I know a number of people, actually, whose parents have picked up and moved to near where they are rather than the reverse. When my siblings and I were a little more scattered, I know my father was tossing around options for eventually moving closer to one of us as well.

It makes so much sense when the parents are retired - frequently they've got a big house they'll be wanting to sell at some point anyway, and so much more freedom to pick up and move whereever they choose than younger folks, especially with kids, tend to have.

My mom would all but wet herself with delight if we moved closer to them. (We're only an hour away now, but don't see them that often because I'm a bad daughter, and anyhow we all appear to share the common Baltimore-D.C. area delusion that the Potomac River is a Berlin Wall.) And every time we visit St. Louis, Patrick's mom and sister spend half our visit talking it up to us.

As other people said, parents are like that.

Probably serial:

It makes so much sense when the parents are retired - frequently they've got a big house they'll be wanting to sell at some point anyway, and so much more freedom to pick up and move whereever they choose than younger folks, especially with kids, tend to have.

I'm hoping that when my parents retire (still five or ten years off), they'll do exactly this. For one, they have three acres and it's a lot for them to keep up even now; for another, my mom has never liked living in the country, and I think it's time she gets to pick where they live.

That said, I cannot imagine my dad opting to move to a smaller house in a more urban area without a lot of persuasion from everyone else.

I would go bugfuck crazy if I moved back to my parents' town. Where you have to drive almost an hour to get to the nearest town with more than 8,000 people.

My parents will probably be selling their house in the next year or so (and moving to a smaller one), which means I'll have to go up there and get all my crap. Too bad I don't have a place to keep it all.

Are you planning to have kids sometime in that span, LJ? Sic them on grandpa and see what happens.

My mom and stepdad have said that if I move to SF, they're following me.

They aren't kidding. They love the politics, because they're just as liberal as I am; the love the general laid-back-ness compared to uptight Cincy; and they're hugely wine-obsessed.

I told them that if I move and they follow me, I might have to kill them.

I told them that if I move and they follow me, I might have to kill them.

If you're wiley, you could probably shake them during the move.

Tell them you're moving to Portland. Go to Portland. Then sneak off to SF.

My mom and stepdad have said that if I move to SF, they're following me.

Heh. And your brother's been pushing you westward too. It's like a family conspiracy. They know you belong here.

My mom and stepdad have said that if I move to SF, they're following me.

You need to do this, at least the moving part.

It took me nearly 15 years to decide to move back to my home town. I'm glad I'm doing it now, but if I'd done so, say, ten years earlier, it would have been a disaster. I've had enought time on my own as an independent adult that I can move back to St. Louis as such and not as the adult child of my parents, if that makes any sense.

Lyra Jane, you do know that we'll have to get together when you visit Patrick's folks, right?