My kid’s childhood is going to be so different than mine...

[Anonymous]

I had that idyllic suburban childhood in the 1980s. I've seen some places where it still happens. But, my sisters live in Midwest suburbs now, and the kids don't play in the neighborhood or go on outside adventures. It's all play dates at friends' houses and sports.

[Anonymous]

So, move!

Once we had kids, we realized pretty quickly that we didn’t want to raise them in dc. For a lot of the reasons you and the other posters mentioned. It wasn’t the life we wanted to give our kids, so we moved. Results are good!

This post will be followed by a dozen other posts explaining in great detail WHY they can’t move, even though they want to, but it’s BS. Just get another job, change industries, take a pay cut, move somewhere “uncool”, find a way!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was the child who was uprooted every few years to go to another country.

My kids are the ones who see their friends leave.

Let me tell you something, OP: the second scenario is easier!

I'm the poster who begged her parents to move from LI to Manhattan. I would have LOVED to move around to different countries. I was such an adventurous kid who was great at making friends wherever I went.

PP you replied to. For the child it can certainly be fun, albeit challenging, because you have to learn new languages and adapt to different cultures. For the parents, it's very hard. My mother fell into a depression and my father was married to his job. It's harder to make friends the older you are, and when you're moving around every few years, learning the language and trying to fit in, it can get impossible to make real friendships. My parents' social difficulties impacted my childhood significantly.

My point, PP, is that travel comes at a price.

I bet it's easier now - what with being able to find expat groups online and keeping in touch with people via WhatsApp and Facetime, etc.

[Anonymous]

Hey OP. We live in 22205 and have a small yard. My so. bFF lives in a condo in Ballston. We’ve never seen their condo but we have them over to cook out and to trick or treat. People who live in condos might tend to be more transient, but it’s also an age thing. My oldest is newly 5 and this is the first summer he has been able to run up and down our street 2 house in either direction, spontaneously playing with neighbors after dinner. I see kids ride their bikes to the neighborhood pool and skate park alone at age 9-11.

The carefre fun of summer will come. It’s just that age 3 feels like you are out of toddlerhood - but the elementary school age stuff is still years away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please don't do this to you or your kid. Yes, their childhood will be different than yours. THAT IS FINE! I have teens and my husband laments that they don't "hang out" at the bowling alley during the summer or "cruise" in cars every weekend evening. He literally said this and my teen nearly burst a gut laughing at him. They have their own lives and they will enjoy them.

I am laughing at myself now. As they finish the Ballston mall, I admit I had visions of my kids (now preschoolers) riding their bikes over there after school to hang out. That said, I see kids hanging out at the Westover library, Italian Store, Toby’s ice cream when Swanson lets out and it looks a lot like my junior high experience 30 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know there are great, cool things about growing up here but it makes me sad that my kid’d childhood is going to be so different than mine. All the kids in my neighborhood lived there the whole if school years, we all rode bikes everywhere, we all had swingsets and slip n slides in our backyards. The ice cream man came down our street everyday.
We live in a condo in Arlungtin- no backyard, learning to ride a bike on the W& OD, really transient area. She is three and her best friend’s famiky just told us they are relocating to Europe. Seems like any friend she makes will have a 1-3 yr lifespan. Just bums me out. Yea there are great museums and playgrounds etc but makes me sad she won’t get what I had.

I'm sorry you're in that situation.

We live in the Kentlands/Lakelands neighborhood of Gaithersburg and have everything you talked about in your childhood. Kids stay in this neighborhood for a long time. They ride their bikes all over. We have a big community pool. We have tons of playgrounds all over. I see the ice cream truck coming to all the local playgrounds.

So I guess my point is there are neighborhoods in this area where you can find everything you want.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a small community. My parents grew up there, my grandparents all grew up there, the kids I went to school with in kindergarten were, for the most part, the same kids with whom I graduated high school. I know exactly what you mean re growing up in a small, stable community.

But! My husband grew up in the DC area, a nice suburb, but it was always about as transient as it is here now. He LOVES it here. He absolutely wanted to move back here to raise kids because he had such fond childhood memories of doing DC things. Honestly, he was a kid who in high school didn't really fit in with sporty popular types and he spent a lot of his time going downtown to clubs and doing whatever. He would have been so miserable in my small town.

So, my point is, there are things that are great about both ways of growing up and maybe some of it is the way you frame it. Also, we live in Arlington and our neighborhood has been really stable- a lot of families who moved in when their kids were really little and have stayed through middle school. So there's that.

[Anonymous]

My kids are going to have a different upbringing than me, too. But theirs is better. They aren’t so poor that they can’t afford activities and camps. They have two parents who both love them—no divorce, no verbal abuse. They will actually go on vacations.

Comparison is the thief of joy, op. Look to what they DO have, not what they don’t.

[Anonymous]

We are in parkview, 20010, and tons of kids and they actually go to each other’s house to just knock on door to ask to play, they ride scooters up and down sidewalks on their owns, no turnover yet. Kids all all 4-9. It’s very free range .

[Anonymous]

Your kids childhood is going to be different than yours no matter what, no matter where. Make sure they know they are loved.

[Anonymous]

This is why we moved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know there are great, cool things about growing up here but it makes me sad that my kid’d childhood is going to be so different than mine. All the kids in my neighborhood lived there the whole if school years, we all rode bikes everywhere, we all had swingsets and slip n slides in our backyards. The ice cream man came down our street everyday.
We live in a condo in Arlungtin- no backyard, learning to ride a bike on the W& OD, really transient area. She is three and her best friend’s famiky just told us they are relocating to Europe. Seems like any friend she makes will have a 1-3 yr lifespan. Just bums me out. Yea there are great museums and playgrounds etc but makes me sad she won’t get what I had.

Move? We have the ice cream man every day, ride our bikes, have yard equipment and all that. You chose to live in a condo, not a house.

[Anonymous]

I grew up moving domestically and internationally every 3 years or less. I am devastated that I didn't go onto a profession with that type of rotation/move opportunities now that I have kids. I am so sad my kids are going to grow up in a suburb of DC and not know how to adjust to a new country or get thrown into situations where they need their second language. I want to make sure they are curious about the world!

[Anonymous]

I grew up in Arlington (albeit not in a condo which I do think is going to have more transience) and I definitely had the type of childhood OP describes. Most people in my high school are still very close and everyone has known each other since elementary school. In fact my experience has been that relationships from childhood in Arlington are stronger as adults because many return to the area compared to friends who grew up and never return to their smaller towns. So don’t despair too much OP. This area is transient in the early years when people are early 30s deciding where to settle/came here for jobs but only slightly more so than other areas once kids get older. As others have said.

I also read a great quote once that I always go back to if I question my decisions:

The thing is, your children will love wherever home is! If they grow up with mountains, they’ll love the mountains. If they grow up in a big city, they’ll love the big city. Their childhood, wherever it happens will have those amazing and unique memories for just them. I think it’s the grown up in us that thinks that our children want the same thing we had when we were kids, but honestly, they just want to be with you. Wherever that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was the child who was uprooted every few years to go to another country.

My kids are the ones who see their friends leave.

Let me tell you something, OP: the second scenario is easier!

I'm the poster who begged her parents to move from LI to Manhattan. I would have LOVED to move around to different countries. I was such an adventurous kid who was great at making friends wherever I went.

Dp here. My parents moved every 1-3 years. Nothing fun about it.

My kids definitely have a far different childhood than I did. Theirs is far better.

Yes, it is a transient area but not everyone leaves. We have made some really good family friends and those friends are settling here.