moving around for education/job/military

[haleyelianasmom]

Anyone done this? How do you deal with it? How do your kids deal with it?

I really love where we are living now. I never considered that we would stay before. We only moved here so dh could go to the vet school, but not I feel comfortable here and wouldn't mind staying in this area indefinitely. We have a nice house. My in-laws bought it and we were going to work out buying it from them as soon as dh graduates and finds a job. I'm literally about 2 miles from a great birth center where they have NFL groups, new mom gatherings, LLL meetings, etc. We're walking distance from a farmer's market (in the summer) and a health food store. We're just a couple miles from the University. There are homeschooling groups in our area and I know many other families who are planning on unschooling/homeschooling. I know people here, I have friends, and even dd who is only 19 months old has friends and says their names. We're only 4 hours from my family and 1 hour from dh's family.

So here's the problem. As dh gets into his clerkships, he's realizing he may rather be a public health vet than a clinical vet working in private practice. He has been hearing about 70 hour work weeks and no vacation days for new vets in private practice and comparing that to 40 hour work weeks, lots of benefits, vacation days, competitive pay etc in public health. However, for public health, we'd have to move because chances are there wouldn't be anything nearby.

Another thing he has been considering is joining the army as a vet for a few years. They pay very well, have good hours, pay off most of your student loans, give 30 days a year off, etc. But that would mean moving every few years and the possibilty of him being deployed.

Even if he doesn't do the army, he's talking about how he wants to continue his education and you can't do that all in one place (need to be board certified in one place, DVM here, MPH there, PhD elsewhere... not sure how far he wants to go, but he wants more than a DVM)

I feel bad making friends, getting settled, and then moving a year later. As dd and our future kids get older, how will they deal with making friends and then having to move? I see the benefits of living in different areas, but I also see the benefit of having a place where you're comfortable and can call "home" And even just the fact that we probably won't be able to live in a house like this, we were thinking of having our kids about 3 or 3.5 years apart, but dd will be almost 3 when we would be moving so that would mean moving while pregnant and trying to find a good midwife or having our kids spaced out more... And I don't want to live where I'm the only vegan homeschooler who breastfeeds in a 100 mile radius...

[sonrisaa29]

Originally Posted by haleyelianasmom

Anyone done this? How do you deal with it? How do your kids deal with it?

I really love where we are living now. I never considered that we would stay before. We only moved here so dh could go to the vet school, but not I feel comfortable here and wouldn't mind staying in this area indefinitely. We have a nice house. My in-laws bought it and we were going to work out buying it from them as soon as dh graduates and finds a job. I'm literally about 2 miles from a great birth center where they have NFL groups, new mom gatherings, LLL meetings, etc. We're walking distance from a farmer's market (in the summer) and a health food store. We're just a couple miles from the University. There are homeschooling groups in our area and I know many other families who are planning on unschooling/homeschooling. I know people here, I have friends, and even dd who is only 19 months old has friends and says their names. We're only 4 hours from my family and 1 hour from dh's family.

So here's the problem. As dh gets into his clerkships, he's realizing he may rather be a public health vet than a clinical vet working in private practice. He has been hearing about 70 hour work weeks and no vacation days for new vets in private practice and comparing that to 40 hour work weeks, lots of benefits, vacation days, competitive pay etc in public health. However, for public health, we'd have to move because chances are there wouldn't be anything nearby.

Another thing he has been considering is joining the army as a vet for a few years. They pay very well, have good hours, pay off most of your student loans, give 30 days a year off, etc. But that would mean moving every few years and the possibilty of him being deployed.

Even if he doesn't do the army, he's talking about how he wants to continue his education and you can't do that all in one place (need to be board certified in one place, DVM here, MPH there, PhD elsewhere... not sure how far he wants to go, but he wants more than a DVM)

I feel bad making friends, getting settled, and then moving a year later. As dd and our future kids get older, how will they deal with making friends and then having to move? I see the benefits of living in different areas, but I also see the benefit of having a place where you're comfortable and can call "home" And even just the fact that we probably won't be able to live in a house like this, we were thinking of having our kids about 3 or 3.5 years apart, but dd will be almost 3 when we would be moving so that would mean moving while pregnant and trying to find a good midwife or having our kids spaced out more... And I don't want to live where I'm the only vegan homeschooler who breastfeeds in a 100 mile radius...

I grew up moving every 3 to 4 years because of my dad. He was a designer for various retail stores (pier one, etc) at the corporate level, but if the company was not building new stores then my father was one of the first to be let go....

