Anyone feel like DC just isnt ideal for kids?

[Anonymous]

As a parent, I am glad I raised my kids here. They are exposed to all kinds of people and experiences that have made them more successful as college students and young adults. Learning to navigate a big city has taught them independence. Seeing the everyday life of the capital has exposed them to and given them an understanding of how politics works. The colleges and think tanks have exposed them to the importance of ideas. All of the culture - highbrow and lowbrow - has shown them many ways to have fun.

Those things are all not available in smaller communities!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The easier and more relaxed vibe in the Midwest as compared to DC or the east coast in general is a real and obvious difference and one of the reasons Dh and I moved from DC to the Midwest when we had kids. We now live in an UMC-UC area and you’d think the stress and pressure would be similar given the similar socioeconomics but it’s much more chill and laid back. DH (east coast native) didn’t believe me (Midwest native) when we lived in DC that it could be that different but once we moved he now talks about it all the time and how surprised he was.

^yes, I love the Midwest relaxed feeling. It’s like you can just enjoy your life and free time instead of always being busy and striving.

I don't feel like I am always busy and striving. That's on you if you yield to outside pressure

+1. I live in DC and never feel like I’m
striving. I also am around friends who are similarly relaxed. There are actually a lot of us around. I feel like it’s more a case that you don’t notice relaxed people like this because you are insecure and so only paying attention to people who you think are somehow better than you.

I am also in DC and don't feel like I'm always busy and striving and we have friends who are similar. But I also get what PPs are saying about this being part of the culture. Even though we keep things pretty relaxed (we avoid kid activities on the weekends and don't have sporty kids and we just go to the IB public and do more local stuff than a lot of travel) we certainly know lots of people in this area who are exactly as PPs describe -- just constant activity and always talking about the next thing and new thing. We don't choose to make these folks our close friends because we just are not super into that kind of hustle but they are around and we have many as neighbors or fellow parents at school. I won't pretend this is not part of the culture here.

I think part of it is learning how to detach from that aspect of the culture here. I do think it can be hard when every time you interact with fellow parents at school or in the neighborhood they are like "where are you going what are you doing here is a list of 14 activities we are doing this month." You can be very happy with your life and choices and when you encounter enough of that it can make you feel anxious even if you have no intention of actually participating in that race.

I have found that as my kids have gotten older it gets easier because the parents you interact with become known quantities and you know who is intense and who is more relaxed and you can both choose who to interact with and also have more practice saying "Oh cool that sounds great -- we're just hanging out around here this summer with maybe some extra pool time and a couple weekend road trips to VA or something." The more you do it the easier it gets and you don't have that same anxiety anymore.

But when the kids were younger and we were still getting the hang of things (and I think there's more anxiety generally because so much about your kids is unknown when they are really little and you are more protective) I remember coming home from school events or neighborhood things and just feeling like a ball of stress. Even now we get that sometimes whenever our kids enter a new school or phase or activity and you meet the new families and have to repeat this process. I also cringe when I think about the college process because I already hear even fairly relaxed families around us discussing it and I just think that's tough in this area -- so many people are very status conscious about education and college is where people's manners and ability to mask very competitive behavior gets really tested.

So both things are true. Yes there are plenty of families who don't participate in the Parent Olympics and keep things a bit more chill but also no way are you avoiding the people who ARE very competitive and intense in this area and you have to learn how to navigate around them. I don't know if that's super different elsewhere but I would assume there is a higher percent of intense people here than elsewhere because there are more intense jobs here and more high achievers who had to be intense about their own paths in life and that gets passed on to kids. I previously lived in Silicon Valley and it was definitely worse there than here but DC is almost certainly worse than a place like Cleveland. It's all a matter of degrees.

[Anonymous]

We just had relatives visit from the St Louis area. They remarked how lovely, clean, and safe DC felt for such a large city. Each time we're in STL, we remark how delightful and close knit the communities seem. We're jealous of the pace.

The truth is, I think a lot of these things are much more neighborhood specific than city specific. We stay in the DC area because we love the vibe of our neighborhood. It's walkable, people are friendly, good public schools, kids can roam around, etc. I'm sure something similar exists in many cities. If it didn't exist here, I could definitely be convinced to look somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

We determined that DC (former NE Capitol Hill resident) was not the right place to raise our kids. Some factors included:

- Rising crime. Specifically, we saw groups of young teens frequently working our neighborhood to snatch purses. The second time it happened to my wife was the last straw.

- The crazies wandering the streets... we're talking mentally ill people screaming and ranting to themselves about whatever....

- The public schools being crap, despite having the highest funding of any public system in America. Am not going to send my kids to private schools simply to compensate for incompetent public school system.

- Jerks in cars speeding through narrow streets endangering our kids.

