Jobs being what they are - cause folks to move. I moved from Kansas City to NYC for work. My brother left because of his wife - she preferred NY. My parents left for Hilton Head because they preferred Hilton Head. We moved from PA to KS in the 1970s for my father's work.
My mother couldn't wait to live her hometown of Liberty - there was no reason for her to stay and she wanted to see the world.
And I can't say I loved Kansas, I kind of hated it and was more than ready to leave. There was no reason to stay. I've more ties to NY, actually.
So, it's not that fewer and fewer adults stay where they were born, but there's fewer and fewer reasons to do so. And it depends on the family. And connections and community of that place.
I wasn't born in PA or Kansas for that matter. I was born in Illinois. Both parents returned to their hometown birth spots, and neither felt comfortable there. The "fantasy" of returning to the place of birth or the hometown is television made or out of a romance novel. It's not real. There's no hometown to return to - for either my brother or myself - we're New Yorkers now. Our town, our community is where we chose to live as adults, not wherever our parents chose to plant us.
And if I look back further? My great grandfather immigrated from Ireland. Another immigrated from Germany. And a great-great-great-great...immigrated from Scotland. My great-grandmother from Belgium. My family did not spring up from this land...we're not of Native American roots. And even the Native Americans - they immigrated here once upon a time from somewhere else.
People aren't plants or trees. We move and migrate. We've rarely stayed in one place for long. If we had - most of us wouldn't have been born in the US. We'd be living somewhere else.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2022-04-16 01:55 am (UTC)My brother left because of his wife - she preferred NY. My parents left for Hilton Head because they preferred Hilton Head. We moved from PA to KS in the 1970s for my father's work.
My mother couldn't wait to live her hometown of Liberty - there was no reason for her to stay and she wanted to see the world.
And I can't say I loved Kansas, I kind of hated it and was more than ready to leave. There was no reason to stay. I've more ties to NY, actually.
So, it's not that fewer and fewer adults stay where they were born, but there's fewer and fewer reasons to do so. And it depends on the family. And connections and community of that place.
I wasn't born in PA or Kansas for that matter. I was born in Illinois. Both parents returned to their hometown birth spots, and neither felt comfortable there. The "fantasy" of returning to the place of birth or the hometown is television made or out of a romance novel. It's not real.
There's no hometown to return to - for either my brother or myself - we're New Yorkers now. Our town, our community is where we chose to live as adults, not wherever our parents chose to plant us.
And if I look back further? My great grandfather immigrated from Ireland. Another immigrated from Germany. And a great-great-great-great...immigrated from Scotland. My great-grandmother from Belgium. My family did not spring up from this land...we're not of Native American roots. And even the Native Americans - they immigrated here once upon a time from somewhere else.
People aren't plants or trees. We move and migrate. We've rarely stayed in one place for long. If we had - most of us wouldn't have been born in the US. We'd be living somewhere else.