Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are not white and left for Fairfax when our kids were young. We never felt included in Arlington.

Meh, I am as white as they come — 98% Swiss and German according to 23 and Me — and I never felt so included in 22207.

I think people interpret generalized anxiety as snobbishness, however. IME living in the Jamestown/Williamsburg/Yorktown pyramid, it’s heavily populated by people suffering from imposter syndrome. The putting on airs thing is a defense mechanism.

As an anxious person I agree that people often interpret anxiety as snobbishness, however, there is really no reason that north Arlington should be suffering from more anxiety than south Arlington, where people drive a lot of old hondas. It's the money.

Or the lack of money. Being up to your eyeballs in debt causes anxiety.

+1 That's probably more the case than actually having a lot of money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are not white and left for Fairfax when our kids were young. We never felt included in Arlington.

Meh, I am as white as they come — 98% Swiss and German according to 23 and Me — and I never felt so included in 22207.

I think people interpret generalized anxiety as snobbishness, however. IME living in the Jamestown/Williamsburg/Yorktown pyramid, it’s heavily populated by people suffering from imposter syndrome. The putting on airs thing is a defense mechanism.

As an anxious person I agree that people often interpret anxiety as snobbishness, however, there is really no reason that north Arlington should be suffering from more anxiety than south Arlington, where people drive a lot of old hondas. It's the money.

Or the lack of money. Being up to your eyeballs in debt causes anxiety.

I’m sorry you’ve had a bad experience in your neighborhood, OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are not white and left for Fairfax when our kids were young. We never felt included in Arlington.

Meh, I am as white as they come — 98% Swiss and German according to 23 and Me — and I never felt so included in 22207.

I think people interpret generalized anxiety as snobbishness, however. IME living in the Jamestown/Williamsburg/Yorktown pyramid, it’s heavily populated by people suffering from imposter syndrome. The putting on airs thing is a defense mechanism.

As an anxious person I agree that people often interpret anxiety as snobbishness, however, there is really no reason that north Arlington should be suffering from more anxiety than south Arlington, where people drive a lot of old hondas. It's the money.

Anonymous wrote:We are not white and left for Fairfax when our kids were young. We never felt included in Arlington.

Meh, I am as white as they come — 98% Swiss and German according to 23 and Me — and I never felt so included in 22207.

I think people interpret generalized anxiety as snobbishness, however. IME living in the Jamestown/Williamsburg/Yorktown pyramid, it’s heavily populated by people suffering from imposter syndrome. The putting on airs thing is a defense mechanism.

Anonymous wrote:I'm shocked that someone asked you which family you worked for considering how politically correct everyone is these day. Can you share who asked you - was it a mom or dad or a grandparent?

OP here- it was a mom. In fairness, it was the first day of school and we had just moved in a week earlier, so we had never met before. And yes, it is North Arlington as many have guessed.

Anonymous wrote:I'm shocked that someone asked you which family you worked for considering how politically correct everyone is these day. Can you share who asked you - was it a mom or dad or a grandparent?

Or a nanny?

I’m really sorry you are heaving this experience op. I have not found this to be the case, but yes it’s an expensive area and there are a lot of people with some money, and I’ve found that the ones that have a lot of money (I only know because I work with them) are extremely down to earth and you’d never even know.

We are not white and left for Fairfax when our kids were young. We never felt included in Arlington.

I hope you asked that lady what family SHE worked for.

Some areas around her are Snob Land. We have friends in north Arlington who feel they don’t fit in due to economic status or lack of. You’ll find pockets of snobbery all over, and it reveals the insecurity and ignorance of the snobs.

I'm shocked that someone asked you which family you worked for considering how politically correct everyone is these day. Can you share who asked you - was it a mom or dad or a grandparent?

N Arlington is the worst. I’m sure the racial aspect makes it even harder - obviously so terrible to be asked which family you work for!! - but you can feel confident that the moms are awful regardless of race. There are clearly individual exceptions but the culture in general is not great.

Mostly I just want to give you sympathy BUT if you ever consider moving, S. Arlington is SOOO much more down to earth and racially diverse. N. Arlington likes to act like it’s so much better than S. Arlington when they’re practically the same except S. Arlington has more diversity, so you can imagine the families who choose S. Arlington are more chill and not hung up with outside perceptions.

I'm sorry you are having that experience, OP. A lot of people in N. Arl are transplants and a bit elitist - which is funny b/c most have nothing special going on to warrant such behavior.

Agree with the performance liberalism, but neighborhood friendliness depends on your neighborhood. I live in south Arlington and I love it, but I've heard horror stories about north Arlington.

Ugh that's awful. Agree. The performance liberalism here is the worst. And the number of cleaners/gardeners/contractors supporting these people is something I've never encountered before.

We also have not made many local friends. But it's not worse than living in DC itself where people just hang out with their preexisting friends.

For work reasons, we moved to Arlington last year from a fairly middle-class neighborhood of Loudoun County. We are the only Black family in our new neighborhood, and we were the only Black family in our old neighborhood. In Loudoun, we were friends with most of the neighbors on our block, our kids were invited to birthday parties, etc. We probably didn't share the political views of at least some of our neighbors but it never really came up. In Arlington, many of the homes - not ours -- are quite expensive, with fancy cars in the driveway. Many of the homes have Black Lives Matter and similar signs. Yet we have found, without exception, that the neighbors want nothing to do with us. It's a very insulated, cliquish community, and the moms generally act like they are still in high school. Once, while waiting to pick up my kids at the bus, I was asked which family I work for. This entire place has a phony kind of liberalism that is just awful.