moving out on their own with gainful employment.  We expect 2 of the 3 to be across that line in about a year.  C1 is already set.  C2 has one year left of college with very good career prospects and has already has plans to move with friends to the big city immediately upon graduation.  C3 has one more year of high school, so technically we're at least 5 years from this coming to pass.  We are firm believers in the philosophy that once we have helped them through college and got them launched, they need to stand on their own two feet.  As other have said we will always be here for them when they need it (financially or otherwise) but it's important for them to make their own way and deal with life as adults.

The harder question is not whether we consider ourselves free of parental responsibilities, but rather whether our collective conscience would allow us to move away from the kids if they all stay in this area.  Will we be able to leave if all our kids are minutes away, or if grandchildren are in the picture?  Honestly we oscillate between wanting to stay in our current home as there is lots about it for us to love and moving either nearby or far away.  We have discussed moving in-state closer to the ocean to be minutes from the beach, and we have discussed moving to a warmer, lower cost of living area.  It's interesting that one of our kids also is interested in moving south and the third is considering colleges in that area.

It's tough for me because I'm a combination dreamer/planner so my instinct is to crank out a spreadsheet or twelve while I scout properties in another part of the country :).  But it's way too soon to think of any of that in concrete terms, however.  Too many variables.   Plus we are probably another 1-3 years after that from a financial perspective to pull the plug on FIRE. We'll just have to wait and see...

[calimom]

This is an interesting thread to me as I have some of the same  thoughts as my kids age out of living at home. I currently have one graduating senior, DS, who's headed off to college 100 miles away at the end  of the summer. My youngest, DD2, will be entering high school in the fall. Their  older sister, DD1, is finished college and has lived independently for awhile about 150 miles from where we live.

My husband died when the kids  were 1,5, and 14. For family support reasons, as well as to escape an unsustainable VHCOL housing market, we moved to a smallish town. Having uncles, aunts and cousins nearby, as well as my grandmother when she was living, was a very stabilizing way to secure and salvage my kids' childhoods. I was able to buy a house (which would NEVER have been possible in Silicon Valley), and the mortgage  payoff will coincide with DD2's graduation from high school. While I'll never regret the move here, and the closeness to family and the  friends we've  made, I don't love the town.  It's...limited in many ways, though  nice people  and some natural beauty and  that type of thing. As my nest empties, I'd like to explore the next chapter in my life  living in a new  TBD  area and having the ability to travel. I doubt I will  plant a For Sale sign  in the  lawn the minute the youngest leaves for college, but options for change will be taken.

Wherever my physical home is will always be a safe place for my  children to land, whether they come for holidays or need shelter in any way. But  i do  feel the best  thing I can give them is a sense of possibility and adventure. Our current town will always be accessible to them via the relatives and friends here. I do want the ability for all  of us to live life on our own terms, and  I want them to be prepared to  have independent lives while having the security of a place to call 'home', wherever that might be.

[Nords]

Not sure what I'm asking here, but this came from a recent conversation with a friend.

For those with growing/grown children (upper teens or older) what would you want to see/accomplish/help with with regard to children before you feel comfortable moving away from them?  Relocating to a different part of the country or even abroad.  At what point in your childrens' lives/accomplishments do you feel it is ok to leave them physically, not financially (if you choose) or emotionally of course.  College graduation?  Graduate school graduation?  Wait until they have steady jobs and are getting on independently with their lives?  At what point is it not selfish to go pursue your dreams of traveling the world (covid notwithstanding) and not have a 'home base' in the 'home town' for them to drop by on weekends on a whim or if they are in some sort of a bind (fight with roommate/boy-girl-friend, between jobs, etc)?

Friend and I were discussing this the other day and there is a lot of guilt wrapped around this type of situation.  We are similar age, but at different financial stages in our lives.  Kids of similar ages.  Different future goals for myself and my friend, but assumptions above would give both of us some perspective. 

Thank you all for your thoughts so far.

