I haven't figured out how people raise children in DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Where does Brookland or NE DC fit in to this? I guess Dense urban poor or urban crunchy?

Shhhh, don't let the secret out.

May I propose a new catagory? "freakishly inner suburbian"? (OTOH, I peg Takoma Park as flat out suburban, so I may have a skewed perspective. I live on capitol hill. Love it, but that probably wouldn't have happened if I had known about Brookland. sigh-- realtors . . . what are you going to do, right? )

Capitol Hill? Georgetown? - the triumph of hype over reason. Why anyone would want to pay NYC prices to live in a cramped little house in DC just to be on the Hill or G-town is beyond me. Maybe as a single person, but not with kids. I grew up in a nice neighborhood in upper Northwest, but I always felt depressed coming back into the city from the spacious 'burbs. Now I live in western Howard County and have an hour long commute downtown. But my kids have plenty of room to play, it's very safe and we have sane neighbors (except the ones that stopped speaking to us because we planted arborvitae bushes in our yard. Whatever!) We're close to DC and Baltimore for resturants and days out, close to WV for mountain weekends away and there's a lot less of the "what do you do?" sensibility endemic to DC. It works well. The benefit of DC is that you don't have to move far beyond the beltway to find sanity, reasonably spacious houses and lots of green open spaces.

So . . .what are your thoughts on green, big yards and friendly neighbors in freakishly close-in, metro accessable brookland? Capitol hill and Georgetown I can see as overhyped, but Brookland?! I bet most folks in "upper NW" like yourself have never even been to Brookland. And why would you? No hype to get you there. Just cute SFH on large lots. Its a sleepy suburb right smack inside the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again - i could deal with the rents and helicopter moms and the insane daycare costs, etc. Or I could deal with the horrible weather, crappy commutes, and high job expectations. But not all of the above. This is no way to live.

Then don't. I love living in the city. Love our neighbors, our public school and the opportunities that are here. It works for our family. No one is making you stay, if you want to leave, then start doing what needs to be done to make it happen.

ITA! This place is not for everyone. I love it here - When I walk to work, I see my neighbors and we stop and chat. They ask about my daughter, I ask about their kids, or their spouses, or their dogs. On the weekends I go to the farmers market which is a short walk and my DD and I went to the pool on Saturday. My neighborhoods mom group had a meeting a few weeks ago to talk about things to do in our neighborhood. We also share hand-me-downs and a few of us had a pot luck dinner.

Sound like the 'burbs? No - I lived 10 years in VA and never had this - this is in DC - you get back what you put into your neighborhood.

Capitol Hill?

14:25 here. Yes Capitol Hill and have been for 19 years and my husband grew up here. I love my neighborhood!

[Anonymous]

You people are sleeping on the best neighborhood for the money... Guess where.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Where does Brookland or NE DC fit in to this? I guess Dense urban poor or urban crunchy?

Shhhh, don't let the secret out.

May I propose a new catagory? "freakishly inner suburbian"? (OTOH, I peg Takoma Park as flat out suburban, so I may have a skewed perspective. I live on capitol hill. Love it, but that probably wouldn't have happened if I had known about Brookland. sigh-- realtors . . . what are you going to do, right? )

Capitol Hill? Georgetown? - the triumph of hype over reason. Why anyone would want to pay NYC prices to live in a cramped little house in DC just to be on the Hill or G-town is beyond me. Maybe as a single person, but not with kids. I grew up in a nice neighborhood in upper Northwest, but I always felt depressed coming back into the city from the spacious 'burbs. Now I live in western Howard County and have an hour long commute downtown. But my kids have plenty of room to play, it's very safe and we have sane neighbors (except the ones that stopped speaking to us because we planted arborvitae bushes in our yard. Whatever!) We're close to DC and Baltimore for resturants and days out, close to WV for mountain weekends away and there's a lot less of the "what do you do?" sensibility endemic to DC. It works well. The benefit of DC is that you don't have to move far beyond the beltway to find sanity, reasonably spacious houses and lots of green open spaces.

So . . .what are your thoughts on green, big yards and friendly neighbors in freakishly close-in, metro accessable brookland? Capitol hill and Georgetown I can see as overhyped, but Brookland?! I bet most folks in "upper NW" like yourself have never even been to Brookland. And why would you? No hype to get you there. Just cute SFH on large lots. Its a sleepy suburb right smack inside the city.

This is exactly my piont, Now- Shush!

[Anonymous]

Now I live in western Howard County and have an hour long commute downtown. But my kids have plenty of room to play

No way I'm trading two hours of family time for a marginal increase in yard space. I had to commute to Rockville from downtown that for about four months, and almost had a nervous breakdown.

And that took anywhere between 1 and 1.5 hours each way. Unless you're riding the train out of downtown, and everything goes like clockwork, there's no way to get from downtown to Fredrick, or elsewhere in W Howard in an hour or less.

From the number of parents--and regional residents in general--living in DC, and the way close-in housing prices have defied the national trends, it's obvious more and more savvy folks are coming around to that conclusion.

[Anonymous]

Wow, no one here has coping mechanisms? Scary, indeed!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:



Wow, no one here has coping mechanisms? Scary, indeed!

I live in Western Howard County, and although I have a 3 hour daily roundtrip commute to my job downtown, my yard's big enough for a hot tub, a longstanding personal dream of mine. As far as coping mechanisms go, I actually have a wine-chiller in my Yukon XL, and I usually manage to polish off a couple of bottles of pinot grigio on the ride home.

Coping!

[Anonymous]

I live in Adams Morgan, my child went to neighborhood public school through Sixth and is now in an independent. No commute. Could not abide it. Cheaper than NY, believe me, I've researched that. DC is nutty but what place is not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in Adams Morgan, my child went to neighborhood public school through Sixth and is now in an independent. No commute. Could not abide it. Cheaper than NY, believe me, I've researched that. DC is nutty but what place is not?

