Reply to I HATE the suburbs and have a chance to leave. This is long..more experienced parents help?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP have you ever heard the saying, “no matter where you go, there you are.”

My old therapist also used to say this: “there is no geographic solution.” By this, she meant that thinking that a move will give you happiness you can’t find in your present means you aren’t doing the work to be happy with what you have now.

As someone who lived with 2 kids in a 2BR/2BA 1300 square foot apartment in a city when my partner and I both tried to telework, I think you are nuts. We moved as soon as we got the chance after our second was born, because we knew what was best for our kids was giving up our 15 years in the city apartment to invest in our own home, good schools, a yard, a good neighborhood, and a community for them to grow up in.

A few thoughts you probably have not considered:

Have you thought about doing family laundry in a shared laundry room in the basement of your apartment versus in your own SFH when you own your own washer and dryer? You probably forget what college laundry was like or what it was like to fight for a washer or a dryer for hours but trust me, it’s horrible.

How do you feel about lugging groceries? Do you like walking 4-5 blocks, multiple times, carrying bags while your arms burn to the point of giving out to and from your car? With little kids? In the snow and rain? Hopefully there is covered parking but if not, you’re signing up for a real downgrade.

How do you feel about neighbors who are homeowners of townhouses, row houses, and SFHs judging you and thinking you are poor for being a renter? This was a constant issue for us, the people who owned 2m SFHs did not treat us, their renting apartment neighbors (all professionals paying a lot in rent) as their “real” neighbors since we were renters and not homeowners.

How do you feel about neighbors making noise complaints about your kids? How do you feel about landlords sending you emails documenting complaints about kids crying, or you being up late at night? Happened to us multiple times, even when we carpeted the whole unit - most often when we were up with sick kids barfing at 2 am. (Doing puke laundry at 2 am in a shared laundry room in a
Basement without a utility sink is a special treat).

How do you feel about fighting your husband for space when you both have important meetings or calls and don’t want the other person to be heard in the background?

How do you feel about not being able to host guests, since you won’t have space? Our only option was people sleeping in our living room, not exactly like a spare room.

How do you feel about being stuck inside at night? With a yard my partner and I have a fire pit and do fires in our fire pit or fireplace at night. We sit on the porch outside and drink wine. Or on our patio. It’s amazing. In our city apartment the rooftop deck closed at 9 pm and we would get kicked out by the building manager, so were always stuck inside once the kids went down and we could not enjoy any part of the city unless we had a sitter.

How do the kids feel about losing a yard? Having no space to run around inside and play? Having no space for a play room or kid area that is not part of the family living space?

How do you feel about having limited to no storage for all the crap in your 5 BR house? I promise there won’t be room for it all, even if you get a storage locker.

Do you enjoy having bikes stolen? In 15 years in a city I lost 3, all locked, one from
My garden apartment porch on a second floor, twice from a locked bike room in our building.

Do you want to lose your sense of community? In a neighborhood of homeowners there’s a far greater sense of community than in a building of renters where people come and go constantly.

Personally I think you would be nuts to make all these trade offs, but that’s because I think you are only seeing the good parts of city living and ignoring all the bad.

[/quote]

NP who lives in DC.  OP should go for it.  It’s her last chance for her and her kids to spend time with her elderly grandparents before it’s too late.  Family trumps everything especially if OP is close to her grandparents.

As to your points above.  We don’t own lots of stuff living in 1400 sq feet rowhouse.  Less is better and instead of buying stuff, we prioritize using discretionary funds for traveling.

Laundry is NBD. Run a load downstairs.  Who cares?

OP has farmers market nearby and from what it sounds like in her post likely neighborhood markets too. She doesn’t need tons of groceries like you do in the burbs. What she can’t get there, just order delivery.  Easy.  Walk down the block for pizza night weekly or whatever too.  So easy.

OP doesn’t need a yard when there are parks nearby.  We have a yard and our kid rarely plays there because we are 3 houses from a park.  But being in the city, there is just so much to do especially with young kids that you just are not home as much.  Today we went to a fun street festival that was a few blocks long with music, kids corner and entertainment, etc…. Tomorrow we are going to a show.   OP gets to expose her 3 and 5 year old to so much art, music, culture and all these experiences in the early years are very enriching socially and for brain development.

This is your chance OP to give your young kids not only limited time left with your grandparents but also all the amazing and enriching opportunities that are available in the city.   Your kids are the best age for it too.  In DC when my kid was 2-7/8, every weekend there were so many family friendly activities from concerts to art events to story time to festivals, museums, theater, etc…. So many that you had to pick and choose.  It’s fabulous.   Now that my kid is 9 and is involved in more extracurriculars and activities, we do less of above but still try to take advantage of some of it when we can.

Forget the boring burbs.  Your kids will love all the adventures they will have in the city, be so enriched by it, and grow and expand their horizons.  Also if you get involved with parent groups in your neighborhood and the city, you will have a huge sense of community and village which you are not finding in your current burbs.

Once your grandparents pass away, you then can decide to stay in the city or move back to another suburbs.  This is an exciting chance and opportunity for your family.  Grab it and live it and don’t let it pass you by with regrets later.[/quote]

The problem is that OP has lived in the burbs and has experienced life with a large house, yard and modern conveniences of American suburban life.  You haven’t.  So you think your 1,400 square foot existence is perfectly fine.  You think taking kids to street festivals and “shows” is unique and that you can only expose kids to the arts in a city.  You’re clueless.

OP is going to be giving up so much to relocate to a city, and then learn the hard way how much life has changed due to kids.  The fact you discount doing laundry for a family in a shared laundry room says everything.

It also sounds like you only have one kid.

[/quote]

OP has lived in the very unit that she's considering moving back to.

There are plenty of posters here who have lived in the burbs and articulated why they moved back to the city with kids and are happy.  Some of us are ok with the aspects that are harder (shared laundry, walking home with groceries) in exchange for what we perceive to be worthwhile tradeoffs.  It's fine if you don't think those tradeoffs are worth it, but plenty of posters here (myself included) have made those tradeoffs and are happy with our decisions!  We're not "clueless" about what great suburban living is, but there's still something about cities that are more appealing for raising a family for some people.  [/quote]

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