Not counting the trip home from the hospital at birth, I’ve moved 11 times in my life, seven before I graduated high school. Dear old dad worked for Nabisco, which had a tendency to move its executives around the country like chess pieces. In our case, bouncing back and forth between new yawk and chi-town for about half of those moves.
I went to four high schools in four years, and two colleges, all of which if it doesn’t kill you as a teenager, it’ll make you stronger. :rolleyes: That said, I don’t recommend it to anyone. It wasn’t the best time in my life anyway with the parental units separating about half-way through all of that.
On the plus side I’ve never had to suffer through a high school reunion, either!!
Navy brat here. Moved 10 times by the end of high school, and out of habit I kept on moving. 25 times in the last 30 years, for a total of 35 moves in my 48 years. Been in my current place 4 years and don’t intend to move unless I am dragged out by my feet.
We moved a few times before I went to first grade, but after that we stayed put.
This was a bad thing, because I was the odd little kid with glasses in first grade, and out of the 30 kids in that class more than half of them graduated with me.
That core group pretty well defined the ‘cool’ kids and I was most definitely not one of the cool kids.
So I was the class nerd for the entire 12 years.
A friend of mine moved 10-11 times when she was a kid.
I opined that her dad was running from something, but she was insistent that it was just the industry that he was in, and anyway, they hadn’t moved in the past decade.
About a year after that conversation, the ex-wife and two kids that he abandoned back in the early 60’s finally found him.
i grew up during the Great Depression, and my parents were divorced when I was 5 (until I grew up, I never met another kid whose parents were divorced.) I was with my mother, and she had jobs sometimes, and more often not, but she kept moving around.
I was born in NYC and lived in every Borough except Staten Island, then VT, MA, CT NYS and in 1932 we climbed on a bus and went all the way to L.A. There we lived in that city, in Long Beach and out in Victorville. Then back East to a variety of places.
All in all, from the age of 3 (no records before that) to 18, when I went into the Army, I lived in 32 different places. It was pretty weird always being the “new kid on the block,” but also, I saw and learned a lot that most kids who never moved knew.
However, every time my mother told me we had to move again, I had a sinking feeling n my gut, thinking, “Oh, God, not again.” Anyway I survived.
Not counting all the places I went while in the Army (Including Alaska and Japan), I lived in 15 more places, making a total of 47.
If I do count the 10 Army places, That’s 57. I’m now 83 and hope to hell I never move again, except to The Happy Hunting Grounds.
My Dad was in the Air Force as well. Our moves looked something likes this:
Minnesota, Florida, Germany, Washington, Germany, Texas then back to Washington.
Then I joined the Air Force and my moves:
Texas, Utah, Idaho, Saudi Arabia, Idaho. I moved back to Washington after my 4 years.
My parents moved a couple of times before I was 3, but from age 3 to 15 we lived in one house in the Bay Area and I went to the same school for Kindergarten through 9th grade. Then we moved outside of Sacramento and my parents still have the same house. The only time I ever changed schools was between 9th and 10th grade, and then on to college. Lived with my folks during college and commuted.
I feel fortunate not to have moved around too much.
Since being an adult I have lived in two places both in the same neighborhood of Sacramento. An apartment for about 1.5 yrs, and the house I’ve lived in for the last 16. This is the only house my son has ever lived in. He’s 12.
Short answer - foster care.
Long answer - I lived in 5 places with my own family (that I can remember) by the time I was 12. I lived in 4 foster homes during 7th grade and 1 in 8th. Then I went back home for the summer but ended up back in foster care for 9th grade. I was in 3 foster homes for 9th grade and the last one was the one I stayed in until I graduated. So, 8 foster homes.
School sucked because my friends never followed me:
Elementary (k-6) 1 - 1 or 2 days
Elementary 2 - 2.5 years
Elementary 3 - .5 year
Elementary 4 - Back to Elementary 2 for 2 years
Elementary 5 - 2 years
Middle (7-8) 1 - .5 year
Middle 2 - .5 year
Middle 3 - Back to Middle 1 for 2 days
Middle 4 - 1 year minus 2 days
High (9-12) 1 - 4 years
With the exception of Elementary 1, every school I went to was in the same city. But, for a little kid with no transportation to see her friends, it could have been a different state.
