Reply to Relocating to DC...what's life like?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NWDC is friendly and a great place to raise kids, especially if you want them to have a sense of confidence in navigating cities as they grow into adolescence. A great mix of interesting people. I love living here. Good luck with your move![/quote]

Stressful, cut throat, superficial, competitive, sneaky, petty too when it comes to kids. The schools in NW can be pressure cookers. Works for some kids but if you have kid who are not top students they will feel behind.[/quote]

[b][b]This has been our experience. Absolutely awful. My husband grew up here and so actually believes that kids' childhoods are supposed to be some kind of strenuous boot camp for life. His childhood in DC was basically an elitist pressure cooker under the thumb of a narcissit mother. Other than the narcissist mother, my poor children have experienced the same. They hate it and can't wait to go somewhere where real people live. They cannot believe how friendly people in the world are when they go to other places. [/b][/quote]
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NP. I need to know more, such as where you live,  where your kids go to school , and what you and DH do for work and social activities

I am a fed lifer married to a high school teacher whose kids go to public school and who socializes with mostly other feds, teachers, nonprofit types. Neighbors mostly have similar type jobs-- even the lawyers are in public-interest fields. What you describe doesn't fit our experience.[/quote]

My kdis grew up here, and are now at college elsewhere.  They don't think this is true at all, and while they are enjoying their respective new locations (MA and MI), they like it ere and have found positives and negatives elsewhere.  Perhaps your attitude rubbed off on your kids?  People are very friendly in other places, but not necessarily actually any kinder or better people.  The one thing they do like about this area is that people are much more well informed about the world outside of the US.[/quote]

My DC are in college too, as you say, "elsewhere."  They got as far away from DC as possible, hated everything about the parents here and the way children are raised.  And no, before you ask, they didn't run from us, we have a second home near where they both attend college.  There's a lot of truth in the statement about strenuous boot camp of life, only those that support that type of child rearing will call it out as positive.  
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It's quite telling the number of people on this board who thought it appropriate to demand to know this poster's occupation, social status, and level of affluence. Although they were too polite to say it, I bet they also wanted an ethnicity box to check... So they could then base their value assessment of the women's moral character, and criticize her parenting.

That is how it is done here.

I have another example of DC culture to share, also quite typical.

One of my children attended an extracurricular activity for years. It is run by a rather high-strung woman from Upper Caucasia who, despite her credentials, seems to have no idea how to work with kids or possibly even with people. I found her flaws charming and her organization well-intentioned despite that... until the time came when I came to her with a request on behalf of my child, who had asked directly, but been ignored. The request was quite simple, and I'll share it: my child simply wanted the woman and all attendees to be masked when in close contact (like at the same table) with my child. When my child requested this themselves, they were told it wasn't necessary and their anxiety must stem from something else entirely and that their "body language" implied they would rather be alone and so it wasn't about masks at all.

When I tried to mediate, the woman exploded, suddenly presenting a ledger's worth of grievances about things our child had done wrong, assumptions about what we were doing wrong with our parenting, and then accused us of attacking her.

All over wearing a mask indoors in close quarters.

When I pointed this out I got an earful about how important she was, how many sacrifices she'd made, and how terrible I was as a person.

I wish I could say this was a surprise, but it is quite typical. [/quote]

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