NYC law partner w/ kids: "$850K gross is not enough to live on"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:What a ridiculous thread. Park Sloper here with a $400K HHI raising 2 kids, public schools, loving our life despite living in a small two bedroom apartment. I'm sure we'd be happy in a dense suburb, also, but our jobs are tied to this location and we have a great work-life balance. "Where the action is" and "prestige" are not our priorities right now, and we head into Manhattan with our kids a handful of times per year (I commute to lower Manhattan every day). But there's tons to do locally and further afield in Brooklyn. How do we spend our weekends? Like many, in parks, playgrounds, at sports practices, and also at the beach (you can take a subway to Coney Island in under 30 mins!) at the BK botanic garden, the prospect park zoo, the library, restaurants, open streets every Saturday May-October, and so on. We're high enough income to be able to afford "whatever we want" around here. There is so much to do for free or low cost in NYC, when people talk about the HCOL they're really just talking about real estate. The OP on this thread and so many people responding are incredibly out of touch with what life is like - or what like can be like - raising a family in Brooklyn.

Park Slope and BoCoCa are worlds apart in price and culture. It’s not at all a given that someone living in Cobble Hill is up to move deeper into Brooklyn.

Oh yes … deeper into the terrifying and unmapped wilds of Park Slope.

Park Slope is much more left wing in an alternative lifestyle way. It is much further from Manhattan too. It is a completely separate thing.

Park slope is extremely desirable now and has been for awhile. Years ago it was known as a liberal bastion and maybe a little alternative but that’s old news. I suspect you haven’t been there in ages. Brooklyn is extremely desirable and expensive. It’s preferred by many over Manhattan at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New Yorker here. Ridiculous. Lawyers are so striver (I’m one btw). I work in house, am a single mom and make far less and have raised two kids here. I bought in an up and coming neighborhood which has gotten nicer over the years but still isn’t exactly park Avenue (oh well) and my 2 kids went to public, although one went to a parochial for high school. Very happy here, the city has so much to offer and I loved having teens in a city where I didn’t have to worry about drunk driving.

It’s people like this who only want to send their dc to private schools (why? There are amazing public options) and have a house in the hamptons and a huge apartment in the west village who think they’re ‘poor’.

Again, striver.

Well said

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New Yorker here. Ridiculous. Lawyers are so striver (I’m one btw). I work in house, am a single mom and make far less and have raised two kids here. I bought in an up and coming neighborhood which has gotten nicer over the years but still isn’t exactly park Avenue (oh well) and my 2 kids went to public, although one went to a parochial for high school. Very happy here, the city has so much to offer and I loved having teens in a city where I didn’t have to worry about drunk driving.

It’s people like this who only want to send their dc to private schools (why? There are amazing public options) and[b] have a house in the hamptons and a huge apartment in the west village[i] who think they’re ‘poor’.

Again, striver.

It’s not unreasonable that a person earning close to a million a year thinks they should have more purchasing power than a dumpy apartment in Brooklyn.

It sounds like you have lower standards if you are okay being a single parent, NY public schools and live on much less in NY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a ridiculous thread. Park Sloper here with a $400K HHI raising 2 kids, public schools, loving our life despite living in a small two bedroom apartment. I'm sure we'd be happy in a dense suburb, also, but our jobs are tied to this location and we have a great work-life balance. "Where the action is" and "prestige" are not our priorities right now, and we head into Manhattan with our kids a handful of times per year (I commute to lower Manhattan every day). But there's tons to do locally and further afield in Brooklyn. How do we spend our weekends? Like many, in parks, playgrounds, at sports practices, and also at the beach (you can take a subway to Coney Island in under 30 mins!) at the BK botanic garden, the prospect park zoo, the library, restaurants, open streets every Saturday May-October, and so on. We're high enough income to be able to afford "whatever we want" around here. There is so much to do for free or low cost in NYC, when people talk about the HCOL they're really just talking about real estate. The OP on this thread and so many people responding are incredibly out of touch with what life is like - or what like can be like - raising a family in Brooklyn.

Dp. Thanks for this. New Yorker here also with 2 kids and a similar HHI and we are very happy living here. I bought a starter apartment in the EV years ago, and then later bought my neighbors place and combined them. It’s not fancy but we adore it here, my kids went to great schools and had amazing opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New Yorker here. Ridiculous. Lawyers are so striver (I’m one btw). I work in house, am a single mom and make far less and have raised two kids here. I bought in an up and coming neighborhood which has gotten nicer over the years but still isn’t exactly park Avenue (oh well) and my 2 kids went to public, although one went to a parochial for high school. Very happy here, the city has so much to offer and I loved having teens in a city where I didn’t have to worry about drunk driving.

