I actually see Sharon moving to California instead. Her kids both live there and they just lost their dad. She can pick up and move while her kids are grieving. It would be kinder than forcing them to move back to a city they both already rejected. She couldn't move back into her original house because Carol is there now, but she lived in Anaheim for like two decades so it's still her home.
I see this happening even if it's not a permanent move. Dawn is a year away from starting high school, so if they stay in California for a year, that still gives them a year to grieve in their dad's space before uprooting them. Or maybe they move back in four years when Jeff starts high school. Dawn would be partway through high school, but she still has tons of friends in Stoneybrook so it wouldn't be quite as bad.
Sharon being away from Mary Anne is kind of no big deal to me because she's used to being a long-distance parent already. But being away from Richard would be a bigger deal. I've been long distance with my husband many, many times because of his career and you learn to live with it. It's never fun but it's part of the job. He couldn't leave his practice and he wouldn't want to move Mary Anne anyway. Maybe he could take a sabbatical and they just move the home family to Anaheim for a bit but I don't know. I know nothing of how lawyers work.
No, I disagree that Sharon would simply abandon Richard and Mary Anne and move to Cali.
And no, it would be awful for Mary Anne to lose another mum too soon...she
loves Sharon.
And that would be foolish to move the entire family to Cali and uproot Richard and Mary Anne...just...no!
Dawn, who is already familiar with Stoneybrook and had friends there, would move to Stoneybrook.
Jeff probably also...he does have the triplets as his friends in Stoneybrook.
Dawn and Jeff, while they had a preference for the west coast, did not "reject" and "hate" Stoneybrook.
Even after they moved back west, they still visited for Christmas and summer break...it's not as if they never came back.
And no, they had
no trouble getting on with either Sharon or Richard.
I think they'd both be
relieved to be with family in a familiar place.
Sharon, Richard, Sharon's parents and the BSC and their charges would give Dawn and Jeff
lots of love and support.
I don't even understand why this question was even asked when it's plain that Sharon is still very much Dawn and Jeff's mum,
not some distant relative.
I think Sharon and Richard contemplated leaving Stoneybrook in the Friends Forever series.
Nope, not what really happened in the books.
Sharon and Richard only contemplated moving in
The Fire at Mary Anne's House, but definitely decided against it in
Everything Changes much to my relief.
Mary Anne was good with it so she would have an excuse to break up Logan.
No, Mary Anne was
not "good" with the idea of leaving Stoneybrook and leaving her BSC friends...she was terrified!
And no, she actually had a perfectly good reason...not just an empty excuse...for breaking up with Logan
without moving away.
At the end of
The Fire at Mary Anne's House, Mary Anne along with Dawn...who also does not want her mum to leave Stoneybrook for a strange city or town...talk to their parents and plead with them not to abandon their friends and Sharon's parents and move to Philadelphia where they would not know anyone.
And thankfully, Richard and Sharon see what a bad move this would be.
It would have been
awful especially for an already frightened Mary Anne to be uprooted from her home that she loved and forced to move away from her friends, whom she needed for support.
And it would have also been terrible for Dawn and Jeff to be forced to move to another place where they knew no one in the wake of the house fire and if their dad had died.
In
Everything Changes, I think in a letter or e-mail, Mary Anne
clearly expresses her relief when Richard and Sharon decide to stay in Stoneybrook.
She was definitely not indifferent to being uprooted and definitely
not fine with leaving her supportive friends.
I could see Sharon spending some extended time in CA to get things situated and then the whole family being together in a neutral territory.
"Neutral" territory? They were not in a war situation or in any feud.
I, for one, am so freaking
glad they stayed in Stoneybrook.
Who else would have kept that babysitting record and schedule book so neat?
And who else would have the patience to temper the tougher kids like Jenny Prezzioso?
And just who else would the rest of the BSC confide in and be listened to so well if Mary Anne were not there in the series?
It would have destroyed a great series and would have been just stupid to have Sharon uproot herself again, move out to Cali, then have her force Dawn and Jeff endure another upheaval and in addition, have Richard and Mary Anne uprooted and moved to a strange city where they knew no one.
π©π©ππ
All that moving with Sharon, Dawn and Jeff moving
three times in under two years would just be too much and too unrealistic.
π¨π¨π¨
Packing up and moving away is not the solution for everything.
So...no, kudos to Sharon and Richard for staying put in Stoneybrook, rebuilding their home among supportive friends and family and for giving their kids the stability and support they desperately needed.