Yeah, our kids are older and we’re sticking with DC, but I can see the benefits of not being here too. We just gutted it out, through some poor schools, crime in our non kid friendly neighborhood and other issues. Leaned into the culture early on, going to museums and other institutions often, but that has diminished as my kids have grown. The benefits have been diversity, language immersion, and street savvy (and politically savvy) kids. The downsides have been less fun for them, fewer traditional opportunities like rec sports (there are only a few teams and hard to get a spot), no music in public schools, mean kids/bullies. Things have gotten a bit better in high school.

Anonymous wrote:Just left DC and am thrilled to be gone. My kids are way happier already.

Where to?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t like dc but I think it is a good environment for kids. The population is well educated and values align with ours. DC isn’t so obsessed with looks or money.

I’m from nyc so I think dc is cheap compared to ny and ca.

DC is obsessed with status. That’s a huge negative.

Not really. It's interested in power and influence. But that means real dweebs, nerds and people who don't make a fortune, can be treated like they matter.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t like dc but I think it is a good environment for kids. The population is well educated and values align with ours. DC isn’t so obsessed with looks or money.

I’m from nyc so I think dc is cheap compared to ny and ca.

DC is obsessed with status. That’s a huge negative.

Just left DC and am thrilled to be gone. My kids are way happier already.

I grew up in the burbs and can't imagine raising a kid there now. My kids play freely with the dozens of kids who live within several hundred yards of our house, there's a baseball field, two playgrounds and hundreds of acres of Rock Creek... and I can have a great career.

I went to baseball games MAYBE once a year growing up, never hockey, soccer, football or basketball games. Our two had three restaurants that weren't chains and not many chains. I went to local public, which were FINE, for first six years, had to take a 30-45 minute bus ride for that... switched to private for middle and high school and had to do 45 minutes each way to get there. It was so hard to hang with friends without mobilizing parents and driving LONG distances.

Can't fathom going to a life like that when we have everything here.

I mean my Dad grew up outside of Cleveland and that small lake town is rich and has 0 and I mean 0 things in the town. Now you can drive 15 minutes for more shopping and such, but the kids have nothing but miles of houses. I guess that's true suburbia. I don't think there is much diversity from what I saw. Very white. I don't hate Cleveland and love visiting my relatives but I don't think I could handle the winters. I also want to be near a real airport so Chicago would probably be more realistic and Chicago the city is a dumpster fire.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t like dc but I think it is a good environment for kids. The population is well educated and values align with ours. DC isn’t so obsessed with looks or money.

I’m from nyc so I think dc is cheap compared to ny and ca.

That’s good got you probably

Anonymous wrote:The problem is the average tenure of a job is 3-5 years. You need to be in a good job market to keep employed.

100% THIS. I'm from Southern NJ - not the part that is commutable to NYC. My parents are constantly trying to entice us to move back up here. Housing is cheaper than here (again bc you can't commute to NYC from there), schools are MUCH better. But the job market sucks compared to DC or NYC for what DH and I do. Like most other dying economies, it's only a great place to live if you are in healthcare or a teacher. Sure there are other jobs. Maybe you get lucky and get that in house lawyer gig or engineering job that allows you to move there, buy a house etc. And then there's a recession, you get laid off, and are scrambling for another job or looking at some kind of life situation where your family stays there while you commute to NYC or DC (albeit you don't commute as much nowadays with hybrid work) -- because houses in those markets tend not to sell easily in regular times or slow times (2021 was an aberration). Honestly this is what kept DH and I stuck in NYC for 10 yrs, we HATED it, so we moved down here, which is much better than NYC life but still isn't our top choice. But in the working/wealth accumulation years of our lives, it makes sense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, I am glad I raised my kids here. They are exposed to all kinds of people and experiences that have made them more successful as college students and young adults. Learning to navigate a big city has taught them independence. Seeing the everyday life of the capital has exposed them to and given them an understanding of how politics works. The colleges and think tanks have exposed them to the importance of ideas. All of the culture - highbrow and lowbrow - has shown them many ways to have fun.

Those things are all not available in smaller communities!

Right, they don’t have politics anywhere else. Like in Milwaukee & Wichita whoever shows up at the mayor’s office first each morning gets to be mayor that day.

I am really curious from reading your op, how you imagined “flyover” country before visiting your family.

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, I am glad I raised my kids here. They are exposed to all kinds of people and experiences that have made them more successful as college students and young adults. Learning to navigate a big city has taught them independence. Seeing the everyday life of the capital has exposed them to and given them an understanding of how politics works. The colleges and think tanks have exposed them to the importance of ideas. All of the culture - highbrow and lowbrow - has shown them many ways to have fun.

Those things are all not available in smaller communities!

Right, they don’t have politics anywhere else. Like in Milwaukee & Wichita whoever shows up at the mayor’s office first each morning gets to be mayor that day.

I don’t like dc but I think it is a good environment for kids. The population is well educated and values align with ours. DC isn’t so obsessed with looks or money.

I’m from nyc so I think dc is cheap compared to ny and ca.

I’ve lived in a few affluent towns and cities. It’s pretty much the same everywhere if you’re living amongst white UMC people.

A focus on academics, sports and travel is not unique to DC. At all.

Everyone I have lived people claim it is unique in this way. It’s the only place in America where moms throw extravagant birthday parties, weddings are expensive, kids wear designer clothing etc. There also is the belief that this place has the worst traffic compared to anywhere else. Newsflash: traffic is bad in every densely populated part of the country.

Go live in a poverty stricken part DC and no one is going to bother you about your kid’s camp or college admissions. Go live in an expensive neighborhood in Denver, CO and they will.

Striving for a better life is very American and is common in any prosperous place where parents have benefited from it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, I am glad I raised my kids here. They are exposed to all kinds of people and experiences that have made them more successful as college students and young adults. Learning to navigate a big city has taught them independence. Seeing the everyday life of the capital has exposed them to and given them an understanding of how politics works. The colleges and think tanks have exposed them to the importance of ideas. All of the culture - highbrow and lowbrow - has shown them many ways to have fun.

Those things are all not available in smaller communities!

And noting that all these things are available to DC kids without having to play in the parent olympics - your kid will pick them up as part of the life around them. Move to some small town somewhere? You are definitely going to have to play the parent olympics to expose your kid to this stuff.

You can live in a city with a lot of those opportunities without being in a highly competitive area like DC. Kids grow up in Denver and Minneapolis and Philly and Nashville and Charleston and Atlanta and Sacramento and get exposure to a broad range of things without also living in some Podunk town in the middle of nowhere.

Also many people in the DMV live in suburbs that are fairly interchangeable with suburbs elsewhere. Unless you live in the city itself or make a lot of effort to come into the city and take advantage of stuff, the experience of a kid growing up in suburban Cleveland versus Gaithersburg is not that different except that Cleveland will be a more relaxed place with fewer strivers. Whether that's good or bad depends on the person, but the kids in Gaithersburg are not soaking up any extra city experience that the kids in the Cleveland suburb lack access to.

.

I agree with a big but. Your kids are less likely to be able to come home during summers and work internships or move nearby after college if you don’t live hear a bigger city. I came to dc from a smeller city for college, as did many of my friends, and the vast majority of us are still here because there are way more professional opportunities. I notice many of my colleagues and neighbors have their young adult kids come home way more than my friends and I did because the area is a way better place at that age than where I come from.

There are pros and cons to everywhere and certainly you should make the life that makes you happy if you can. But I don’t think it’s correct to say that objectively DC = bad and Midwest city = good.