This is one I've been pondering for awhile, so any responses would be great. DH and I have been married three and a half years, and have spent most of that time living in a state where neither of us has any family. We both work full time, but want to eventually have kids. I get most of my parenting ideas from friends and coworkers, but in the majority of cases, those people manage to get by because family watches their kids while they work, or otherwise helps out. That's just not an option for us any time in the foreseeable future, as nice as it would be.

I'm just curious, for those of you who managed to raise kids without much outside help, how did you do it? Did you find a daycare, or work alternate shifts? Did one of you quit work, and make do on as little as possible? Did you just put off having kids until the situation changed? What did you do in emergencies where you had to leave your kids with someone? Maybe even more importantly, did your kids seem disadvantaged by not having grandparents or cousins around?

I grew up a military child. We often did not have any relatives anywhere near us. My mom and dad had a close knit of friends. They would trade babysitting nights and days. Picnics were great with lots of kids to play with. I guess you just adapt. I didn't really miss my cousins, aunts etc. It made us appreciate them more and we tried harder to communicate with each other since we had limited time together.

I have my kids now. We are surrounded by family. They have both grandmas close by. They enjoy time with them. My sister has even come to my rescue a few times. However, my best friend is the one who has never let me down. She has 4 kids of her own but she never fails to do all the things that make a differnce. Emergency babysitter, meals brought to the house when someone is in the hospital and lots of love.
Good luck and remember to enjoy the kids when they are little. They grow up much too fast.

We have 4 kids ages 10, 8, 5 and two months. We have lived 3 hours away from any friends or family for 12 years now (my DH's family lives 5 hours away). It has been very difficult at times. I quit working when my oldest was 2 and I had my second baby. We aren't rich but we manage to get by on one income; after the 2nd child who really can afford to pay childcare? I quit mostly though because I missed my child so much during the day I was miserable at work all day. I have been a stay-home-mom for 8 years now.

Here are the downfalls of no help that I've found over the years:

*There is no one to call when you need sleep (being a mom is an all nighter most nights when the kids are little) or when one is sick, or better yet when you are sick (imagine throwing up and taking care of a baby at the same time--not fun. Gets even better when you're sick and the kids are sick too!). If you are a stay-home-mom and your DH works (or vice versa), reality is the working parent has to get up early to go to work so won't be much help at night (basing this on the fact that you will get to 'sleep' some or nap during the day with your child, even though it doesn't always happen, so you're the one expected to get up at night mostly).

*It can get very lonely without family nearby; you have no support system and one day you wake up and wonder where did the time go? Has it really been that many years as you realize that your parents don't get to see your kids regularly and really miss out on being involved much in your kid's life. They miss so much of their lives and that is a major regret I have about not living closer as my parents are aging and getting in bad health now. My kids don't really know them. I can remember going to my parents' house and the baby screaming because of course it doesn't know who these people are (this happened with all of my kids at different ages and I am sure it will happen with this new baby too)! They go through different stages like that. First time it happened it was sad for my parents and me. Grandparents don't get to come to recitals, school plays, awards assemblies, etc. as they live away. Grandparents make comments about us not coming down as much, but they just don't realize how difficult it is with all of the things going on in our lives now between exhaustion and the kids' schedules & school.

*Never having cousins around really stinks for my kids. They don't have a close relationship with any of their cousins like my DH and I did growing up. Some cousins we only see once or twice a year. There are no sleepovers, etc. since we rarely see them. Everyone is so busy and factoring all of the travel time/expense just cuts it back even more.

*Holidays are strange as it's just your family. Sure you can travel back and forth but it gets really old after awhile, and when your kids are little most people want to do Christmas at home (not sure if you celebrate Christmas or not though so that may not be a factor). I would love to be able to get together with all of my family more during the holidays especially, but it turns out to be about once every few months that we see family. Unfortunately we don't really see a lot of friends either as once you start having kids you get really busy with them. When you get any downtime you just want to relax (or sleep!).

*If you are going to work outside the home, you have to find reliable child care. A lot of parents deal with guilt when they leave their kids like that, a lot don't. Finding a sitter for a night out can be a challenge too. It's also pretty expensive. Then of course when your child gets sick, you will have to be able to take off work and care for him/her. It is just as difficult when your kids go to school as you will have to have some sort of after school childcare. Ditto for all of the parent/teacher conferences and other adult meetings that you have to drag your kids to because of no relative to watch them for an hour or so.

*I can honestly say that when relatives do come to visit (since they live away and have to travel so far they normally end up spending several days with you), it can throw your entire house out of whack, especially when your kids are very small. I know I often find myself wishing for the visit to be over quickly as I have gotten used to not having them around all of the time & they do tend to get on my nerves much easier now. But a lot of that depends on your relationship with your family and how they relate to your kids I guess. You should also factor in the cost of visiting grandparents more often if you plan to do so, and realize that there will be times when you just can't make the trip due to sick kids, lack of energy, lack of funds, etc. If you're traveling to stay a few days, you will need a lot of the baby gear packed into the car or you'll have to arrange for your family to have substitutes at their house (baby swing, stroller, crib, etc.).

*Be ready for the envy (sometimes a little bit of jealousy) that comes along with seeing your siblings have instant childcare/help if you have siblings that live near your families. That may sound childish but when you see your sister/brother taking a nice vacation with his/her spouse or going out once a week to the movies/restaurant, etc., it can be a little agitating (realizing that you never have any help yourself). Also be prepared to feel those feelings if your parents/inlaws have a stronger bond with the cousins than your children simply because they see them all of the time (I may have said that already). We have also felt very left out numerous times when there are family get togethers for b'days & kids' parties. Everyone assumes that we live too far to come for these things. This feeling has intensified for us since having kids as you feel like your family is being excluded.

*Factor in all of the household duties you're doing now and multiply it by about ten thousand, ha ha. Add in several hundred dollars more per month to your budget just for fun too! There is no one to watch the kids while you 'clean your house'.

*As far as emergencies go, in our 10 years with kids, we've only had two real emergencies. One we had to load everyone up in the middle of the night and go to the emergency room (I had a gallbladder attack & surgery). The other just happened a few months ago as I had to have an emergency c-section. All of the older kids are in school, but we had no one to take the kids to school that day or pick them up. We ended up getting one of my husband's co-workers that we have known forever to take the kids to school (had to drop them off at 5 a.m. though) and my mom just happened to get to the hospital in time to be sent on to get the kids from school in another town that afternoon. I will say that it is not easy laying in the hospital being helpless and not having anyone that you can totally trust with all of your heart to look after your kids. We are working now on a better plan as it is really overdue. (But then we go back to the who do you trust and rely on factor. Sigh.)

I'm sure there are a lof of other things that I've missed but can't think of right now. Basically over the years my DH and I have been drop dead exhausted at times (well most of the time). I would say the exhaustion that comes from NEVER having a break from kids is the real downer. There are days when it has been a major struggle without any help; days when I am so tired I just want to lay in the bed. I can honestly say that we have raised/are raising our kids by ourselves, and I am proud of that achievement as we get compliments all the time on how well behaved & polite our kids are. They do great in school too and they do several activities outside of school so we're going a lot these days (the older they get). It can be done and there are so many other parents out there doing exactly what my DH and I are doing. In fact, I think it's becoming (or has become already) the way of the world since most of us move away for jobs, etc. now.

