Will You Miss Your Family If You Move to L.A. for Your Child to Become a Child Actor?

Chau-Ram Park, (via turbojoe/Flickr), Leave Family to Become a Child Actor?

My two kids and I just returned from a two-week trip to South Carolina to visit our family.  We travel to South Carolina twice each year to visit family ever since we moved to L.A. for our daughter to become a child actor.

The thing I’ve struggled with most after moving to L.A. for my daughter to become a child actor was leaving all our family behind.

I know people leave their families all the time, but I’ve always been close to my family and spent a lot of time with them. And I really miss that.

And my kids really miss doing things with our relatives.

While we were in SC visiting, we did all sorts of things with family. We went on boat rides, went swimming in the lake, and went tubing on the Chauga River.  We went blueberry picking at a nearby blueberry farm.  We went to a cousin’s birthday party, too. And we just hung out with family–watching tv, playing video games or other games, and just talking.

We spent a lot of our time visiting my mother who is not in the greatest health. She misses having us around.  We try to cram a year’s worth of visits with her into the 3 or 4 weeks we are in the area each year. She hates it most of all that we moved so far away.

For us, being far away has meant that we’ve missed weddings, funerals, birthdays, family reunions, holidays, and many other events.

Sure, we have friends in L.A. But friends, no matter how good they are, typically come and go.  With family it is different — at least for us it is.

At times, I really just want to drop everything, and just take off to return to the Southeast.

If you are considering moving to L.A. or New York for your child to become a child actor, have you considered how you’ll feel when your family is so far away?

How much will you miss your family if you move to L.A. or New York for your child to become a child actor?

Maybe for you, the move to L.A. or New York is not a big one so you can still drive home on weekends or for a regular visit. Lucky you!

Or maybe you are not that close to your family or you already live far away from your family anyway, so it really won’t make much difference.

Or maybe you figure you’ll make enough friends that leaving family behind really won’t matter much. But in most cases, friends tend to come and go, and your family is always there for you, no matter what.

How will you feel when your relatives are ill (or worse), and you can’t be there?  What if someone in your immediate family is ill, and your family can’t come to help out?

Hopefully, nothing bad will happen to you and your family here or to your family back at home, but bad things do happen. And you need to think about how you’ll deal with them when they do when you are halfway across the country or farther.

The fact is, it is pretty exciting to be here in Los Angeles, especially at first.

But after the newness wears off and you have to deal with the high cost of living in L.A., the cost and time to travel back and forth to see family, and all the traffic, smog, fires, taxes, chance of earthquakes, and California’s financial difficulties, it becomes a little less appealing.

If you are a family person, and you leave your family behind, whether it is 300 miles away, 3000 miles away, or 6000 miles away, how will you deal with not having your family around? What if money is tight and you can’t even afford to go visit your family anymore? Who will help out with the kids if you get ill or babysit if you want to go out?

Certainly before you make a permanent move to the Los Angeles area, visit the area and see how you like it. Or come for some period of time, perhaps 6 – 12  months and see how it goes.

Take some time to really reflect on what leaving your family behind will mean to you and your kids before you make that decision. Think  about how you will feel about it 5 or 10 years down the road.

Sure, you can always leave and go home, but the longer you stay and the more permanent your family becomes in the new location, the more difficult it becomes to leave.

So, before you pick up roots and make a permanent move to pursue an acting career for your child, take a look at opportunities closer to home first. Make sure that you won’t have regrets down the road, and that the choices you make won’t end up damaging your marriage, your family, or your life.

For more information about acting in Los Angeles and helping your child start a show business career, be sure to subscribe to Your Young Actor’s Newsletter. You’ll also get a mini-course in getting started in show business.

To your happiness,

Debbie Sikkema