To address couple comments - I thing the main concern here is not who will move away (kid or parent) but that there will not be 'home base' for the kid.  That parent may not be available on the moment's notice if traveling/living abroad, etc.

Great question!

Our daughter graduated from high school in 2010.  Since then she's not only grown & flown but achieved orbital parameters.  I'm not sure her experience is relevant to this discussion, but I might be suffering from confirmation bias.

I think the answer is:  It's not about your young adults-- it's about you.

If it makes you happy to stay in one place to stoke the home fires (and offer respite grandchild care), then you should do that.  I think the "home base" is an urban legend when Americans move a median of every seven years, but maybe home base is what happens wherever & whenever a parent and an adult child get together.

If it makes you happier to travel, then you should travel.  If they want to get together while you're traveling then share your itinerary and buy them a plane ticket.  Or if they just want to live in your house while you're gone then treat them like a Trusted Housesitters contract and leave them a To Do list.

I'd leave them physically somewhere between high school graduation and the next milestone (college or trade school).  During our daughter's college years we still traveled on her college schedule:  visiting her during families weekend and being home for most of the breaks.  Around junior year she started her own routine for spring break but still came home during Christmas and a week or two in the summer.  I think she came home one summer while my spouse and I were away on travel, and she rattled around our home by herself for a week before we returned.  (It was nice to have a concierge caring for the place while we were away!  ... and I never asked what went on while we were away.)  During her Christmas break on senior year, we traveled overseas together for three weeks.

In retrospect, it was interesting how our daughter's calls/texts/e-mails evolved during the college years:
Freshman:  "Mom! Dad! I have bad grades, my professors hate me, I don't have any friends, and life sucks!! (*Sob*)  Call meeeee!!"
Sophomore:  "Mom, Dad, I have bad grades, my professors are jerks, and my friends don't understand.  I could use a little cheering up-- can you give me a call?  Hello?!?"
Junior:  "Hi, Mom, Dad, I'm having trouble with a couple classes.  I've talked with my professors and friends and I think I know what I want to do about it, but I'd like to run it by you guys too.  Give me a call when you can, thanks, bye."
Senior:  "Hi, Mom, Dad, a funny thing happened last week!  Oh, and I've survived mid-term exams.  I'll send you a longer e-mail.  Love you, bye."

The lesson from those four years was that we could provide all the support she wanted needed by phone calls and e-mails.  Maybe today there'd be more Facetime, but the result would be the same.  We got her through the speedbumps while she learned how to cope with "disasters" and build her own support network.

When my spouse and I became empty nesters, our mantra was "travel while you still can."  We built up to be quite comfortable with our version of slow travel:  2-3 trips per year of 2-3 months each.  We can't wait to get back to our "routine" of seeing the world, and the biggest debates are whether we return to our favorite places or travel to new favorite places.  I suspect the debate will only end when we are no longer capable of traveling. 

I've seen an 85-year-old military retiree in an east coast Space A passenger terminal with a cane in one hand (hip replacement) dragging a roller bag with his other.  We were boarding a cargo jet.  (He used the tail ramp.)  His plan was "I'm flying to Europe for a few months."  That was pretty much his destination and his itinerary, as long as it didn't get too cold or crowded.  He's my new mentor for my life goals.

Now that our daughter and son-in-law have produced the world's cutest four-month-old granddaughter, we enjoy visiting her, er, I mean, them.  But it still tends to be in the context of a longer trip:  a few weeks at their place helping with baby care (and letting them catch up on sleep & date nights), then a month or two of our own travel elsewhere, and then a few more weeks at their place before returning to our home.

There's a chance that they'll be stationed on Oahu next year.  We've told them that we're happy to help with grandparent spoiling parenting but we don't want to raise our granddaughter or be the after-school childcare program.  The analogy is "Reserve grandparenting":  one drill weekend a month and two weeks of active duty every summer.  But we all get along pretty well, and we'll all figure out a new routine. 