- City government biased against us (likely due to being upper middle class white) during many interactions with public officials, whether police or city hall.

In short, the juice was not worth the squeeze.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, I am glad I raised my kids here. They are exposed to all kinds of people and experiences that have made them more successful as college students and young adults. Learning to navigate a big city has taught them independence. Seeing the everyday life of the capital has exposed them to and given them an understanding of how politics works. The colleges and think tanks have exposed them to the importance of ideas. All of the culture - highbrow and lowbrow - has shown them many ways to have fun.

Those things are all not available in smaller communities!

And noting that all these things are available to DC kids without having to play in the parent olympics - your kid will pick them up as part of the life around them. Move to some small town somewhere? You are definitely going to have to play the parent olympics to expose your kid to this stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We spent ten days outside of Akron, Ohio (fair lawn) in a very nice neighborhood where my sister and brother in law live. They have been in the area for about 4 years but this was the first time we spent real time there as they usually come here or else we meet somewhere. Let me just say it wasnt anything like the “ohio” or midwest you hear about on dcum. My nephews are split going to either a great public option and one goes to a jesuit highschool and both schools seem great. We went to a neighborhood pool a few times and the families seem normal/educated/ fun. Diversity wasnt as bad as I expected either, many black and Indian families in the development. There wasnt a “lack of things to do” either? We found beautiful metro parks with amazing hiking near by, we did things like top golf and trampoline parks. And what really got me thinking is my brother in law came for a 250k job that might pay a wee bit more in DC but not much and they got a really nice house for 560k and every dollar just seems to go much further. It really made me wonder if perhaps Ive glorified this area a bit too much. My nephews seem really happy and theres a airiness and relaxed undertone the entire household seems to have that I just yearn for. Anyone go somewhere else random and feel similar?

Stop blaming geography for your inadequacies!

[Anonymous]

Imagine that, stereotypes aren’t always accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I moved from DC to a small little town. There are of course benefits to all places. I miss the museums and never ending supply of activities and opportunities and events and diversity of thought.

I love that my kids can bike around town with their friends and that they know everyone and that they feel a great sense of place in their childhood.

But a childhood with all the opportunities they would have had in DC would also have been great. There is no reason to denigrate one place to decide you would prefer another.

Kids biking around by themselves does not sound safe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I moved from DC to a small little town. There are of course benefits to all places. I miss the museums and never ending supply of activities and opportunities and events and diversity of thought.

I love that my kids can bike around town with their friends and that they know everyone and that they feel a great sense of place in their childhood.

But a childhood with all the opportunities they would have had in DC would also have been great. There is no reason to denigrate one place to decide you would prefer another.

Kids biking around by themselves does not sound safe.

Hahaha, ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, I am glad I raised my kids here. They are exposed to all kinds of people and experiences that have made them more successful as college students and young adults. Learning to navigate a big city has taught them independence. Seeing the everyday life of the capital has exposed them to and given them an understanding of how politics works. The colleges and think tanks have exposed them to the importance of ideas. All of the culture - highbrow and lowbrow - has shown them many ways to have fun.

Those things are all not available in smaller communities!

And you’ve clearly modeled how to pretend that merely existing in proximity to something translates to some sort of in depth knowledge of that something. (LOL to living in DC means they understand how politics works!)

“Exposed them to the importance of ideas”??? Ideas don’t exist in smaller communities? Your entire post is basically a BS performance (self) review of DC and it’s hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't had kids yet, but i'm TTC right now and my partner and I talk a lot about it. We love living in the city, but our incomes do NOT go far here at all and it's a real consideration whether our future kids will grow up happier in a rented three bedroom apartment here versus a house that we could afford somewhere else.

What are you, a law firm?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, I am glad I raised my kids here. They are exposed to all kinds of people and experiences that have made them more successful as college students and young adults. Learning to navigate a big city has taught them independence. Seeing the everyday life of the capital has exposed them to and given them an understanding of how politics works. The colleges and think tanks have exposed them to the importance of ideas. All of the culture - highbrow and lowbrow - has shown them many ways to have fun.

Those things are all not available in smaller communities!

And noting that all these things are available to DC kids without having to play in the parent olympics - your kid will pick them up as part of the life around them. Move to some small town somewhere? You are definitely going to have to play the parent olympics to expose your kid to this stuff.

You can live in a city with a lot of those opportunities without being in a highly competitive area like DC. Kids grow up in Denver and Minneapolis and Philly and Nashville and Charleston and Atlanta and Sacramento and get exposure to a broad range of things without also living in some Podunk town in the middle of nowhere.

