Is a nice big house really worth it when an older, smaller one is totally adequate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a kid, I grew up in the rambler that my parents still live in today in a good school district.

I never remember thinking as a kid/ teen "damn I really wish our house had another floor, bedroom, etc." Hell we barely had a backyard and I did not care.

I was thinking more about getting a car and a boyfriend.

I think your midset is a bit warped OP.

Ditto. I noticed the vibe of the house more than the size.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

See, this is where you miss the boat. I want my boys to marry into a wealthier family and make good connections in the upper middle class of the Washington area. I just hope that some of those WASP girls like my dangerous boys.

For now I will teach my daughters to stay away from your sons

That's exactly what I'm counting on! Those girls wouldn't go on a second date with my boys except that their Mom says to stay away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a kid, I grew up in the rambler that my parents still live in today in a good school district.

I never remember thinking as a kid/ teen "damn I really wish our house had another floor, bedroom, etc." Hell we barely had a backyard and I did not care.

I was thinking more about getting a car and a boyfriend.

I think your midset is a bit warped OP.

Ditto. I noticed the vibe of the house more than the size.

Exactly. And I hope I raise my kids to be the same way

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd be more concerned about the negative effects of bringing up my kid in great big house than the other way around.

I have a very down-to-earth friend with wealthy parents. When the friend went off to college, the parents traded up from their modest house to a really nice one. The girl asked them, "How can you afford this????" And they said something to the effect of, "We have lots of money. We just didn't want you to know that."

I agree with this. The greater risk for children of means is to grow up assuming that a certain base level of luxury is mandatory. If they think all normal families require 4000 square feet and million dollar mortgages, they can never be happy with less. They cannot choose to become teachers or social workers or ministers or journalists. Avoid the trap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP here. Thanks, PP! I was getting quite fed-up with the remarks of all the self-righteous and hypocritical people who do not acknowledge that yes, your kids will be judged by where they live. DH and I would otherwise be perfectly content with living in a condo. FYI, we also drive 8 and 9 y.o. cars that we had bought for 15k.

PP who raised kid next to public housing here. I don't know if anyone ever judged my kid for living in our cheap little house - she went to a crunchy granola type school where people might think those things but it would have been frowned upon to say them - but I know that she sure felt bad about it.

So if that's your main concern - yes, I think that it is highly likely your kids will somehow feel like they've been shortchanged in life if you don't buy the big house. Simple answer. But I still don't feel that is a reason to buy the big house, especially if that's the only reason you buy the house. You might, in fact, be shortchanging your kids if you make decisions affecting the whole family based on that. I don't think it's a good message to give kids that they can't cope with being different from their peers and therefore must be accommodated in a very expensive way.

It's hard not to give your kids everything they want. I'm sure we've spoiled our dd in other ways that we shouldn't have - just not by buying the big house. Not buying that big house allowed us to hang on to another house we owned where her grandmother lived for many years and when we sold that house we got the funds to pay off dd's college. She is starting to realize this as she talks to friends who are accumulating massive amounts of debt at school.

Anyway, OP, it sounds like you have the money to do all these things so it's not a matter of saving money. You should do what you want with it. But if you are content living in a less fancy house, you don't have to give that up just because your kids may or may not fit in with their school friends. But if you want to give them that big house, then by all means go ahead, do it, and enjoy it!

[Anonymous]

What happened to the good old days when parents didn't give a rat's ass if their kids got made fun of if they didn't have the absolute right shoes/clothes/car/house? You had what you had and you LIKED IT. You are giving your kids too much power.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, there will always be people judging you. You are being judged for even asking the question.

When we were house hunting, we decided we did not want to be the poor family in the rich neighborhood. Sure, maybe our kids would benefit from being around wealth and money, but we also know they would be judged for being the poor kids. Our HHI is about $165k, high for most of the country, but middle class in much of WMA and considered "poor" in some areas of WMA.

See, this is where you miss the boat. I want my boys to marry into a wealthier family and make good connections in the upper middle class of the Washington area. I just hope that some of those WASP girls like my dangerous boys.

LOL I like you!
Please send your dangerous boys to court my delicate WASP flowers. We're far too inbred, it would do us much good.

[Anonymous]

My parents moved from a modest home to a "dream home" while I was in college. I was pissed, because even though the house was now twice as large, my room and my closet were now smaller. I had to move a lot of my junk into the basement and I was super sulky about it.

Moral of the story: kids are unpredictable little devils.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

See, this is where you miss the boat. I want my boys to marry into a wealthier family and make good connections in the upper middle class of the Washington area. I just hope that some of those WASP girls like my dangerous boys.

For now I will teach my daughters to stay away from your sons

That's exactly what I'm counting on! Those girls wouldn't go on a second date with my boys except that their Mom says to stay away.

A real princess knows what kind of scum to stay away from

[Anonymous]

I have only read a couple of pages of the responses.

OP, I recommend you read The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine.

It addresses the consequences of children being raised with parental pressure, status in the community, "successful" lifestyles. The book is eye opening. If you are are pediatrician, this book will also be useful on a professional level when dealing with some parents around this area.

Getting back to your original question, if your current house meets your needs, personally I would not move to a more expensive house. With a huge, fancy home, it's not just the mortgage-you have landscaping costs, there's house cleaning service which willl not be cheap, high utilities, everything you do such as painting, replacing the roof, windows, AC/heat, pressure washing the outside, will cost a lot more than the type of home you live in now.