Do you worry that raising your kids in the dc area will skew their sense of normalcy?

[Anonymous]

All kids are different and how they view the world reflects that, we sold a very nice house to take a new job and ended up buying an older crappy house in the new location, 1 daughter cares and is mortified other daughter didn’t even seem to notice!

[Anonymous]

Lifelong Wa(r)shingtonian here. Growing up, I had no idea of my family’s income, or any notion of what different types of houses cost — either within the DC area or compared to other places around the country.

But to this day, I feel personally insulted when asked to pay to enter a museum or zoo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the DC area is not like Bethesda. We are in Aspen Hill and it’s very down to earth over here.

Exactly. Any post that talks about “this area” as competitive, wealthy, etc. is just talking about NW DC, Bethesda, Chevy Chase. I’m in Silver Spring and I don’t recognize these threads. $750k would get you a nice house.

And not even all of NWDC. We live in an apartment building in NW. So do many of the kids at my kid's school -- our building is full of families with kids. My kid sometimes talks about wanting a SFH, but her rationale is that we could paint the walls a different color, not that she thinks our home is too small.

I was always super jealous growing up of my friends who grew up in apartments - and I grew up in a SFH in DC that was larger than that of most of my peers. The apartments gave more freedom- could run down the hall to play with friends, many had play rooms, and they were ka-ching on Halloween.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lifelong Wa(r)shingtonian here. Growing up, I had no idea of my family’s income, or any notion of what different types of houses cost — either within the DC area or compared to other places around the country.

But to this day, I feel personally insulted when asked to pay to enter a museum or zoo.

+1

I grew up in Bethesda with a SAHM and a law partner father. It never occurred to me that we were wealthy and I never really compared our house to anyone else’s. I certainly never walked into a friend’s more modest home and thought anything negative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the DC area is not like Bethesda. We are in Aspen Hill and it’s very down to earth over here.

Exactly. Any post that talks about “this area” as competitive, wealthy, etc. is just talking about NW DC, Bethesda, Chevy Chase. I’m in Silver Spring and I don’t recognize these threads. $750k would get you a nice house.

And not even all of NWDC. We live in an apartment building in NW. So do many of the kids at my kid's school -- our building is full of families with kids. My kid sometimes talks about wanting a SFH, but her rationale is that we could paint the walls a different color, not that she thinks our home is too small.

And my kid that has grown up in SFH tells me that when she’s an adult, she’ll live in a cozy apartment with her dogs, Potato the Corgi, Big Foot the Pomeranian, and Little Foot the Husky. She likes being surrounded by people as much as I hate it.

[Anonymous]

We have a 900 square foot house... no big deal. Easy to talk about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lifelong Wa(r)shingtonian here. Growing up, I had no idea of my family’s income, or any notion of what different types of houses cost — either within the DC area or compared to other places around the country.

But to this day, I feel personally insulted when asked to pay to enter a museum or zoo.

+1, no clue either and DC museums and zoo were free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in a smallish 2,000 as ft house in California. Some of my daughter’s friends live in bigger houses that are in cheaper neighborhoods as well as bigger houses in wealthier neighborhoods. She is 12. She does not notice the neighborhood only the size, and niceness, of the house. She definitely thinks our house is the worst and smallest. It’s ok. She’ll live! Lol

+++1
I would rather my kids grow up in the more modest home, tbh. There's a good chance we will have a large cash windfall to upgrade our home significantly, but I am happy with the smallish in great neighborhood home we have. I don't necessarily want our kids to grow up realizing we have money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I grew up in Paris, which is far worse.

DC is provincial compared to other capitals, OP.

What anonymous countryside do you come from???

+1. We moved from DC to London.... my children ask me why we don’t have a driver and don’t fly private.

[Anonymous]

I’d worry more about the elitist attitudes rubbing off and less about the house size/price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I noticed when DC was in MS, and was looking on Instagram on the family iPad (DC did not have a phone). It was over winter break and their friends were all posting about overseas locations they were visiting, their latest and greatest iPhone received as a gift, new hoverboards and electric scooters, etc. I recall feeling badly that DC did not have those opportunities. I recently discussed it with DC, and asked them if they remembered that from MS. DC had no idea what I was talking about! So, the kids don't all focus on wealth, even if we adults sometimes do.

I dot know. My DC is well aware of their friends amazing vacations. Maybe they don’t remember now, or maybe they are just being nice to mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in a very diverse suburb of DC and I wonder if my kid thinks that is how it is across the entire USA. I have told her its not but it may be a rude awakening someday. (we are a multi-racial family)

This really was an issue ... we left this area for travel sports and faced so much racism. We had to have security protect our team and families at 2 travel games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the DC area is not like Bethesda. We are in Aspen Hill and it’s very down to earth over here.

Exactly. Any post that talks about “this area” as competitive, wealthy, etc. is just talking about NW DC, Bethesda, Chevy Chase. I’m in Silver Spring and I don’t recognize these threads. $750k would get you a nice house.

It’s still an issue. My kids think we are poor because we are in a normal house in Aspen hill like neighborhood. They go to friends houses and compare and think we are poor.

[Anonymous]

I grew up on the Upper East Side, went to private school, etc... We were poor relative to most of my classmates but I still grew up very well off and surrounded by tremendous wealth.
But, I walked around the streets of NYC and took public transportation to and from school as well as to get around and when you do this, it’s pretty clear that most of the people you are amidst are different from you. Socio economic and racial differences are in your face and it made me realize at a pretty young age that I had it pretty good.
Living in a high income suburb and never exposing your kids to the grittiness of life will definite skew their sense of normalcy. But get your kids out in the city or even in rural areas and let the, see that there are many ways of living. And one is not necessarily superior to another.

[Anonymous]

There’s a couple of things at play here I think. On the one hand, I’m very glad they’re growing up here and not in the small town Midwest like I did. People here are educated and the area is prosperous. We have so many activities to choose from. I think it’s really a great place to grow up from that standpoint. I’m glad they’re not exposed to the heroin/prescription pill epidemic in Ohio where I grew up. This area is diverse and interesting, not 97+% white and skewing elderly. And people in the rest of the country ARE NOT inherently “nicer” or whatever, there’s a lot of bitterness and resentment toward people not exactly like them, and if you haven’t lived in the area for generations people act like you don’t exist.

On the other hand, we definitely live in a small home, and even my 4 year old has noted that Larlo and Aiden from preschool have big houses with separate playrooms, large bedrooms, etc. But, he’d probably notice that no matter where we lived.