Also many people in the DMV live in suburbs that are fairly interchangeable with suburbs elsewhere. Unless you live in the city itself or make a lot of effort to come into the city and take advantage of stuff, the experience of a kid growing up in suburban Cleveland versus Gaithersburg is not that different except that Cleveland will be a more relaxed place with fewer strivers. Whether that's good or bad depends on the person, but the kids in Gaithersburg are not soaking up any extra city experience that the kids in the Cleveland suburb lack access to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We spent ten days outside of Akron, Ohio (fair lawn) in a very nice neighborhood where my sister and brother in law live. They have been in the area for about 4 years but this was the first time we spent real time there as they usually come here or else we meet somewhere. Let me just say it wasnt anything like the “ohio” or midwest you hear about on dcum. My nephews are split going to either a great public option and one goes to a jesuit highschool and both schools seem great. We went to a neighborhood pool a few times and the families seem normal/educated/ fun. Diversity wasnt as bad as I expected either, many black and Indian families in the development. There wasnt a “lack of things to do” either? We found beautiful metro parks with amazing hiking near by, we did things like top golf and trampoline parks. And what really got me thinking is my brother in law came for a 250k job that might pay a wee bit more in DC but not much and they got a really nice house for 560k and every dollar just seems to go much further. It really made me wonder if perhaps Ive glorified this area a bit too much. My nephews seem really happy and theres a airiness and relaxed undertone the entire household seems to have that I just yearn for. Anyone go somewhere else random and feel similar?

We moved out a few years ago -- BEST DECISION EVER.

If you don't work in politics and need to be in DC, why stay there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am someone who sometimes really dislikes parenting culture in DC (I live in DC "proper" though we interact with both families in DC (mostly public schools) and in the burbs (public and private).

By and large I do feel kids here are over programmed from a young age. There is a weird focus on getting kids in specialized activities before they hit middle elementary. It also feels like families are very go go go-- a different event or experience every weekend or even both days, multiple activities a week, plus tons of travel. People mostly seem to enjoy this but it seems intense to me and we do a lot less because we like having downtime.

It also feels like schools and education are a major source of stress here. It feels like people move around schools a lot. In DC the lottery is a big part of this though there's also movement to private. Also just a lot of discussion of which schools are best. Again, it mostly just feels intense to me. Many people seem happy about their schools or school choices even as they move around, but the amount of focus and discussion feels intense to me. I think I'm naturally more laissez faire about schools unless something really egregious is going on-- I care about education but attended mediocre public schools and did great in college and life because I'm naturally pretty academic, not because my K-12 experience was optimized for me.

But I'm really not sure this is different elsewhere? That's where I get hung up. We are contemplating a move to a smaller city and in theory it's less intense than DC. But when we talk to friends there it doesn't seem THAT different. I think what people sometimes ascribe to DC is just what UMC parenting is now. We still might move for cost of living reasons (which could really benefit our kids-- more money for college, real in state options, a bigger yard and just less financial pressure generally) but none of that is the stuff day to day that bugs me about the culture of families and parenting here.

I just increasingly think we as broader society have made parenting way harder than it needs to be for no good reason, but that DC itself is not the problem. Maybe a higher concentration of "high achievers" than elsewhere makes it worse by degrees? I don't know, there are travel sports and debates about advanced math everywhere.

Completely agree with all of this. Literally every bit of it down to the autobiographical details. I wish we could be friends IRL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We lived in DC for 15 years and now live in a Midwest capital city (suburb just outside). I think we did well by establishing a really solid network of very high achievers for 15 years. I 10x'ed my salary (31.5k as entry level at DC think tank now 300k+).

I do think DC played a huge role in the power of my network (that I would tap into for new job search) and my ability to move my career in ways I did in my 20s and 30s.

Now we live here and I'm in my 40s with three kids and I kind of want to coast here in ways I don't think I could have coasted in DC.

The best of both worlds, and maybe we will go back when our fam dynamic changes again.

NP- but how do you feel it is raising kids in Midwest vs DC? Do you feel it’s as competitive?

It's just less of a thought. I had friends who had spreadsheets mapping out K3 options in DC. Another friend once told me she was mortified her three year old was not paying attention during her private school preschool interview. We lived in DC proper.

Here we have a great local public school. There is a private that maybe 3/25 kids in the neighborhood go to. It's a UMC area. It's still here some, but I would say overall less competitive for sure. I feel like even I was becoming obsessed with school talk in DC - the lottery, the districts, the paths. Way less here.

I'm of the mindset that it's more about the work ethic and hustle you put into your kids then where you go to school. I graduated from a Midwest public college with a 3.0 and "made" it in dc bc I had an underdog mentality and fought my way in. That gave me a level of grit many others just didn't have.

Long way of saying, I'll take a decent school and a gritty hustler attitude any day over the logo of a school. And that's what I'll push my kids to.

It sounds like some of this is your circle. We live in a fairly close in suburb and it is not like that here.