As a parent, are you considering moving closer to your adult children? Or as an adult child, do you ever wonder what it would be like to have your parents live close by? If you’re thinking about a move from either perspective, you’ll want to watch the AOS podcast All Things Aging!
Aging Outreach Services’ podcast All Things Aging tackles the topic of parents moving to town. There are certainly pros to this life change, and for most families, moving closer to each other is a positive event. This can mean living with adult children, in the same household, creating a multi-generational living arrangement, or it can mean living nearby family, in the same town. According to Pew Research Center’s survey, 79 million Americans live in “shared households,” which means two or more adults who are not intimately attached (married, for example) are living together. This would include a parent and adult child, for example. This is over 30% of Americans.
According to 2020 research in the Journal of Marriage and Family, “Among adults with at least one living parent or adult child, a significant majority (74.8%) had their nearest parent or adult child within 30 miles, and about one third (35.5%) had all parents and adult children living that close.”
Amy Natt and Amy Phariss explore this topic from multiple perspectives. They discuss the challenges and the benefits of parents moving closer to family as well as offering expert advice on how to navigate this transition. Both Natt and Phariss offer both personal and professional insights, anecdotes and experience on this topic.
Key Points to Consider When Parents Move to Town:
- Why people wish to move closer to family
- Who is pushing the move – the parents or the adult children/grandchildren
- The benefits of having parents move closer – for both the parents and the rest of the family
- The powerful role grandparents play in the lives of extended family and grandchildren
- The challenges of living in close proximity to family
- The stressors families might face with a move
- The importance and power of boundaries
- Expectations vs. reality – and how to manage expectations for the best outcome
- What types of conversations and issues need to be discussed before a move
- How much time families need for planning, communication and the actual move – it’s often longer than you might think!
- How families can manage stress, frustration and disappointment and focus more on the benefits, beauty and reward of living close with each other
If you’re considering a move closer to family or hoping your own parents will move nearby, this podcast is for you!
Listen and subscribe to the podcast and the episode here:
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