Relocated with kids to/from DMV? Regrets? Relieved?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP most people live here because of jobs. Retire here? The people who retire in DCUM land do it because friends and family are here. It’s not a retirement destination. Unless you love Va country side or MD beaches/ countryside.

Sounds like I'm in the minority here, but I think DC is a great place to retire.

I don't want to spend retirement isolated in some suburb. In DC, you can walk to everything, enjoy nice parks, have great outdoor dining, access plenty of events and museums, and have the good parts of city life on a scale more easy and manageable than most other big cities. Sounds better than spending every day playing shuffle board at some "active adult" community in the suburbs. To each their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. Thanks for the quick reply. Just to clarify, we will not be in the workforce--this is an early at least semi-retirement. If you can call raising two daughters any kind of retirement ... Do you find the DC area stressful apart from work?

Well yeah it is full of a bunch of type a people who push their kids a ton.

I don’t understand why you would move here from CA if not from work.

I’d move someplace on the central California coast if I were you. Sonata Barbara, SLO. Maybe Santa Cruz.

Those are good suggestions--we got married on the central.coast and it is spectacularly beautiful. I guess we were lured by the promise of great public schools and cultural attractions. I appreciate your thoughts!

[Anonymous]

I love it here and don’t think it’s hyper competitive, at least where I live. But I wouldn’t move here for the lifestyle you seek. You would be fish out of water. I have family in your situation and they are staying in the Bay Area. I’m sure there are other places with better recreation since you don’t need to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What makes you think dc is not high stress? I would argue dc is even more stressful. Remember we have bad weather, this place is highly driven by politics and what you do for a living. The east coast is way different from the west coast....people here take themselves too seriously.

There are other places that would provide what you are looking for. Moving here for culture is one thing but I can tell you after about 18 months you will be done with most of what school has to offer. I'm a lifelong washingtonian who has moved around briefly to other states.

Thank you for these thoughtful, sobering points.

[Anonymous]

We moved from San Francisco area to Fairfax County for jobs. Houses are cheaper, so less financial stress, but traffic is terrible, everyone is type A overachievers, and schools can be pressure cookers if you aren’t careful. Overall I really enjoy this area most of the time, but I would leave in a heart beat if my family had the same job security and buying power elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. Thanks for the quick reply. Just to clarify, we will not be in the workforce--this is an early at least semi-retirement. If you can call raising two daughters any kind of retirement ... Do you find the DC area stressful apart from work?

I don’t find it stressful. I moved here from manhattan. It’s WAY less stressful than manhattan. There are so many cultural things to do here, but of course they are all closed here.

I probably would live in the suburbs if you are looking for less stressful. Will you use private or public school?

OP. Perhaps naively we had figured on buying a house based on public school. Coming from out of state, it's scary to rely on acceptance to a private school and hard to know the culture of those schools. Tough to budget for two kids full K-12 private, too. Northern Virginia seemed perfect--a Metro ride (or short drive) away from 20 Smithsonian museums, some of the highest-ranked public schools in the nation, and the option for an active suburban town or a five-acre lot further out. But neither of us has spent more than a week in the DMV, DND that insulated by conferences or vacation activities. I most certainly don't know what I don't know.

Manhattan, of course, offers it's own very strong case, but my wife is not inclined to live in the city proper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, Washington, D.C. is hell on earth. And though it sounds like you're well-off, that will only add to the stress of raising children here. The intensity and competition among the upper class famlies here is very toxic. Do not do it. Biggest regret of my entire life. I was raised in a nice suburb outside Philadelphia where people are focused on raising nice, warm famlies. DC is nothing like that.

OP. Thanks for this. Any extended family connections aside, would you have chosen Philadelphia to raise your kids?

[Anonymous]

Look, I'm one of the rare-ish types that LOVES living in DC. I like politics, I like that people are passionate about their work here, I don't feel like I need huge green spaces nor the dense urban-ness of NYC. But even I would never choose to live here if I could live anywhere in the country and work were not a factor! Why would you choose someplace with such a high cost of living when you don't need the amenities it provides? If you're wealthy enough to retire while you have kids and even consider living here, you're wealthy enough to live somewhere beautiful and scenic regularly and shell out for flights and such regularly to see the culture that cities across the US have to offer. If I were in your shoes, I'd live in coastal California in less expensive areas than SF/LA, or maybe Boulder or Park City UT if I felt more partial to mountains, and then travel widely (post pandemic).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a native Seattleite raising kids in the close-in DC suburbs and trying desperately to get back to the West Coast. The DC area is hyper career focused—it’s the first question anyone asks you (“what do you do?”), even when you meet them through your kids. What makes the DC area even worse is the weather—all winter and summer, barely any spring and fall (basically the opposite of the Bay Area), so you have very small windows to get outside. Then, the outdoor options here are pretty paltry—we’ve done all the hiking, sailing, kayaking to be done in the area and are pretty bored of it all. (Pandemic isn’t helping with that of course.). The cultural opportunities are good, but honestly, the arts scene is no better than any other major city. Certainly, there are certain art forms that are strong here, and I wouldn’t deter you if you had a niche interest.

