Anonymous wrote:I wish I had an answer, OP. The DC job market is hard to beat, security wise, for many of us.

We compromised by moving out to the exurbs where schools felt less stressful and life felt a little less chaotic.

Anonymous wrote:We randomly landed in a red state and live in a country club neighborhood with some of the best public schools in the country. If you said I would live here in college I would have laughed in your face. I’m a city girl through and through and lived abroad and in NYC and SF in my 20’s. But it’s easy, much easier than it would be to live in DC or NYC or LA. We have so many friends. Each of my children easily have 10 kids they are close with they can walk or bike to their house and play outside for hours a day. They see friends every day without me having to organize playdates. They are really active in organized team sports but also do tennis, golf and summer swim at the club down the street. People are down to earth and kind and it’s a very educated area. I feel like we randomly got lucky. My husband was transferred here and it was certainly not our first choice but I can’t imagine leaving. MCOL/bordering HCOL. Our house is about 1.2m (2500 sf on .4 acre lot)

Anonymous wrote:You did not explain what you don’t like about DC, but given that this is your first child, I wanted to give you a word of caution. The childhood you (we) had does not exist anymore anywhere. My friends in California have their kid is travel ice hockey at 6…

Again, I don’t know what you don’t like about the DMV, but if it has to do with kids, you might not find what you want anywhere.

Anonymous wrote:I’m looking for some advice. My husband and I currently live in NW DC. He works in financial services and I work in industry. We had a baby last year who will be an only due to our ages and preference. We have lived here for four years now. It fills me with complete dread to think about living here (the DMV) past year six or seven or around the time we need to start selecting a private school for our child. I do not want to raise our child here. Life feels difficult here and challenging. My husband is concerned that moving away from a major city will bring other challenges like a smaller economy, which is a reasonable concern. For those who have had to make this decision, what did you decide, how did you decide, and how is it going? Any advice is welcome.

Anonymous wrote:We left DC when I was pregnant. WORST EFF'ING DECISION OF MY LIFE. DH billed it as their great opportunity for us: cheaper, more professional opportunity for him, closer to faaaaaaaaamily.

I miss DC every day. While the city we moved to is marginally less expensive, at our income bracket it's not particularly noticable. The city is bland, the schools suck (so we're still paying for private), we're utterly car-dependant, and it turns out DH's mother and sister are exactly the people I thought they were, but DH tried to convince himself they are not: selfish, self-absorbed, lacking in general awareness of others,

To top it all off, DH's career stagnated after a few years, he suffered a terrible health crisis that might have been mitigated (if not outright avoided) if we lived in DC that has permanently affected us, and he lost his job in January.

We never should have left DC.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I just came to tell you that I sympathize so much with you. I think many probably empathize with you.

I think about relocating not so much for job prospects elsewhere but because living here amidst the violence & chaos the WH spews every say makes it feel more proximate.

Sometimes I think about moving to smaller, family friendly cities - Nashville, Charlotte, etc.