Reply to Anyone feel like DC just isnt ideal for kids?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am someone who sometimes really dislikes parenting culture in DC (I live in DC "proper" though we interact with both families in DC (mostly public schools) and in the burbs (public and private).

By and large I do feel kids here are over programmed from a young age. There is a weird focus on getting kids in specialized activities before they hit middle elementary. It also feels like families are very go go go-- a different event or experience every weekend or even both days, multiple activities a week, plus tons of travel. People mostly seem to enjoy this but it seems intense to me and we do a lot less because we like having downtime.

It also feels like schools and education are a major source of stress here. It feels like people move around schools a lot. In DC the lottery is a big part of this though there's also movement to private. Also just a lot of discussion of which schools are best. Again, it mostly just feels intense to me. Many people seem happy about their schools or school choices even as they move around, but the amount of focus and discussion feels intense to me. I think I'm naturally more laissez faire about schools unless something really egregious is going on-- I care about education but attended mediocre public schools and did great in college and life because I'm naturally pretty academic, not because my K-12 experience was optimized for me.

[b]But I'm really not sure this is different elsewhere? That's where I get hung up. We are contemplating a move to a smaller city and in theory it's less intense than DC. But when we talk to friends there it doesn't seem THAT different. I think what people sometimes ascribe to DC is just what UMC parenting is now. We still might move for cost of living reasons (which could really benefit our kids-- more money for college, real in state options, a bigger yard and just less financial pressure generally) but none of that is the stuff day to day that bugs me about the culture of families and parenting here.
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I just increasingly think we as broader society have made parenting way harder than it needs to be for no good reason, but that DC itself is not the problem. Maybe a higher concentration of "high achievers" than elsewhere makes it worse by degrees? I don't know, there are travel sports and debates about advanced math everywhere.[/quote]

Yep this is constantly my hang up. My spouse and I want to live in or near a city with access to culture, job opportunities, and a diverse population. I think that pretty much means we're going to be in an UMC environment wherever we go, and as far as I can tell, this is just par for the course. It might look a little different in DC than elsewhere, but the pressure is the same.

Truthfully, your earlier point about people traveling and scheduling a lot of family activities on weekends is what I see as a plus for raising my kids in DC - kids here are being exposed to the bigger world, and things like extracurriculars are placed within that context. I feel like my family in other UMC areas are [i]all-consumed[/i] by the local sports leagues, travel swim teams, etc. The pressure is still there, it just looks a little different.

So I try not to fall into the trap of thinking I could just move away from all of this. Modern parenting is hard and DC parents are not unique in feeling like that. [/quote]

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