For me, personally, I am grateful for my 13 years in DC but am ready to move on.

OP. Thank you very much. Seattle (or perhaps the East Side) is high on our list. If I may ask, was your move for work? Would you choose to return to Seattle or somewhere in the Puget Sound area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about outside DC like fairfax.

No. Do you like beach life? I’d probably move to Encinitas.

OP. Oh, man. I lived in San Diego for about a year. I had a strawberry guava tree in the front yard and I could just pick one off on my way to the corner cafe. Life moved on, but that whole area is lovely. As a new parent, though, I wonder about school options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, Washington, D.C. is hell on earth. And though it sounds like you're well-off, that will only add to the stress of raising children here. The intensity and competition among the upper class famlies here is very toxic. Do not do it. Biggest regret of my entire life. I was raised in a nice suburb outside Philadelphia where people are focused on raising nice, warm famlies. DC is nothing like that.

+1. I grew up in one of the North Shore suburbs of Chicago and could not believe the DC area. We were there for 5 years. So glad when we left. If you plan on doing private school, it might be ok. We moved to a place where there is local control of the schools (rather than county based). I’m on a first name basis with the superintendent, other administrators, principals. If that matters to you, find a state like that.

OP. I'm glad you found your spot! May I ask where you ended up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like so many others in this area, we’re only here for work. We will not retire here. My two biggest complaints — it’s too congested and too humid in the summer. If you don’t like lots of people and sweating, don’t move here.

OP. I don't mind sweat, but I like when it has the courtesy to evaporate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me offer the alternate view to the prevailing voice in this thread. We moved from DC to Florida and I miss the DMV's Type A personality. The people here are, for the most part, lazier and dumber. The public schools are pretty bad. The job market sucks unless you're a bartender or DJ.

And DC may be hot/humid in the summer, but it has nothing on Florida.

I know OP isn't asking about Florida, but the point is this: you may not realize how much you actually enjoy the DMV's Type A personality until you move elsewhere.

This post couldn't support the majority opinion here any more strongly than it does. OP, what you read in the pompous, nastly attitude of this poster is what you'll get everyday in DC. Everybody looking down their nose at everyone else. Trust me, this personality is the rule in DC, not the exception.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please share your wisdom or cautionary tale. Did you move your family from a big city to acres of land in Great Falls or New Zealand? Trade suburban life for the city center? Leave for another country, or immigrate to DC to find things were (or weren't) what you expected? How did it work out for your kids? What would you have done differently, and what are you glad played out the way it did? I would love to hear your story.

Additionally, I would love to hear your advice for a 40-year-old couple with two kids under two, leaving high-stress San Francisco Bay Area jobs to focus on raising our family. Would you choose the cultural cornucopia of the DMV? If you could choose any neighborhood and any school, where would you have sent your own kids? Our excellent local school district felt obligated to post guards and place cameras at the railroad tracks to deter high school suicides. It's scary. Do you love your school, and does it support your children?

Gratefully,

Please excuse typos from an exhausted dad sneaking out of bed to post in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately the highest performing schools have suicides here too. So you’ll need to choose a middle of the road school pyramid to avoid that.

OP. With kids so small we don't know if they will thrive or shrivel in a Langley or McLean or any of the other excellent schools. What will these schools even be like in fifteen years? Is it better to be a bigger fish is a smaller pond? Maddening. I hope you found your fit. Is there any place to find more about the culture of these schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. Thanks for the quick reply. Just to clarify, we will not be in the workforce--this is an early at least semi-retirement. If you can call raising two daughters any kind of retirement ... Do you find the DC area stressful apart from work?

Did you get super wealthy after an ipo or something?

Ran a very profitable small business for 15 years and was fortunate in the stock market. Wife had a very successful medical practice. We certainly aren't billionaires but we could probably live more or less wherever fits us. I am grateful for that. I loved my job but it took the birth of my second child to realize the stress was slowly killing me (very nasty insomnia). I am healthy now but realize I only have so much time here to raise a family and enjoy the fruit of our hard work (and luck!) Giving our daughters a really good education to give them the options to choose what they love seems like a high priority. The schools in Fairy County certainly rank exceptionally well, but that can also mean exceptional pressure. We want what is best for them and the family.

Thanks!

Honestly, OP, you sound like too nice--and humble--a person, to live in DC. I really don't think you'll like it. I will say, out in Great Falls, the people tend to become a little more low key, but it's really a long way from downtown and all the restaurants, culture, etc. Being close to those things comes at quite a cost. My kids hate living here and cannot wait to get out.