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

[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???

You again? Can’t you go back to Paris already? Why are you even here

[Anonymous]

I’d rather my kids think this area is normal than what’s actually normal is normal. “Real” America is gross, uneducated and nothing I want my kids to strive for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, my family was in a similar position growing up in that we lived in a Bethesda neighborhood that was relatively less well-off than many (now it's all McMansions, but whatever). Yeah, I did notice when I got to high school that there were differences. I didn't feel poor necessarily, but I knew we had less money.

I didn't realize that we still had way more money than most of the rest of the country, or that most people's parents were not MD/PhD/JD, or that most of the country was much more white. I learned that by going to college and then staying in the Midwest for a while. I do think it's incumbent upon privileged parents to minimize the bubble in which their kids are raised. Many of my peers who grew up with more never learned that lesson, and I find them intolerable now (their disdain for people with less is palpable). We live in a different MoCo suburb that is more diverse than the one in which I grew up, and I appreciate that diversity. It's still not enough, but it's better than most of the other options.

I have similar memories of growing up in Bethesda. I went to private school where the families were much wealthier (and the wealthy people lived in Cleveland Park and Chevy Chase, not dumpy Bethesda). While we lived outside of the US for a while it wasn’t until college in the Midwest that I had more perspective on the rest of the country.

[Anonymous]

Well the truth is, people live their daily lives in their community. So it doesn't really matter how your stats line up compared to people in the rest of the country or the world.

It matters who you match up to the people in your daily life. Kids will figure it out on their own. It's human nature.

Don't worry about it so much, there's nothing you can do about it anyway except try to make more money I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well the truth is, people live their daily lives in their community. So it doesn't really matter how your stats line up compared to people in the rest of the country or the world.

It matters who you match up to the people in your daily life. Kids will figure it out on their own. It's human nature.

Don't worry about it so much, there's nothing you can do about it anyway except try to make more money I guess.

+ 1

Has it ever mattered to anyone to finish their dinner because there are "starving children" elsewhere in the world? No. It's a ridiculous argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the PP, kids care and notice less than adults in general, unless those adults focus on money, houses, vacations etc. Kids care about kid things, like electronics and video games.

I don't think this true. Kids care about things like vacations and activities they might enjoy like going to the beach or skiing.

I'm a teacher and I hear the kids talking about how they spent their school breaks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the PP, kids care and notice less than adults in general, unless those adults focus on money, houses, vacations etc. Kids care about kid things, like electronics and video games.

I don't think this true. Kids care about things like vacations and activities they might enjoy like going to the beach or skiing.

I'm a teacher and I hear the kids talking about how they spent their school breaks.

+ 1

I agree. My teens do notice that other kids get to go on vacation much more frequently than we do. But oh well. We're saving for their college educations and they'll be happy to receive the money then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d rather my kids think this area is normal than what’s actually normal is normal. “Real” America is gross, uneducated and nothing I want my kids to strive for.

Something is gross and uneducated here and it’s not the rest of America.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, if we lived somewhere less expensive I'd be more concerned. Here we live in an expensive house, but it isn't flashy. It's 2000 sq ft, post war build and on a smallish lot. It works fine for our family, but doesn't read as wealthy despite being worth 1.3M. We drive nonflashy cars (Kia and minivan) and spend our money on a couple of vacations a year, good childcare, and kid activities. If we lived someplace less expensive, we could live a much, much fancier life.

I honestly am more worried that they won't appreciate how hard we worked to afford this life. That they'll look back and not realize that we actually earned high incomes, despite living a pretty unextraordinary existance. If they want to become a teacher or nurse or any other non-high income profession, they need to understand that they won't be able to stay in this area without drastically downgrading their expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d rather my kids think this area is normal than what’s actually normal is normal. “Real” America is gross, uneducated and nothing I want my kids to strive for.

Something is gross and uneducated here and it’s not the rest of America.

+1 million. Gross and uneducated? Your judgements are sad and pathetic.

[Anonymous]

DH and I are children of poor immigrants. Kids most certainly notice families who have more. My family lived in a small apartment, drove a crappy car and we did not go on vacations. I also didn’t attend camps. I was mostly bored during summers and read a lot of books.

My kids now live in the big house, attend interesting camps and travel often. We travel so much that I don’t think my kids would think going on a trip is even brag worthy.

Our kids do visit their grandparents’ modest home. They know DH and I both grew up poor. I tell them stories of times that I have felt bad when others would brag or I felt left out because I could not afford to buy or do something.

[Anonymous]

Living anywhere gives you a skewed perception, no? It’s not like living in the suburbs of Ohio or small town Alaska gives you a more “realistic” view on life. It’s just different.

Personally it works for me because DC is more diverse and educated than most of the rest of the world... so if you gotta skew things one way that’s a good way to go.