There are, of course, some good things that come out of living without any relatives nearby. They aren't at your house all day or several times per week so you can raise the kids the way you want to without interference (if we lived anywhere near my MIL she would drive us crazy). You don't have someone over your shoulder telling you what you're doing wrong as they don't see you guys on a regular basis. Our parents don't feel the need to parent our kids when we see them (but I do see both sides doing this with cousins that live in the same town--they see themselves as 'second parents' as they have these cousins all of the time). You can set your own traditions for holidays as you are home for most all of them. I would say one of the major benefits to raising kids without relatives nearby is just the growing up part of it all. You alone are responsible for these little lives. I think it's very mature of you to think about this subject and what you will do before you have kids. Truthfully, I have tried to get my DH to move back closer to my family for years. There were days it has been that hard without any help, but mostly when I was a new mom with kids under the ages of 5 (at one time I had 3 ages 5 or under which is very hard). It my last two kids were pretty much a breeze as I'm very experienced now at making it all work. I'm still exhausted though. Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to give you as much reality as I could about what it's like! I do want to add that as long as my list of negatives is, we would have had our kids no matter what. They are the very best things that have ever happened to us and they are worth every minute of our sleep deprived lives! HTH.

DH and I raised 2 children and did not live nearby relatives. I was a SAHM and we were really, really poor. I'd cry myself to sleep aome nights worrying about milk for the rest of the week. However, I wouldn't trade it for the world. My opinion is that WE had the kids and they were OUR responsibility. As sadarl said, holidays are strange. We spent most holidays alone at home, together. I made it a point to *make them our own*. I actually came to love the solitude, and laughed at other people when they talked about what a hassle it was to try to see everybody and make everybody happy. Holidays were peaceful and happy for us.

Dh and I have not lived in the same state as family since we were married. We have two boys. What we did when the boys were little is that I was a sahm most of the time. If I did work, I would have to wait until hubby was not out to sea, he was in the navy, and then I would get a job 2nd shift. We did not use babysitters because frankly at that time in our life, our friends were young sailors, most unmarried and not really suited for babysitting. The boys did not go to daycare and my oldest did not go to preschool. We didnt really have the cash to send him, since I was staying home with the youngest.

My boys are now 16 and 12 and we have talked about how it is to live without family near by. We all feel that it would sometimes be nice to have an aunt or uncle nearby but feel that we are a closer family unit because of the distance. We have learned to rely on each other and it has made the 4 of us very close.

HTH,
Darlene

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Sell crazy some place else, we are all stocked up here.

Having done it both ways (living near relatives when kids were young and moving 6 hours away when kids were 5 and 8), I can say that we prefer living away from relatives. We miss them dearly but this is a much better quality of life for our family and has brought our family and marriage closer together now that we are away ... we love visiting (stay 3 nights max) and love to have visits but otherwise, this way is much better. Of course, it is probably hard to know until you have done it both ways (!) but this works best for us.

we have been a military family for 17 years now and are raising our 3 boys (ages 6, 9 and 14). We did have a time were we lived close to our family for about 6 months and we definitely prefer living away. I can tell you it has made us a much closer family unit having to survive on our own with mom/dad to pick up the pieces. We love and appreciate our extended families very much, but it definitely has been a big benefit to our immediate family by living away.

We were also military and did not have family around until DH got out of the military. It was really hard at times. When my last DD was born, I basically gave up my career (counselor/social worker) to stay at home because DH's work schedule was crazy and I didn't want my baby to have to stay with a sitter and daycare was much to expensive to justify continuing to work (we lived in Atlanta at the time). I now have 2 adult DD's and one still at home and I would like all my kids to live near me because I enjoy spending time with them. One DD lives 20 miles away and one married someone in the Navy and live 1700 miles away. I loved having my mom around to help out over the past few years (before she passed away) although she did not babysit while I worked she was there to help out in any emergency, to share holidays, to go shopping with, just visit with. Now, we do live far away from DH's family, but that's ok cause they are kind of crazy anyway and we would have to limit our exposure to them if we lived closer.

When my DD was an infant I lived close enough to my parents so they would watch her while I worked since I was a single mom. After she started school and I got married we moved away from them so now I go to work later than my DH and 10r old DD goes to the school's after school childcare program because I really don't like my neighbors and would not trust them to watch her. DD does get to see her grandparent's every weekend though because my dad comes and picks her up on Fridays and I go back and get her on Sunday. They only live about 40 minutes away so it's not so bad.

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"Let me watch my children grow to see what they become
Lord don't let that cold wind blow til I'm too old to die young'

Well we didnt have any help so when I was single with my oldest she went to daycare ft & sometimes but very rarely I would get a friend to watch her now that I have 3 I only work pt I did demos for the last 3 yrs so I worked those around my dh's schedule now my oldest can watch her sisters though & dh works overnights so he is here if she needs something but she does great with her sisters. Now this week I am starting a work at home job so we wont need a sitter but will still have my oldest help with her sisters while I am working. My plan is to make the basement a recroom for them to do stuff while I work & maybe turn a bedroom into my office so they can have the whole house really to themselves while I work but I will wait & see how the job works out before we start all that.

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mom of 3 greats girls

We've never lived near family either. We're 12 hours away from my family. Before I became a SAHM, I was blessed to find a wonderful woman who did childcare in her home so DD#1 was well cared for when DH and I were at work. I've been a SAHM for 8 years now and we still keep in touch with this woman and her family (she lives an hour away). Once DD hit school age and DD#2 was born, I quit my job and started making lots of friends who have become like family to us. I could call on any of them to watch the kids for me and they would, but I rarely do that. We found good teenagers to babysit - found them through word of mouth recommendations. Now DD is 13 and we pay her to babysit the younger two.

My kids have lots of cousins and I'm sad that they don't get to see each other more than twice a year but when they are together, they have a great time. My ds is the youngest in the entire family --he's 3 and his oldest cousins are 31 -- they all still get along great.

It's hard to be so far away from family, but if you establish a strong network of friends, it's not so bad.

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Cecilia

"We must love them both--those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it."
Saint Thomas Aquinas

We have never lived near our family and have been married 22 years with three teen daughters. At one point we lived in a different country for 3 years. When the girls were younger, we worked split shift and I'm proud to say, they never spent one day in day care or with a sitter.

As for holidays, anyone is welcome to join us but we will remain here for Christmas. We want our own traditions with our kids and not have to haul them all over during such a special holiday. Thanksgiving we do go "home" and spend time with our families then. Yea, that means two meals of turkey to make both sides happy, but since it's only once a year, no biggie.

We love our family but are so used to doing things on our own without help and I know that's why our marriage has lasted so long. We were only 18 when we married and if we lived in our hometown, I don't think we ever would have made it. We learned to rely on each other and get thru any problems ourselves.

No regrets from me.

We currently live about 8 hours from my family (who are actually interested in the kids) and about 5 from DH's mom (who is sort of indifferent). We have lived 10 hours away from my folks which was a bit far, and 1.5 hours away which was a bit too close.

The kids go visit my mom for a week or two at a time (one kid at a time) during school breaks. We see my MIL maybe once a year. We used to try to plan a trip (a short one) to her area yearly, but one year she backed out on seeing us at the last minute so I haven't broken my neck for her since that (we went for Thanksgiving...she said the kids could stay at her place but she didn't have room for DH and me so we got a hotel room...ended up with all 5 of us crammed in a smallish room but we had fun anyway). We spend Christmas at home but try to go see my folks before or after depending on how the school calendar looks.

In emergencies we call on friends. Thanksfully there haven't been many emergencies. DH did have to pack everyone up to drop me off at the ER with a kidney stone once...he brought the kids back home and sent them to school then came back to the ER to wait with me.

The biggest problem we have had is lack of evening social time for DH and me. We haven't been on a "date" at night in probably 6 years. It's hard to find someone appropriate to watch the kids right now because my oldest is 16 but because of his Asperger's I can't rely on him to "be in charge" of the other kids...I also can't get a kid from his high school to watch the kids because he would feel really awful then. So we just don't go out at night...we have occasional lunches together though.

It hasn't been nearly as hard to live away from family as we feared it would be when we first moved more then 1.5 hours from "home". For one thing, I am an only child and my mom means well but she tends to be extremely interfering in all matters...educational (she is a retired teacher), financial (we waste money on all sorts of things she doesn't think we should buy)...personal...So getting away from that probably helped us stay married.