It’s people like this who only want to send their dc to private schools (why? There are amazing public options) and[b] have a house in the hamptons and a huge apartment in the west village[i] who think they’re ‘poor’.

Again, striver.

It’s not unreasonable that a person earning close to a million a year thinks they should have more purchasing power than a dumpy apartment in Brooklyn.

It sounds like you have lower standards if you are okay being a single parent, NY public schools and live on much less in NY.

Nah, striver. I live in Manhattan fwiw. And Brooklyn is hardly dumpy. Clearly you haven’t stepped foot there in ages, if ever. NYC public schools are amazing. Bronx science? Stuy? LaGuardia? Madonna’s dd went to LaGuardia. Timothy Chalamet. Jennifer Aniston. Niki Minaj. The list goes on. My dc got in there but opted to go elsewhere. Dc was able to qualify for LaGuardia by attending another amazing NYC public school that had a dedicated arts program for training. I literally did not pay for a single lesson.

And those are just the schools you know.
Plus museums, parks, plays, galleries, fashion, art, literature, center of the financial world, etc.


But sure, I guess my standards are too low. I should have given it all up to move to the burbs and live in a McMansion with a finished basement. Got it

[Anonymous]

There is obviously a poster on this thread that just hates cities and it is their whole personality

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is obviously a poster on this thread that just hates cities and it is their whole personality

A troll

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New Yorker here. Ridiculous. Lawyers are so striver (I’m one btw). I work in house, am a single mom and make far less and have raised two kids here. I bought in an up and coming neighborhood which has gotten nicer over the years but still isn’t exactly park Avenue (oh well) and my 2 kids went to public, although one went to a parochial for high school. Very happy here, the city has so much to offer and I loved having teens in a city where I didn’t have to worry about drunk driving.

It’s people like this who only want to send their dc to private schools (why? There are amazing public options) and[b] have a house in the hamptons and a huge apartment in the west village[i] who think they’re ‘poor’.

Again, striver.

It’s not unreasonable that a person earning close to a million a year thinks they should have more purchasing power than a dumpy apartment in Brooklyn.

It sounds like you have lower standards if you are okay being a single parent, NY public schools and live on much less in NY.

this is so dumb.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.

yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.

Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.

+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.

They also are typically lifelong renters.

Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.

Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.

This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.

Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).

No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.

+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.

Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?

Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.

Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)

I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.

Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.

Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.

Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great

The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.

We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?

Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.

Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?

If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.

You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?

Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.

Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.

It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.

New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.

90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.

Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.

yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.

Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.

+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.

They also are typically lifelong renters.

Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.

Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.

This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.

Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).

No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.

+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.

Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?

Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.

Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)

I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.

Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.

Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.

Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great

The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.

We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?

Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.

Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?

If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.

You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?

Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.

Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.

It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.

New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.

90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.

Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.

Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.

No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.

The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a ridiculous thread. Park Sloper here with a $400K HHI raising 2 kids, public schools, loving our life despite living in a small two bedroom apartment. I'm sure we'd be happy in a dense suburb, also, but our jobs are tied to this location and we have a great work-life balance. "Where the action is" and "prestige" are not our priorities right now, and we head into Manhattan with our kids a handful of times per year (I commute to lower Manhattan every day). But there's tons to do locally and further afield in Brooklyn. How do we spend our weekends? Like many, in parks, playgrounds, at sports practices, and also at the beach (you can take a subway to Coney Island in under 30 mins!) at the BK botanic garden, the prospect park zoo, the library, restaurants, open streets every Saturday May-October, and so on. We're high enough income to be able to afford "whatever we want" around here. There is so much to do for free or low cost in NYC, when people talk about the HCOL they're really just talking about real estate. The OP on this thread and so many people responding are incredibly out of touch with what life is like - or what like can be like - raising a family in Brooklyn.

Dp. Thanks for this. New Yorker here also with 2 kids and a similar HHI and we are very happy living here. I bought a starter apartment in the EV years ago, and then later bought my neighbors place and combined them. It’s not fancy but we adore it here, my kids went to great schools and had amazing opportunities.

Posters a page or two ago were saying the EV was for recent grads and not real New Yorkers. Who knew?! Thanks for your post.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.

yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.

Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.

+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.

They also are typically lifelong renters.

Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.

Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.

This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.

Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).

No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.

+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.

Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?

Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.

Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)

I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.

Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.

Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.

Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great

The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.

We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?

Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.

Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?

If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.

You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?

Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.

Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.

It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.

New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.

90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.

Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.

Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.

No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.

The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.

You have no idea what you're talking about. For example: In 2024 the median home price in Brooklyn Heights was significantly lower than Carroll Gardens. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/realestate/new-york-citys-most-expensive-neighborhoods.html Of course price PSF is a better measure than total purchase, but total purchase says a lot about what people are willing to invest to live in a neighborhood.

I won't even bother replying to your schools comment. See many previous posters.

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Anonymous wrote:If the reddit poster lived in Chicago she would be in a city with 90% of NYC's cultural offerings and could have a great house in the city (or in the burbs on public transit) and be able to afford private school (or send her kids to some of the best public schools in the country). The winters are bad, but NYC winters are no picnic either.

Please keep in mind she is in Carroll Gardens, not the West Village or UES. It’s not some art and culinary mecca. It’s pretty mid and far from the action. If anything she may be in a hipper area in Chicago.

Caroll Gardens is so much nicer and more livable than the UES (which is honestly kind of disgusting and boring as hell east of Park) and West Village (overrun with influencers).

DP, totally agree. Besides, NYC is huge, and there is no single place that counts as “art and culinary Mecca”. I am not much of a foodie, but if you want to keep up with the art stuff, you 1) should expect to get on the subway and 2) not necessarily want to live with 3 kids where all the action is - too many a-holes visiting.

UES has many Michelin stars, the Frick, the Met, Cooper Hewitt, neue, Guggenheim. It is the Mecca

.

So, UES covers the textbook visual arts with an occasional edgier thing thrown in. Cool. You still have to get on the subway to see a play or listen to live music. Or see some visual art created by a living artist.

No. You can walk from 5th Avenue to Lincoln Center and attend the opera or enjoy jazz or ballet. There are also living artists on the UES, most people residing there aren’t rich stereotypes.

that’s a long walk.

It's not---not for NYers, anyway. Plus you can make the park part of your excursion.

very few UES residents are going to walk across Central Park at night after seeing an opera a the Met lol. the PP who claimed that obviously has never really live in NYC.

I live in NYC. The lower end of the park near Central Park South is fine to walk in the early evening hours when you'd be going to a show or dinner beforehand. That area remains busy after dark.

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Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.

yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.

Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.

+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.

They also are typically lifelong renters.

Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.

Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.

This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.

Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).

No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.

+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.

Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?

Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.

Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)

I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.

Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.

Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.

Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great

The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.

We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?

Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.

Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?

If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.

You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?

Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.

Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.

It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.

New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.

90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.

Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.

Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.

No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.

The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.

Let’s stop feeding this troll

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Anonymous wrote:New Yorker here. Ridiculous. Lawyers are so striver (I’m one btw). I work in house, am a single mom and make far less and have raised two kids here. I bought in an up and coming neighborhood which has gotten nicer over the years but still isn’t exactly park Avenue (oh well) and my 2 kids went to public, although one went to a parochial for high school. Very happy here, the city has so much to offer and I loved having teens in a city where I didn’t have to worry about drunk driving.

It’s people like this who only want to send their dc to private schools (why? There are amazing public options) and have a house in the hamptons and a huge apartment in the west village[i] who think they’re ‘poor’.

Again, striver.

It’s not unreasonable that a person earning close to a million a year thinks they should have more purchasing power than a dumpy apartment in Brooklyn.

It sounds like you have lower standards if you are okay being a single parent, NY public schools and live on much less in NY.

Nah, striver. I live in Manhattan fwiw. And Brooklyn is hardly dumpy. Clearly you haven’t stepped foot there in ages, if ever. NYC public schools are amazing. Bronx science? Stuy? LaGuardia? Madonna’s dd went to LaGuardia. Timothy Chalamet. Jennifer Aniston. Niki Minaj. The list goes on. My dc got in there but opted to go elsewhere. Dc was able to qualify for LaGuardia by attending another amazing NYC public school that had a dedicated arts program for training. I literally did not pay for a single lesson.

And those are just the schools you know.
Plus museums, parks, plays, galleries, fashion, art, literature, center of the financial world, etc.


But sure, I guess my standards are too low. I should have given it all up to [b]move to the burbs and live in a McMansion with a finished basement. Got it

Of course you assume that moving out of the city means a McMansion and finished basement. You’re rather provincial. This is exactly why you need to make a lot of money and not have to send your kids to school with the offspring of people like PP. you don’t get it, PP, but that’s why people pay for private, especially in Manhattan.