Are faraway families normal, healthy?

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WarrenPeace

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Starting when I was a kid, all of my family moved far away. My parents, brother, aunts and uncles, and cousins are all many states away. None of them even live anywhere near each other.

I really only know my parents now. Everyone else is a relative stranger.

As an adult this situation feels wrong.

My own kids are entering college soon, and we talk with them often about the importance of staying close to family. In a few years, my wife and I will be the only surviving relatives who our kids know.

Is this far flung family structure completely normal, or is it a modern invention? Is anyone else bothered by this?
 
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I’m not particularly close to my dad’s family (if I was in a room full of them, I wouldn’t even be able to tell you their names). Keep in mind that something that is normal, can be very unhealthy.
 
I wouldn’t be bothered by it if it was my family our kids know their great grandparents ( on my sode of the family and my fiances side of the family) that are still alive all there aunties and uncles even great aunties and uncles as well as a few of mine n my fiancees 2nd and 3rd cousins. ( although my oldest child and youngest child doesn’t know there dad’s family and barely know there dads)

However there are 2 uncles the family no longer speak too ( my dad’s brother and my dad’s foster brother)

Everyone has different family backgrounds and everyone has their own lives to live
 
I mean, it certainly isn’t new. Back when families were immigrating or going west, they were leaving their extended family behind, probably forever. Maybe, someone might come back east one time to bury their parent, but that was often the most people could expect when the journey required a month or longer in a covered wagon, or a journey across the ocean. Was it ideal? No, not really. However, it was often necessary. In this day and age, where the vast majority have a car or at least access to one, and airplanes and trains exist, there isn’t really an excuse for complete estrangement due to moving away. THat’s not even taking into consideration phones and Skype. I’m fortunate that my family live within a few miles. My husband’s father is on the far end of Colorado and the rest of his family is in Wisconsin. We visit Wisconsin a few times a year and his mother usually come to us once a year as well. If people are important to you, you will make it work.
 
Why don’t you pplan a family reunion so you all can start to get to know each other again?

You can start by sending all of them Christmas cards-- even if your parents don’t have all their addresses, you can now look them up 🙂 If you can’t find a physical address, they may be on FB and you can send greetings that way.

Ack! Now you’ve got me thinking about it!!! I moved closer to a bunch of my relatives and should contact them now that I’m here :o
 
For the first ten years of our marriage my wife and I lived thousands of miles away from both sets of parents. We visited occasionally – an all-night flight in one case, a three-hour flight in the other – and from time to time, too, they would visit with us. In an age when so many marriages collapse so quickly, I’m sure that one of the factors that strengthened our marriage is that both sets of parents were too far away to interfere helpfully tell us what we were doing wrong.
 
From the beginning, it was a sad thing when someone had to move far away from their extended family. Those bonds and connection and support are important. Heck, not that long ago it was still normal for parents, grandparents and the kids to live under the same roof. My grandmother lived with us in her final years, my Aunts took turns spending a year living with us before they began families of their own.

I think that we are seeing a turn back toward living near our extended families.
 
Did your folks move away for work, or to get away from a toxic family situation?
 
I have had a similar experience.
Only yesterday I was talking to my son who I’ve seen twice this year and he was saying how he rarely saw a friend but they found that they could pick right up where they left off over several years.

I told him how I felt the same way about a sister of mine until one day I realised that we never see each other and actually have lost our ties.

A phone call isn’t the same as a personal meeting and certainly is a poor substitute.
 
That is sad to hear. Not the experience I have had. I am 20YO, both my brothers are getting married and live within 4 hours of me and I see them both at least once a month usually. I see my other relatives and cousins multiple times throughout the year at holidays and such. But group chats and texting have been very good in terms of keeping up communication. I text with my brothers multiple times a week - good to keep that bond.

So yeah, for your kids, I hope they can keep up the bonds!
 
Firstly, general comment, something becoming the new normal isn’t always going to be a good development.

My family all live in different places (admittedly British long distance isn’t the same as American long distance) and I relate to the feeling of not being close with extended family because you don’t have anything to do with them.

We’ve committed to regularly facetiming our parents and siblings and making regular plans. There is a limit to how many people you can do this with.
 
Thanks everybody. My parents three moves were always for work and voluntary. They were never happy anywhere really.

I should add that they eventually got a place near us in Ohio, but they are spending more and more time in Arizona. I’m guessing if they live long enough they will just stay there.
 
All of my mother’s family live in the same state as I do. I grew up with my grandmother and uncle living with us. When my mother and aunt were in their late 70s they shared a house. My mother lived with me for the last year of her life. My adult niece currently lives with me. I have always wanted to live close to family.

My father’s family all live close together in another state far away from me. I haven’t seen them in years.
 
WarrenPeace said:
Is this far flung family structure completely normal, or is it a modern invention? Is anyone else bothered by this?
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Here in the Pittsburgh area, we had the cataclysmic Steel Collapse in the 1980’s. I stayed here and was able to make a life, but a lot of relatives, a lot of friends vamoosed out of here to pursue their own lives elsewhere.

Is it “ideal”? Not really, but it isn’t unusual at all throughout history.
 
You can certainly have the conversation and point the option to your kids. Doing so while they are pretty young and haven’t made a lot of life choices yet is a great idea.

We moved for jobs. While I would not deliberately stay away, I’m not certain I would agree to stay near my brothers. My husband and kids come first. I will do what’s best for them. That’s the way it is supposed to be.
 
The flip side is that sometimes I think you may sometimes need some distance between either yourself and parents or yourself and your home town for your mental health.

This won’t make me sound nice but growing up and going to school I noticed that people from poorer or more dysfunctional families were more likely to have extended family living near them. As a teen I think I interpreted that to mean remaining in ones home town as an adult was a kind of failing. The kids from my social class all had extended family far away so I grew up seeing moving away from my family as normal and expected.
 
WarrenPeace said:
Is this far flung family structure completely normal, or is it a modern invention? Is anyone else bothered by this?
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Well, people have been migrating since there were people.

Before modern communication when someone moved far away, you might get some letters but you probably never saw them again. Although there were indeed many extended families living together, and many people never went more than a few miles from where they were born, many more went off to war, to seek their fortune, were married into another tribe or group, to find a better life-- and settled far away and never saw their families of origin again.

Modern communication gives you the ability to be very close, even when far away. I have family that is in many parts of the country and even in another country-- we are on social media, we FaceTime, we talk, we text, and we get together when we can.
 
WarrenPeace said:
Is this far flung family structure completely normal, or is it a modern invention? Is anyone else bothered by this?
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It’s a modern invention. And it’s becoming normal. You ask if anyone else is bothered by this. Sure. Many people from older generations were bothered by it, but most of them are gone now. People of traditional bent (including me) are bothered by it. The nuclear family as the cornerstone of society (or rather, of community) is gradually being eroded. The extended family has already been reduced to irrelevance. But there’s no stopping it. We consider it “normal” now to move hundreds or thousands of miles away for college or a job. If you choose to limit yourself to schools, colleges, and jobs close to your family, you’re considered someone who lacks the requisite spirit of adventure, exploration, etc. You can make this choice, but you won’t be admired for it; you’ll be gently mocked as a “dinosaur”. It’s yet another aspect of the global destruction of authentic community.
 
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Roguish said:
It’s a modern invention
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I don’t know about that. My grandparents moved far away from home because they saw better opportunities in western Pennsylvania than they would have had in the backwaters of the Austro Hungarian Empire.
 
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