Forgot the daycare question! To solve that one, I worked in daycare until all my children were school age. They got to go to some really great daycare centers for no charge since I was an employee. That worked out really well for us.

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Panda

The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits. -- Plutarch

Wow, I didn't guess I'd get nearly so much good, useful information. sadarl, you wrote something that's as long as a magazine article, and better than most I've seen. There are points here I'd not thought of, like jealousy over family members who do get help, or family influence being a detriment. I'd guessed before that having friends around would help, but now I realise it's pretty well essential. I think I'm going to print out this thread, so I can read it again, decide what points would pose serious problems, and what to do about those.

At this point, I know we can't be close to my family without my husband dealing with immigration, and us having to start everything from scratch. Honestly, I'm not sure if it would be a good thing for us at this point, since we've gotten used to doing things alone. I do wonder if I might ask my husband to ask his parents if they're serious about coming to AZ or not. Right now, they like the idea of being able to sell their house and buy a new one outright, and my step MIL hates her job, but they haven't made any moves to leave. I know my S-MIL wants grandkids, as she's never been able to have kids of her own. I'd like to feel that the stress from her job wasn't going to kill her, and she's a lovely person. If they came out, I know one of her sisters would like to as well. Regardless of what happens, we have to be prepared to do things alone. Before we do anything, we're trying to pay off one of our cars, and I'm trying to seriously cut back spending where it's possible. I'd like to try to live on one income, even if we're making two.

Again, thank you all so much for your posts. I've never been quite sure where to get honest information on this sort of thing. I know most parenting advice seems to take the form of 'you can do it!' or 'we'd never trade our kids for anything,' but what I really want to know is how to plan, and what ISN'T so good. I don't have kids right now, so I have time to think and prepare, but finding resources isn't always easy. I love hearing about how people live, and have managed to make things work, or what doesn't work. I'll keep reading these boards, I'll read your messages again, and I'll feel a bit better about what I want to do.

First, kudos to you for putting so much thought into this before taking the plunge. You have identified a lot of the key issues/concerns.

We've raised two kids (now 12 and 17) without the help of extended family. We're in MA, they are in NC, IL, and CT. I've worked FT except for the first 3 months with both of them. It is HARD. I would not have survived had we not had the good fortune of finding a babysitter for the older one who became like family to us. She babysat our oldest and one other child in her home and has been with us since - although she no longer provides daycare for them. She is basically their 3rd grandmother and loves them like they are her own. Besides having her, we both work in high-tech and have some flexibility in our work schedules so that has also helped alot to cover illness and the inevitable schedule disruptions that come with kids.

I think the kids do miss out on a certain sense of family that comes from having relatives close by, but I can't say much about that because I was raised away from my extended family so it's all I know. It just feels like there's something enviable in others who have families nearby (but I am reading here that's not necessarily the case! )

Best of luck to you!

cj/

Our relatives keep moving (husband & mine) away from our original roots. The cost is living is to high in NJ and NY so they keep moving south. I have 3 kids that we raised on our own with no help. My husband travels Mon - Fri with his job and I did work full-time until I was diagnosed with cancer. What will help you in emergencies will be your close friends that also have kids. Our closed relative is 3 hours away with no traffic!

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Carolyn
At the Jersey Shore

We lived for almost 2 yrs in TN, and were 14 hours away from all of our family. We didn't get any date nights. Everywhere we went, dd went. I stayed home with her, didn't even send her to mom's day out (hugely popular down there). Our only emergency was when dd had rotavirus and was hospitalized due to dehydration. It was hard being at the hospital all day and night with no relief. We had a great playgroup to go to every Friday. It also helped that all but one of the moms there were NOT from the area. We all had transplanted there. We went home for Christmas and New Years, some birthdays, weddings, etc. And always in July for our big garage sale (Yes, it is that big of a deal!).

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I've never lied to you. I've always told you some version the of truth.