Reply to NYC law partner w/ kids: "$850K gross is not enough to live on"

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Reply to "NYC law partner w/ kids: "$850K gross is not enough to live on""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s. [/quote]

yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC. [/quote]

Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. [b]But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker[/b]. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly. [/quote]

+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.

They also are typically lifelong renters. [/quote]

Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro. [/quote]

Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage [b]but much much more to do outside of the home [/b]and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion. [/quote]

This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground.  If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.

[/quote]

Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).

No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.[/quote]

+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting. [/quote]

Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?

Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements. [/quote]

Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)

I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids. [/quote]

Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP. [/quote]

Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic. [/quote]

Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great [/quote]

The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.

We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?[/quote]

Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you?  An American girl doll?  Nike sneakers?  Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.[/quote]

Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?

If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.[/quote]

You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez.  Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?[/quote]

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