Anyways, while I hated moving, I also loved being able to go and experience different parts of the country. I think it helped me become more well rounded as an individual. The hardest move for me was going from the Bay area with a high school population of 1200 to a small high school in texas with 80 seniors!

I think that if one is open to people around them then its hard not to meet people. I think that its better if you know that you'll be moving quite a bit its easier when you're younger than older.

[Finch]

I moved 10 times growing up due to my father's job. If there was one single thing I could change about my growing up, that would be it. It was awful, traumatic, horrible, and probably one of the worst things my parents ever did. I'm sorry I didn't have a good experience like the pp, but I didn't. It sucked. My sister and I BOTH agree it was a crappy thing for them to do (they didn't HAVE to move for several of the moves, it was a choice...), and wish they hadn't done it. Moving once or twice is fine. Moving every couple of years...mmm...not my cuppa.

[sonrisaa29]

I forgot to add too that I am an only child, so i don't know if that made a difference or not. Being an only child you find ways to socialize with people of all ages (in my experience) so maybe thats the difference in why i found it interesting....

[aywilkes]

I think whether or not your child will be affected negatively or positively depends on their personalities and your ability to create a support network for them wherever you live. I had my son during my senior yr. in college and decided to stay for grad school, interned in Belize, returned to my mom's til I found a job in Ohio, after 2 years there I was rolled off my consulting project and moved to the DC area. I've been in the area for almost 5 years now and my DS is 9. His dad constantly criticized my moves and said my DS needed stability. My argument was always that I wasn't married, done with my education, and established in my career before DS was born so physical stability is not what I was able to offer him. I think my DS does a great job adjusting, however, I think life could've been easier for us in a few ways had we remained in one place:

support network
one school
same set of friends for DS

I have the same friends I had in college so visits from family and friends are a norm no matter where we live.

[lightheart]

I agree alot with what Finch said, it sucked! we moved alot, the first time I started and ended at the same school was 3rd, I was 9. before that there had been, I 'think' 7 schools, things did settle down in 6th grade and I actually stayed same school, same house until I graduated and eventually moved out own my own. (I was a the weird kid who's mom could punish me by making me stay home from school, I really LOVED school!)

Although there is that feeling of hatred of having to move so much, I know I wouldn't be the person I am now if it had not been for those moves, and I like the person I have become so it's a double edge blade thinking about things.

If we had the oppertunity to move around I'm pretty sure I would go for the chance, even with kids and even the way I felt as a kid I would do it. I think I would handle some things differently with our kids, not pulling out of school mid-year would be the big one, but if you were homeschooling, that wouldn't be an issue.

[Finch]

Yes, the worst move was the one in the middle of the 8th grade. My chest STILL jumps and gets tight when I hear certain songs that were popular at that time. I can still feel the sadness, the isolation....it's palpable, even 20 years later. It was literally the worst time of my life. It's actually when my eating disorder started. :

[grniys]

We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I lost count of how many times. It was over 10. Honestly, I loved it. It was fun going to new schools, making new friends, seeing new things. Rather than concentrating on what I was leaving behind, my family always talked about the wonderful things we would see at this new place or at that place.

Now, my husband is in the military. I look at moving as a part of life. Yeah, it's hard to get attached to some place and then leave it, but I try to remember is that a place if just a place. To me, as long as my family is together and happy that's all that matters.

[crazydiamond]

Originally Posted by grniys

We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I lost count of how many times. It was over 10. Honestly, I loved it. It was fun going to new schools, making new friends, seeing new things. Rather than concentrating on what I was leaving behind, my family always talked about the wonderful things we would see at this new place or at that place.

Now, my husband is in the military. I look at moving as a part of life. Yeah, it's hard to get attached to some place and then leave it, but I try to remember is that a place if just a place. To me, as long as my family is together and happy that's all that matters.

This was both mine and my husband's experience growing up.

I've lived in our city for 10 yrs now (14 for my DH) and it is absolutely positively time to move! We've been restless for 5 yrs or so now, but other circumstances prevented us from just packing up and going. I could never imagine living happily in the same place for 10 years, let alone a lifetime. Moving is so much fun that if it wasn't a huge pain at the moment to find jobs in our industry, we'd have already moved several times over.

[Linda on the move]

We've moved every year or two for my DH's job. Our kids are 10 and 8 and we homeschool. We've moved often than most people in the military do, and we've done one international move.

Some moves have been difficult, others have been a piece of cake.

