Reply to Fitting into Upper Income Neighborhood Or Where Should Live/School

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[quote=Anonymous]I know this is something of a beaten dead horse, since it has been covered in many similar threads, such as:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/105/309642.page

But we have some variation on our perspective and were looking to solicit some input?

First our situation:

HHI: little over $200k, mid-career unlikely to rise anytime soon, both parents work full-time and commute to the southern side of DC.
Commute: Would like to keep it under 30 minutes to south DC (Capital South/National Stadium), so clearly need close-in neighborhood
Housing budget: $1M, though that would be for a move-in ready home, no resources for extensive renovation. Townhouse is fine.

At this point, we are typical upper middle parents in DC, but our perspective is a little different than some folks.  Our philosophy is probably a little bohemian tiger mom, to mix metaphors and probably self-contradict.  We want our kids to be happy and try to relax, but have high expectations for them for education.  We tend to be organic and environmental (1st DC ate strictly organic until 3; lived for many years with no or only 1 car; even now our main family car is a sub-compact), and we really have not much interest in a big house or fancy cars.  We do like to travel, and that will be a big part of family budget in years to go.

We live close-in now, and are at a public elementary, but we worry about our family not fitting in.  There is lots of family discussions about exotic vacations, private schools, and folks dressing well and driving nice cars.  As a whole, the parents are great and all seem interesting and more or less on-level; we know us parents will have no probably relating in PTA etc, and kids are young enough now that really we have no complaints.

But we worry down the line, when our kids become most obviously some of the have-nots in the class; we've heard about the effects of growing up with less than your peers and now it cause issues later on.  And end of the day, it would be nice to 'fit' in to the community and the school and not feel a bit like interlopers.

I suspect we would like Takoma Park a great deal, but it would be a Faustian bargain: we *might* find a community (though given the prices in TP, MD, it isn't exactly middle class), but it would give us both an hour long commute.  Most of the folks we work with and the most like us in age and income have made the move to the out-ring suburbs of Burke, Vienna, Rockville, Olney.  I suspect someplace like Clarksville or Olney would also be wonderful neighborhoods, but if we both work then our commutes would be hour+ each (most of the families we know who do this have extended family living near/with them and sometimes a nanny -- we are an atomic family on our own).  Changing jobs won't help, our careers to migrate to those areas *at* all.  One of us could stay home, but we would likely return to the original problem: with our reduced income we would now be much poorer than our cohorts.  And a single income opens us up to additional risks we aren't ready to grapple with.

So the real question for us is: is a theoretically better 'fit' to values/neighborhood worth the loss of time with our children because of the longer commute??
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