And my spouse and I will continue to travel while we still can.  If our family lives on Oahu then we won't have to worry about a housesitter!

[Cranky]

I will add that in my family's experience, some of this - of course - changed over time.

When my in-laws retired in their late 50's, they moved to Hawaii. Their sons were both single guys in their 20's who were happy to fly over and visit once or twice/year.

10 years later, both sons were married, had kids, and were building careers, and not really able to get away so easily (or cheaply). So the in-laws visited them, which was sometimes a bit awkward. Eventually the in-laws decided to move back to the mainland because it was just too hard to see everyone. They chose to live in a retirement community, and spend another happy decade there.

At that point, while they were still pretty healthy and still travelled, they actually did need to be closer to family, and they moved back to their original city where dh's brother still lived.

My own mother declined to move closer to either myself or my sister on the principle that she "didn't want to be a bother", but let me tell you, as she got much older, it was a HUGE bother to have her so far away and neither my sister or myself was able to run across the country so easily. It would have been a whole lot easier to have her move closer while she was still able to really make that choice.

[Cassie]

After my kids launched I moved across the country for a job. Eventually all followed but now only one lives here. We always have a home base. My youngest is 40 and was in Vietnam teaching English and math. The schools were closed so after 3 months came and stayed with us. Schools are now open but he cannot go back due to restrictions. He will return when he can.

[iluvzbeach]

My parents divorced when I was young and I never lived near my dad. I grew up in a mid-sized city/town near the middle part of the U.S. and my mother moved to the beaches of Los Angeles the very morning after I graduated high school. I was on my own from that point forward. Not only did I survive, I thrived. Failure was not an option and not having a “home base” wasn’t an issue in the slightest.

OP, your kids sound like they are capable, competent people and I see no reason you should feel obligated to provide a “home base” for them after high school graduation. You’ve set them up for success, now go do your thing and watch them fly!

[MayDay]

We've been thinking about this because we will be able to retire around when our kids finish high school. We want to travel but like you said, maybe an 18 year old needs more support than that.

I'm a bit lost at sea here because H and I were both freakishly independent. I basically never came home and never needed my parents for anything (but my college was in their town, I saw them regularly and had a great relationship). H never came home or asked for help because his family was a hot mess.

Anyway.  My oldest is autistic so that really complicates things. He will likely need help well into his 20's. I think we will just have to keep our house as a home base for him because there really isn't a choice. There is a good chance he'll need a supportive living environment long term.

[Blue Skies]

Losing the ability to stay at a parent's house during college breaks would have been hard on me (both financially and emotionally; since dorms closed during breaks I had to go somewhere else), even though it was never more than a couple of weeks here and there (I never spent a whole summer break at home).  DH spent summer breaks at home (working), and would have had to take out more in loans had he not had that free housing option.  Now, I did enjoy getting to see some high school friends when I was back "home" during breaks, but my parents moved to a new location during the last part of my college, and it wasn't a big deal to me.  It was still close enough to travel for breaks, I just didn't get to double dip and see friends too.

I would likely have been irritated if my parents had moved overseas during college and not been able to pay for my plane tickets to go stay with them during breaks.

At this point (well past college, and living several states away from my original hometown) I want my parents to live wherever they want to.  It is nice that they are still in the US and we can travel to see them several times a year.  If they were overseas we wouldn't be able to travel to see them in person as often, but if they were willing to come here I would be happy about the situation.

I am concerned that at some point we will need to provide care for them, and they are prohibitively far away for that right now.  But hopefully we are still many years away from that point, so I'll worry about it when the time comes.

For my own kids, IF they choose to live at home during college we would stay put so they could do that.  I don't expect it though.  I would plan to have a US home base for them to visit at least until they have fully launched after college, though not necessarily in our current hometown.  I wouldn't feel obligated to have a US homebase for them after college.  For me personally though, I expect to always have a (small) US home and just travel from there.  I do not expect that home to be in my current state, but we are planning to stay here until the youngest starts college.