I believe that homeschooling has made moving much easier on my kids. They don't have to deal with new schools, trying to fit in, etc. They are super close to each other. One of my DDs is very outgoing and makes friends easily, the other is quiet and prefers the company of just one or two other kids. I think that would be true no matter how we lived our lives.

Both of my DDs are strong people who know the difference between a problem and not a problem, and they know how to organize things, how to read maps, and have visited far more national parks/historic sites/museums/natural spaces than most adults I know. They are very happy with their lives. But nothing about our family life is *typical*. We are a totally AP family that nursed forever, had a family bed forever, uses only GD, really listens to the kids, etc.

I think that 90% of how kids adjust to a move is the attitude of the parents.

I think that if you are going to do this, you really need to look on the bright side and trust that what you need will appear when you need it. I know a family that moved from the UK to the US when the mom (who is a midwife) was 8 months pregnant. She knew that the system here was totally different and she had no idea how things would work, but everything went fine for her (she had a hospital birth). So much of it was just her attitude. Her DH had a wonderful opportunity, and they brought their older kids (who were settled in school in the UK) and lived here for 2 years and had an amazing experience. The kids learned to play baseball, they went to the Grand Canyon, and they just had a lot of fun.

We just relocated 3 weeks ago and we are having a blast. My kids spent this morning trolling with nets in an estuary with some other homeschooled kids.

We own less stuff than a lot of families with our income and spend more time living in the moment. We believe in having dreams and following them. We believe that we are teaching our children to go confidently in the direction of their dreams.

[Finch]

Okay, not to sound rude, but to those of you saying how kids handle a move depends on the attitude of the parents, um, my parents thought moving was just fabulous. They were thrilled to move. I was chastised for being upset and sad, particularly when we moved in the middle of my 8th grade year. My sister thought that move was awesome, I was miserable. Conversely, she was miserable during a previous move, and I did well.

Parents can have a great attitude and moving can still be very traumatic. Not everything comes down to the parental attitude, sometimes uprooting your whole life just sucks, no matter what kind of rosy glow parents paint on it.

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by Finch

Okay, not to sound rude, but to those of you saying how kids handle a move depends on the attitude of the parents, um, my parents thought moving was just fabulous. They were thrilled to move. I was chastised for being upset and sad, particularly when we moved in the middle of my 8th grade year. My sister thought that move was awesome, I was miserable. Conversely, she was miserable during a previous move, and I did well.

I'm sorry that you had that experience.

I also think that what you are saying is more and more true as kids get older. Really little kids are just happy if their parents and favorite toys are there, and gradually things become more complex. You were older during that move than either of my kids are now. I didn't mean to say anything to negate your reality.

sometimes uprooting your whole life just sucks, no matter what kind of rosy glow parents paint on it.

When you move with the people and animals and posessions that you love the most, you are not uprooting your whole life.

And I don't put rosy glow on anything. There is a difference between helping a child find the things they like in a new place, and just slapping a happy face sticker on the situation.

[treemom2]

We currently live on a military base in Japan (as civilians, my DH is a teacher)and while some of the pp have talked about how hard it was for them to move to new places every couple years, the children of military families do it a lot and seem to be pretty well adjusted. One thing about the military is that all the children move, they tend to adapt quickly, and there are programs to help them adapt. If your DH decides to join the Army as a vet then many of the arguments you are hearing from pp would not apply because there is that community of people who are pretty used to moving. Honestly, both DH and I agree that this is the best teaching job he's ever had. We love to travel and experience new cultures. Our children attend Japanese schools and our DD is fluent in Japanese. However, we have also seen that this is not the life for a lot of people. We see this as an extended vacation adventure and some people just can't get away from the idea of living in a home in the same place forever. We have decided that when our children become middle school aged we will homeschool which hopefully will help with transitions. We also know many families who get out of the military or quit their civilian jobs when their oldest child is entering middle school to help with their adjustments.

[Dimples_2005]

We moved every couple years as my dad climbed the corporate ladder, it sucked. Although at the time I was always thrilled to move (we moved to interesting cities), now as an adult I realize it screwed me up. I'm not "from" anywhere and I resent my parents for uprooting me on a whim or for a nicer house, different job assignment, etc. My parents are completely oblivious to the impact it had on me, they still think I adjusted wonderfully.

My husband grew up in one house, is from one place, his parents still live in his childhood home. His employer would be thrilled to send us on several-year assignments all over the world, so would he. But I ain't moving, I'll have to be dead in order for him to move!