So true!

[Anonymous]

I'm sitting in my lovely and spacious (albeit old) apartment in Glover Park, DC. The windows are wide open with a lovely cross breeze coming through. It's dead quiet. DD is in bed. She goes to Stoddert (two blocks away), and plays in the terraced huge back yard behind our apartment. I catch a bus to work (the D2), and am there in 25 minutes. I rarely take the subway, and we don't have a car. We walk to Whole Foods, to Surfside and then to Max's for ice cream about twice a week. We run into neighbors and chat with them as we walk around the neighborhood. People are pleasant and relaxed. I (happily) don't know what most of you people are yammering about. It's all about choices. If you don't like it here, find a way to leave. Otherwise, bloom where you're planted, for your sake and for others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sitting in my lovely and spacious (albeit old) apartment in Glover Park, DC. The windows are wide open with a lovely cross breeze coming through. It's dead quiet. DD is in bed. She goes to Stoddert (two blocks away), and plays in the terraced huge back yard behind our apartment. I catch a bus to work (the D2), and am there in 25 minutes. I rarely take the subway, and we don't have a car. We walk to Whole Foods, to Surfside and then to Max's for ice cream about twice a week. We run into neighbors and chat with them as we walk around the neighborhood. People are pleasant and relaxed. I (happily) don't know what most of you people are yammering about. It's all about choices. If you don't like it here, find a way to leave. Otherwise, bloom where you're planted, for your sake and for others.

Interesting. I live just up the road in McLean Gardens. The people are not very nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Now I live in western Howard County and have an hour long commute downtown. But my kids have plenty of room to play

No way I'm trading two hours of family time for a marginal increase in yard space. I had to commute to Rockville from downtown that for about four months, and almost had a nervous breakdown.

And that took anywhere between 1 and 1.5 hours each way. Unless you're riding the train out of downtown, and everything goes like clockwork, there's no way to get from downtown to Fredrick, or elsewhere in W Howard in an hour or less.

From the number of parents--and regional residents in general--living in DC, and the way close-in housing prices have defied the national trends, it's obvious more and more savvy folks are coming around to that conclusion.

I'm not the pp you are quoting but I also live in a suburb that results in a commute that is ~1hr for my husband. I SAH.

For us, our location has allowed us to live in a very family friendly suburb with great amenities... and be debt free before 30. Mortgage paid off. I wouldn't want to be a slave to our home for the next 30 years any more than you'd want our commute.

Can't have it all in this area, unless you have a LOT of $$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sitting in my lovely and spacious (albeit old) apartment in Glover Park, DC. The windows are wide open with a lovely cross breeze coming through. It's dead quiet. DD is in bed. She goes to Stoddert (two blocks away), and plays in the terraced huge back yard behind our apartment. I catch a bus to work (the D2), and am there in 25 minutes. I rarely take the subway, and we don't have a car. We walk to Whole Foods, to Surfside and then to Max's for ice cream about twice a week. We run into neighbors and chat with them as we walk around the neighborhood. People are pleasant and relaxed. I (happily) don't know what most of you people are yammering about. It's all about choices. If you don't like it here, find a way to leave. Otherwise, bloom where you're planted, for your sake and for others.

Interesting. I live just up the road in McLean Gardens. The people are not very nice.

I think there's more diversity amongst ages and stations in life in GP. Plus, nearly everyone in GP owns a dog, which makes for built in chatting. And (this is just my theory), our neighborhood has less traffic and more trees than McLean Gardens, which is right on Wisconsin. I think it makes for a more relaxed environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So . . .what are your thoughts on green, big yards and friendly neighbors in freakishly close-in, metro accessable brookland? Capitol hill and Georgetown I can see as overhyped, but Brookland?! I bet most folks in "upper NW" like yourself have never even been to Brookland. And why would you? No hype to get you there. Just cute SFH on large lots. Its a sleepy suburb right smack inside the city.

But what about schools? I know there are some good public schools in DC, but I don't have any colleagues living in DC that send their kids to public school. I have three kids and a stay at home wife. Shelling out $35K+ per child per year to pay for private school doesn't strike me as good value for money. I'd rather save some of that money for college and be able to travel fairly frequently with my family. Plus, I'm not persuaded that my kids won't get a rock solid education and have as good a shot at getting into the top schools of their choice coming out of their Howard County school as they would coming out of a DC private school. Frankly, if I paid the kind of money people pay to send their kids to Sidwell and St Albans and they ended up going to a second or third tier school like AU or Virginia Tech, I'd be seriously annoyed, but it happens fairly often. One of my colleagues is constantly complaining about how she's spending her kid's inheritance paying for them to go to Maret. But she's caught up in the whole prestige thing. Yes I know there are benefits to sending your kids to school in an environment of wealth and privilege, but you can certainy get that in college if that's what you want. Anyway, you keep Brookland. I'll take Howard County any day. For the many people who are transplants to DC from other areas, before you decide you can't take the DC area, you should give serious consideration to life outside the beltway.

[Anonymous]

I'm not the pp you are quoting but I also live in a suburb that results in a commute that is ~1hr for my husband. I SAH.

For us, our location has allowed us to live in a very family friendly suburb with great amenities... and be debt free before 30. Mortgage paid off. I wouldn't want to be a slave to our home for the next 30 years any more than you'd want our commute.

Can't have it all in this area, unless you have a LOT of $$

It's great that this setup works for you. However, I would point out that "our commute" is actually "your husband's commute." He's the one making the sacrifices so you can live a debt-free life, not you.