This as-told-to essay is predicated on a dialog with Maren Droubay, a 32-year-old who moved from Salt Lake Metropolis to New York Metropolis together with her household. It has been edited for size and readability.
My husband and I are from the Salt Lake City space of Utah, and we’ve 5 younger children.
We appreciated being near household, nature, and a metropolis with a wide range of eating choices and leisure. However we at all times needed our youngsters to have extra publicity to totally different components of the world and totally different life than what we felt they had been getting in Utah.
Utah is residence, however we discovered ourselves touring on a regular basis. We had been at all times on the highway. We used to homeschool our youngsters in order that we might journey.
We thought moving to New York was an inconceivable dream. We visited lots and cherished the sensation within the metropolis.
It took us 10 years earlier than the chance lastly introduced itself when my husband received a job in New York. We moved from Salt Lake Metropolis to New York Metropolis on October 10, 2025.
Shifting to New York
Moving our family from Utah to New York was in all probability within the prime 10 hardest issues I’ve ever completed.
We lived in an older house, so we needed to do lots of updating to get it prepared for the market, promote it, and get it underneath contract.
We moved from a six-bedroom residence to a three-bedroom house, so we actually needed to downsize — every part from furnishings and garden instruments to our two automobiles needed to go. I decreased all of our clothes to 1 / 4 of what we had.
You need to uproot every part while you make a transfer like this, from discovering new medical doctors to getting our kids enrolled in school. I’m so relieved that it feels so value it. Day by day, I can not imagine we dwell in New York.
The house
To seek out our house, I related with folks by means of Fb teams or Reddit who had been trying to sublease or have their lease taken over.
I posted, “We’re transferring. We want three bedrooms. That is the best block radius we need to dwell in. Does anybody know of something?” One particular person reached out to me and mentioned, “I’m transferring that very month to a distinct neighborhood. My house has three bedrooms. It has laundry and an elevator.”
It was like kismet. It is the perfect apartment for us. We had Facetimed and checked out it, however we hadn’t walked by means of it ourselves till we moved. We had been simply residing on a prayer, and it labored out.
We have now a large bedroom in the back of the house that my three boys are in, they usually’re on a triple bunk mattress. Our two ladies are within the second bed room, with a mini crib for the infant and a twin mattress for my little lady that may be changed into a queen when company come. Our bed room is on the entrance, and we’ve two bogs.
We have now an unimaginable view of the skyline and the Statue of Liberty. We put my children within the room with that view. After they bumped into their new bed room and regarded out the window for the primary time, it was a kind of core reminiscences that you simply by no means need to overlook.
The children
To prep the children for the transfer, we had a household assembly and requested them in the event that they had been .
They’ve at all times been good vacationers and right here for a brand new expertise, in order that they had been instantly excited. We had a family meeting every week, the place we answered questions or confirmed them photos of New York.
We additionally made a household bucket checklist for issues to do after we moved. We have been checking these objects off on Saturdays.
The unhappiness hit after we mentioned goodbye to our home in Utah. It is the one home the children actually knew, and Utah has the one buddies they’ve ever recognized. Their grandparents and cousins dwell there.
We simply let the children really feel the sentiments. They know it is OK to really feel completely happy and unhappy or excited and scared on the identical time.
Metropolis residing
I used to be nervous about how the town would react to my household. Would folks reply nicely to a family with 5 children? Would our house neighbors like us? Would the folks on the subway be aggravated by us?
I’ve been pleasantly stunned by how form 99% of individuals have been. I’ll get to the subway, and earlier than I even fold up my stroller, strangers decide up the opposite finish and carry it for me. Everybody stands up and provides seats to my children, or older ladies have even grabbed certainly one of my children’ fingers and helped them on or off the subway for me.
The group side of NYC is so totally different from our experience in the suburbs, the place you reside in much more isolation. You are within the automobile after which again at residence. In New York, you are required to work together with so many individuals and make connections.
Nonetheless, it has been onerous being away from our help system. In Utah, we had family and friends we might name at any level for assist. Constructing a brand new village will take time.
It is expensive, but it surely’s value it
Our funds is a lot dearer now. Our mortgage doubled. Our groceries have in all probability gone up by 30%. We had been paying $2 for cereal in Utah, and now it is $10 at our native grocery store. Costco and Target are fairly shut in worth to what they had been in Utah, however now we’re paying for supply charges.
Our weekly spending has additionally doubled as a result of we have been obsessive about consuming out since we arrived, however I do know that in all probability will not stick.
Some issues are extra inexpensive than we anticipated. Public transit is inexpensive, and we now not must pay for automobile funds, fuel, or automobile insurance coverage. New York residents get in without cost to a lot of the museums, and children get in free for just about every part within the metropolis.
My husband is 10 instances happier as a result of he is really working within the metropolis the place his job is situated. He is approach happier, and I am approach happier.
Doing it for my children
It is at all times been my dream to make my children’ childhoods magical. There was this phrase I heard early on in motherhood: “It is their day, too. It is their life, too. It is their childhood, too.”
I’ve the ability as their mum or dad to offer them wonderful experiences and reminiscences. I at all times take into consideration after they’re adults, what do I would like them to assume again on and keep in mind from after they had been rising up?
You do not simply must do what your dad and mom did or what your siblings do or what everybody in your metropolis or neighborhood does. When you select to, that is OK, too. However you’ll be able to take life by the reins and alter it.
I hope sometime my children will thank me for these experiences and see the hassle that their dad and I’ve put into attempting to offer them an outstanding life.
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