I had to enter this without reading the entire thread.
I was in the US Navy for 20+ years. ONE of the reasons for the military moving its personnel is to “share the wealth”. If people “homestead” at particular bases/posts, others are stuck going to the less desireable locations. In my case, I spent 6 months to three years in Hawaii, Bahamas, Florida, South Carolina, Spain and Italy. Hawaii, Spain and Italy, two tours each.
But this never felt “unusual” to me, as I attended 4 elementary schools, two Junior High schools and two High Schools in two states before departing for the Navy.
After retirement in Spain, I worked in Spain, Portugal and the British sector of the North Sea before returning to the States. There, I was also in traveling positions, but lived in one place for the longest period of my life.
Now, on my forth overseas assignment with the State Department, about to accept my fifth , it seems unusual to me, as someone said upthread, to meet people who have lived in the same place all their lives.
I KNOW it is not unusual, but the gypsy in me has been bred in, though I am looking forward to the Spanish home we are buying to retire to in a couple of years.
I didn’t move a whole lot, but my husband did: ~20 times before college. He did manage to stay in the same high school all the way through, though, since by then they were moving around in the same area. They were just very poor.
I moved 13 times before I turned 10. My Mom moved in with a lot of different guys and their kids. It was mostly in the same region of the state but I changed schools a lot. We settled down when I was ten and then I didn’t move again until I was 17.
I didn’t find it particularly traumatic or difficult, though you definitely learn to cope with loss and change pretty quickly. I’m able to form and terminate attachments to people and places with relative ease. I have always wanted to just find a place and stay put.
Not as a kid, no. My parents bought they house they are still in before my older sister was born, and have been there ever since. However, since I left home (including college,) I have never had more than a year living in any one place.
Nov 1982 - Aug 2000: Home w/ parents
Sep 2000 - May 2001:Freshman year of college; I was in a dorm, back home for the summer.
Aug 2001 - May 2004: Sophomore year through senior year I was in a fraternity, so it was the most stable because it was the same general place, but still three different locations in three different houses (our fraternity has a ‘compound,’ if you will, of three houses.)
July 2004 - May 2005: First year after college I was in a small town in northern NY for my first job.
After less than a year they transferred me to a place about an hour’s drive away. I suffered the commute through winter, then moved to that town.
May 2005 - April 2006: After another year I quit to go to grad school, so I moved back to VT. May 2006-Aug 2006: Back with my parents before starting school.
Sep 2006 - Aug 2007: Rented a house with some friends.
Sep 2007 - April 2008: Got a new apartment with one of the friends from the previous place and a couple other people. I moved out of that place because the new people were deadbeats and didn’t pay.
May 2008 - Aug 2008: Sublet a room for four months that summer.
Sep 2008 - Nov 2009: Moved back in with my parents (ugh…) for just over a year.
Nov 2009 - April 2010: Moved into a apartment after I got a new job (which was more like my old job back, but in a better location.) In April, my new roommates didn’t want torenew their lease. I didn’t know anyone who was looking for a new place, and I didn’t want to find three new roommates, so I looked for another place.
May 2010 - present: Renting a room in a house with people I met on craigslist…it’s going well, but I think I might move again this summer.
Hardly. My parents bought their first house in 1962. I came along in 1966. They reluctantly moved in 1992, as the neighborhood around them was turning into a ghetto.
My dad was in the Marines stationed in San Diego when I was born. A month later, he was a civilian again, and we headed to Baltimore to live on the 3rd floor of his parents’ house. While there, my sister was born and my brother was on the way when my folks bought their first house, a few months after I turned 2.
I lived in that house till I joined the Navy at 19. My folks sold that house 6 years later and bought the place where Mom still lives.
Between moves with the Navy and several questionable decisions my husband and I made, I lived in 24 different places between 1973 and 2004. As far as I’m concerned, this house is it till I get wheeled into “The Home” - I like the house and the lot and the neighborhood. No more moves.
