Or like most of my retired neighbors, live nearby and offer to babysit. You'll get 18 visits in 22 days.

There's a reason we bought a house directly across the street from my parents (that reason was that my wife was pregnant with twins...)

It's not for everyone...

My neighbor's daughter bought the house across street from her, but it was only a couple months before the epic yelling matches in their driveway started.

I think those Agile guys might be on to something when they talk about Separation of Concerns. =)

Yeah, there were certainly ground-rules established ahead of time, and we wouldn't have even considered it if we didn't have a pretty excellent relationship.

It's been ~18 months so far and things are still going great. I really don't know what we would have done without the extra help just a phone call away...

I love living 5 minutes away from my parents. We are close enough we see each other frequently, drop by to do favors, borrow tools, carpool to events, etc., but there is juuuust enough friction to getting to the others house it doesn't feel as if we are living together / I'm still living at home.

Sounds like spoiled children to me. Parents have a responsibility to ensure a strong relationship between children and grandparents.

With greater income comes greater mobility.

Parents retiring to a place more than a short drive away has unintended consequences. Or children moving far away for employment.

In this particular case the gparents moving near WDW made this outcome: post child rearing, only 35 separate visits for the rest of their lifetime (25+ yrs) each visit required plane trip & time off.

It was the gparents choice to move so far away..... And WDW was a wonderful place to share our time together.

Better than grandparents moving states away to Arizona. We visited them twice in about 25 years (although they visited us several times, so we still saw them once every year or two). My other grandparents lived in the same city, so I got to experience both near and far. I definitely saw the ones in town a lot more often (at least 30 times a year, I think).