Reply to Raising kids in a competitive UMC community? Would you do it all over again?

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Raising kids in a competitive UMC community? Would you do it all over again? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are plenty of places in the DC area which are middle class and not competitive UMC environments OP.

[b]You can choose to live in a super competitive school district or go to an expensive private school, or you can live in a less expensive area with decent mid tier public schools[/b], even in the DC area. The choice is yours OP.[/quote]

Not OP, but again, I completely reject this. We moved out to Loudoun County, to a diverse area with middling public schools. Our MS/HS hover around a 4 on Great Schools. While this did maybe result in less academic competition (in numbers of kids, the competitive kids are still competitive), there is still tremendous financial competition. My husband and I call it the "arms race" and its definitely contagious. Some people cannot stand when others have something better than they do and must immediately remedy the situation. Tons of fancy 60-70k SUVs (the latest trend seems to be a fully loaded Tahoe), $100k kitchens, second homes, new cars for teenagers, expensive name brand clothing and shoes (most teens are wearing a sneaker that costs $150+) etc. You would have to be blind or oblivious not to notice. A friend of mine recently told me she no longer wants to host at her home because she is embarrassed that her kitchen is old and not remodeled. [/quote]

Why not move to DC? I live in NE, and everyone around me has a 10 year old Honda CRV they barely use because we mostly use the bus or metro. My kids wear Amazon basics and I’m sporting the latest from Target. DH and I make a lot, but choose to spend on experiences, and kids are learning well in charter schools.

Life is only competitive if you make it that way. [/quote]

This is us, too, but there can be stealth competition in this lifestyle. Like this PP might be totally chill. But she could also be weirdly competitive about how her kids immersion or montessori charter is better than wherever your kids go, or how they're more environmentally conscious because they metro everywhere, or brag endlessly about they would NEVER do Disney because it's so corporate but they had an amazing time on their 10 day camping trip in the Alps last summer.

I've met people who seemed down to earth like this but I think this area has so many type A, personally competitive people that even if you get away from the really overt, hyper-materislistic people, you still sometimes encounter one-upsmanship and other competitive behaviors.

And yes, of course there are people like this everywhere. But I've lived a lot of places and there are more people like this here than in places in "fly over country" where people's expectations for themselves and other people tend to be lower.[/quote]

There’s a difference between being competitive and just being insecure. I find lots of people who choose to raise families in DC public schools to be generally less insecure because they are already making choices that insecure people would never make. [/quote]

Wow, hard disagree, I see a TON of insecurity in DC public school families, especially the ones who don't have access to "well regarded" inbound schools. Either they go the charter route, where there's lots of insecurity about which charter is best, as well as these arguments (on DCUM yes but people talk about this IRL too) about test scores relative to socioecomic status of families. Or they attend their IB which might be Title 1 or have pretty atrocious test scores, and there's tons of insecurity there that can manifest as "well I'm a better person than you because I invest in my neighborhood school" or this pity party "whyyyyy don't we have any lottery luck and why is our school so weak." The lottery and the unevenness of schools in DC creates winners and losers and that absolutely leads to insecure, competitive behavior in both groups.

I'm sure the rich folks at privates or the really well funded suburban publics are insecure in their own way, but I observe endless insecurity in the DC public school parents I meet (we are a DC public school family).[/quote]

What is this insecurity that you are referencing?

DH and I are both ivy educated. We have a HHI of $2-3m. Our kids get good grades, play sports, dance, do scouts, have friends from similar backgrounds. My kids are loved and happy.

[b]I am not in competition with other moms or kids[/b]. My kids are good at almost everything and have lots of friends. [/quote]

That's because you are winning[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics