I grew up with the expectation of leaving home.
It was a foregone conclusion that when we graduated from high school (and that we would graduate from high school), we would leave the area to go to college. Then, after college, we would find our fame and fortune someplace other than the town we grew up in.
The expectation to leave home is partially an element of socio-economic culture, partly a particular family’s
value, in part the opportunity of privilege, and also related to the relative parochialism of one’s region. In my case it was all of the above, intensified by my mother’s disdain for our hometown.
In my experience, Midwesterners are far more flexible and open-minded about seeing the opportunities in any geographical area than most other regions of the country. I’ve lived in or visited every region of the continental United States and sense that in most of them the local population cannot conceive of living in any other region. I find parochialism, whether by church, region, or nation a particularly loathsome quality.
Still, I mourn for what I did not have.
I remember discovering with confusion that many families on our street in Columbus, Ohio had been there for generations. While Columbus itself is a bustling capital city with a major national university an integral part of its personality, and with no shortage of people moving in and out, there were still many extended families living near one another.
Likewise, and even more so, Buffalo, New York. After decades of decline the parochialism of that city had ossified into a strange mix of devotion and self-hatred. As its transformation and renaissance took hold more room was created for “outsiders” to join in, along with a growing metropolitan openness to new ideas more consistent with its historic innovative character. But still, Buffalo is filled with generations of families living in close proximity to one another and those who fly the nest for love or work are often seen as an oddity.
Now I live in a place where grown children find it exceedingly difficult to return home due to limited opportunities, and yet many eagerly do by eking out a livelihood with multiple and disparate jobs in the mostly agricultural and tourist economy. It reminds me of the struggle of rural cooperatives in El Salvador to find ways for their grown children to return after post-secondary educations; the most vibrant communities did find numerous and creative ways to repatriate the next generation.
As my four children are spread across the eastern half of the United States I find myself grieving for that intergenerational character of life so many people I know have worked to hold onto. The grass is always greener on the other side, but seeing the generations live in close proximity in Nueva Esperanza and on the scattered acreages of Brownington and Holland, Vermont, it causes me to question the modernist middleclass assumption of everyone for himself or herself.
As far as I know, there are numerous chapters left to write in my life and this conundrum of proximity to children and other family is a thickening plot. How to stay in meaningful connection over time and distance, with relationships marked by mutual growth and discovery, is the challenge all families and friends face in this world of wide open spaces and far flung opportunities.
I’ll keep you posted on what I discover, but for now this is just a rant.
This was an interesting article, Cam, on a topic I’ve pondered often. All the kids in my family scattered, while our cousins stayed in the same small Indiana town where my parents grew up. What’s REALLY surprising to me is how open-minded my cousins are, having never traveled, and having had so few experiences in such a restricted circle. I keep wondering what my life would have been like if I’d stayed? The only thing I know for certain is that my children’s lives would have been VERY different!
I always liked the idea that Socrates voiced that all important knowledge (wisdom) was accessible from within the walls of the city where one lived. The walls of our cities are incredibly permeable these days with the internet. I still have many dear friends in Indiana who are as blessedly aware and progressive as people I know from anywhere else, and more than many. All to your point. I don’t know, Karen. It is also true that my kids would have been very different if they had grown up in the burbs instead of the city but I like to think they would still be very lovely people. Perhaps these are ineffable questions we ponder?
So, this seems very familiar to me right now. I was in a huge hurry to exit from my Appalachian home to pursue life. I was very proud to be one of the few lucky ones to have escaped the life of a wife of a coal miner that my mother fully expected me to be
But now as I have gotten older and have been forced to spend a lot of time back there to take care of elderly parents and in laws I find my self being pulled more and more back to this place that I used to tell everyone that I hated. What I am finding is the sweet comfort of family and old friends that I haven’t seen in many decades. But they have all been through life too and no one is judging what you have done or where you have been. The kind of welcoming hugs I am getting, like I never left feels like comforting warm syrup over some raw wounds and it makes me want to stay. Like maybe we should retire back to the mountains of our childhood? Even though we hate the cold winter weather as we both get older and arthritic, and we both need good medical care and there is none there.
But the one thing there is the warmth of the family that I never thought I would miss, I was wrong.
Almost heaven…
Of course it is also possible to romanticize that life as well. Having lived in cities for 30+ years, we have been stunned by the desolation of rural poverty. Urban life can cause you to forget that piece, and also the easy reach of resources in a city. What we miss in a city is true community but nothing about urban life precludes building community either. I don’t know the answer but I’m am looking for the balance.
I have been pondering this topic for years myself. It was a mark of success to move far away when I grew up. All 5 of my children moved away from Buffalo and my Grandchildren live in Maine. I think that it is sad in many ways. Grandparents can really enrich grandchildren’s lives. I know that my own children would not have felt so loved without the consistency of grandparents living close by. I can’t be that grandparent and it feels like a loss for me and for them-
Oh, I know that dilemma from the place of wanting my children to know and be around their grandparents, and you’re so right.
Oh I know this dilemma all too well, not with children – yet but I have been bi-coastal for most of my life. The pull to “other” green grass is strong.
Bi-coastal syndrome, it’s serious.
you’re certainly a long way from the home I knew.
You’re not kidding!