Family moving to Australia

I think it is selfish of parents/grandparents to make their children feel guilty about leaving for a better life. I encouraged my daughter to move to New Zealand with three of her six children (the others are adults with partners and good careers in England). She and her husband have a much better lifestyle and their children love New Zealand.
As long as I know my children/grandchildren/great grandchildren are well and happy I am content - it is not the family who have emigrated who worry me.
And I love spending six weeks of the European Winter in the summer sunshine!

hello Greatnan, of course you are very lucky in that you still get to see your lovely family and they still get to see you and I agree with everything you said, its not always the case that families can travel out to Aus and thats when it gets sad..

You are quite right, Cheelu, and I can understand parents feeling sad when their children emigrate, but if it means they will have a better life it seems wrong to make them feel bad about it.
I only see my family once a year as a rule - twice last year as I was there over Christmas and then my grandson got married in Kent in August and my daughter , her husband and two of the children came over. After my visit in February and March, I won't see them again until next Christmas. Thank goodness for free phone calls via the internet and Facebook messaging.
I have another daughter and three adult grandchildren who live in England, but I am denied all contact with them, which causes much more grief than her sister's move to New Zealand.

Thats so mad that you are denied contact with your own family, I am really sorry.... is there anything you can do to make it better

My younger daughter and son-in-law emigrated to Australia 5 years ago and are very settled there despite problems with the house they bought. They have come back for a holiday once and hope to do so again next year. She is not planning on having a family. I do miss her and cannot hear on the 'phone and my Laptop does not have Skype. From the age of 14 she said she wanted to emigrate to Australia so I think I got used to the idea. I would not travel to Australia on my own as this daughter has no "Deaf Awareness", for me anyway, despite being a Social Worker.
Fortunately my elder daughter has no plans in leaving this country and I see my grandsons often. In fact I look after the younger one when both parents are working. Having only 1 sister in Scotland I would be very lonely without my elder daughter.
Greatnan I hope you are able to carry on visiting Australia for many years to come and perhaps one day you might emigrate too.

Gina it is easy to get skype sweet..

Thank you, Gina and Cheelu. I have done all I can to keep in touch with my daughter in England but she has mental health problems which prevent her thinking rationally and her children have had their minds poisoned. Her eldest daughter understands the situation and is very loving towards me but she lives with her fiance and their two children so she is able to think for herself.
My other daughter does want me to move to New Zealand eventually, but I have many places which I want to visit in Europe so for the next few years I will just be visiting for a long holiday every year.

Sorry Greatnan for saying Australia rather than New Zealand. I hope you do manage to visit all the places you have in mind. Good luck.

Have any grandparents thought about emigrating or have emigrated to Oz? My daughter and her family moved there two years ago and we have been to see them each year and have just booked up to go again next year. My only grandchildren (2 boys 6 & 7 yrs) are in Oz. I worry that I won't be able to continue travelling that distance each year 1) financial & 2) getting older and perhaps having health problems (although fortunately I am OK at present). I do wonder if I should think about emigrating although I know it is not easy emigrating to Oz. Anyone had any dealings with this?

Hi GillinOz. I have just joined this forum so have only just come across your post. We emigrated to join our family in Australia about 3 years ago. It is possible to apply for a parent visa and your daughter can sponsor you. The bad news is that it will probably cost around 60,000 pounds for a couple and takes 2 years. There is a cheaper option at the moment, although the visa is soon to be withdrawn, but it does take a long time 15-20 years so the only real option is the Contributory Parent Visa 143. You can split the cost by doing t in stages and going for a temporary 173 first which gives you 2 years in Australia. You do need to pass the Balance of Family test, ie at least half your children need to be in Australia. If you look on the Australian immigration website www.immi.gov.au you can read about your options.

If you do think about it seriously I would advise that you go for a long visit first. I don't know where your family is in Australia, but the country is vast and each state is different. Bear in mind also that your family may move for work. In our case the family have been talking about moving for around 3 years but now look as if they are staying put for the time being in WA. We didn't buy a house when we moved over due to the dire exchange rate which fell the moment we set foot in Oz but also because it is very expensive to move due to very high stamp duty and moving furniture etc interstate costs as much as shipping it from the UK. If you read my other thread on the Chat forum you will see that our long term plan to be in Queensland did not work out and we have ended up in WA which is a completely different prospect and does not really suit us. While we love being near our grandchildren we feel we are not really living our own lives. We are weighing up our options at the moment as to whether we stay here, move to Queensland or in fact move back to the UK as we really miss the scenery and the culture.

Also be aware that Australia is no longer the cheap country that it once was. It is expensive to live here and you may not be aware that your UK state pension will be frozen when you leave the UK, ie you will not receive the yearly cost of living increases. It would be advisable to look at housing costs, utilities, shopping etc. something which you don't really do on a holiday. We fell in love with the area my daughter lived in until we realised that we couldn't actually afford to live there! It is also quite ageist so employment may not be easy to find.

My son and his family live in Australia and his plan when he moved was to come home every three years. Because of the need to be in his business (he was employed when he moved there) this summer he is coming over Christmas so it will be three and half years since I saw him. His dad and sister manage to go out in between but, because I am my mother's carer he has had two visits since I last went.

The big thing is they are incredibly diligent about keeping in touch. My DIL is amazing at sending photos by email and little clips of important events. We do Skype but perhaps not as often as you would think, and we have 1-2 hour conversations on the phone every week to 10 days. The children, who are now able to have more of a back and forward conversation, also talk on the phone. My DIL is half Australian so she had the experience of a two country family and I think that is what has made her so keen to keep the relationships current. They "threaten" that the kids will come and live with us when they are 18 but that is no threat, I promise .

Would I emigrate. If my daughter and her partner went out there and I no longer had the tie to mum (sadly something that will happen eventually) I don't know if I could stay here but I have to admit I would rather be at home and in the area I have lived in for the last 43 years. It would be very difficult.

Thanks for the December replies, I have been a bit lapse checking gransnet lately! We are due to visit Oz (family live about an hour north of Brisbane at Caloundra) in March (81 days and counting!!) for 6 weeks then next year when hubbie has retired we are planning on going for 3 months. I do agree hondagirl that we should have a long visit prior to making any decisions as a 6 week holiday (or even 3 months) is not the same as living there permanently. I have talked to a friend who has grandchildren aged from 17 to 2 yrs and as she says as they get older you don't see much of them anyway and could eventually move to anywhere in the world, which is true and I think what you said about feeing that you are not living your own lives is something that strikes a cord with me. I think if I had a bottomless pit of money I would go because I would know I could return to UK if need be but as we would be spending more or less all we have I think we will have to manage going to see them once a year. 6 months here and 6 there seems a good option. We still have a son here in UK so I wouldn't go without him anyway. My mum passed away in June and my sister died 2 years ago so I have no family apart from my brother in law and my husbands family who all live 260 miles away.

Very sad, and a bit of a shock- to read Greatnan's posts. Tragic that she never made it over to join her daughter and family.

It is sad, but I like to be reminded of her sometimes - she was a fund of wisdom and humour, and lived her life to the full.