Anonymous wrote:

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

Funny that you are so happy that you have to post on Dcum. Just be happy elsewhere?

It’s called the internet ma’am. It’s on computers.

DC is great for high school, teens can be independent with public transport and urban facilities, have plenty of places to volunteer, explore, intern, work at. They can attend all sort of interesting and informative events, visit museums, take classes in universities, go to think tanks, congress sessions etc. You can't buy a more enriching environment than DC or NY but NY is huge and DC is a more contained town with opportunity to visit military stations. So much history and even more current affairs.

It always surprises me when people go to the suburbs of some place like Akron and discover the benefits of suburbia, but haven’t taken the time to check out the suburbs of DC.

What OP describes sounds great, but it also sounds like my suburb in Silver Spring.

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

Funny that you are so happy that you have to post on Dcum. Just be happy elsewhere?

I always thought you had to be crazy or rich to have kids in DC. But now that I have kids I don’t think it matters where you live - what actually matters is your specific situation. You can send send your kid to a highly ranked school in a great school district but get a terrible teacher (or even a teacher with a great reputation but is retiring). We live in a leavey suburb and our kids are having a great time - swim team lemonade stand etc. but we have friends just a couple blocks away who are having a terrible time making friends and participating in sports.