I'm happy. I have great friends, a good job that pays well, I have a husband who works hard but when he comes home is an equal partner in parenting, I am very disciplined about turning off my own Blackberry once the garage door closes until the kids are in bed (colleagues know they should call me with any true emergencies), when it's hot I turn on the sprinkler or head for the pool, and I'm not really status conscious and neither are my friends. My kids love their school, play in the streets during the long summer evenings after its has cooled off (lots of adults out in the evening gardening or hanging out with a drink, watching the kids and visiting). I use my commute to listen to NPR or music or to chat on the phone with my mom or just to daydream. If people are annoying or self important I just kind of tune them out because it has nothing to do with me.

Anonymous wrote:What are some good semi-rural, beautiful places that also have a lot of highly educated people & some culture? I mean besides Aspen.

Santa Fe?
Santa Cruz?

Oh, and our commutes are 30-40 minutes door to door using Metro.

I love it here. We have two kids are are in a 2BR condo and moving to a 4 BR house, both within 3/4 mile of a Metro (in the close-in MD burbs). We can walk to everything we want, we can Metro downtown to all the free museums and activities, there are lots of parks and playgrounds around and tons of young families to hang out with. We've met really nice people here, and I think if you don't like the people you meet, you need to change your social circles. There are both pretentious twits and cool, friendly people in every city under the sun.

I grew up in LA and I do miss the weather there (though there is nothing like a DC spring!). And the mosquitoes and stink bugs and cicadas here are awful.

And I have family in San Francisco, and yes, housing is more expensive there. Which is not to say that it's great here.

OP, I sometimes feel the way you do, with our two young kids (6 and 3). And then this holiday weekend, I went back to my (small) hometown and realized that my friends' kids there are academically at least a year behind because their schools (even the private ones) are just not that good. They spend their time watching videos and driving everywhere they go, around their boring little suburbs. "Eating out" means going to Ruby Tuesdays or Chuck-E-Cheese. THE BIG DEAL is the local college football team and even little kids there know little beyond sports, in the way of experiences or entertainment. Much-talked-about vacations are usually trips to Disney World.

Yes, some things are harder here. But we've decided that life it the city is ultimately a much richer experience for children.

We are here because my DH would not be able to work anywhere else really (very specialized govt job) and I wouldn't make half what I do anywhere else. We are grateful to the area for those reasons.

We live in Alexandria in a 2400 sq ft townhouse for a decent price and commute to DC for work (30 minutes). We spend quite a lot on daycare, but we love it!! We will send our child(ren) to parochial school because Alexandria publics just aren't that good and we don't think 30k a year for private is necessary to produce a well-educated, successful person.

We do spend 50 bucks on shoes because, like others have said, my daughter has XW feet and Stride Rite pretty much has the monopoly on those shoes. If you choose your friends wisely, you don't have to end up surrounded by the uber competitive people and/or helicopter moms. There are pockets of people here who are grounded.

I hope you can move away and find a place to live where you will be happy!

OP, I think it just depends on what your priorities are. Not suggesting yours are wrong, just that perhaps mine are different so I'm happy here. We moved to a poor neighborhood which happened to gentrify in the last few years and our kid mostly went to decent DCPS schools out-of-boundary. I love living by a metro stop and going to good theater, films, and restaurants along with walking down by the river and enjoying the leafy greenness of DC.


But the truth is that it might be a generational thing. If you got here before the big migration of the middle class to urban neighborhoods, you could get a cheaper house near the metro and you could get your kid into good DCPS schools OOB. Any problems with the schools I used to chalk up to the challenge that came along with the cheaper housing. And I also didn't mind the crime so much because my house was affordable. But for folks who have come more recently to my neighborhood, they're paying a lot for a house and there's still crime and there's still issues with schools.

Also, it just gets easier when the kids are older. Having young ones is hard just about any place at any time. Good luck finding what suits you, OP!

Every once in a while someone starts a thread like this that stirs up a brouhaha. Have you noticed that most things you complain about can be solved with more money? The problem seems to be that you don't have enough and other people who have more beat you to the closer/larger house with better things for you LO.

I wouldn't say it in such a pissy way, but this is actually the succinct answer to OP's question. How do people raise children pretty easily in DC? They have HHIs of about $400-700K. Very common up here where I live.

You buy a nice sized home with plenty of bedrooms, you send your kid to either JKLM or a private of your choice (easily), you hire a legal nanny to watch the kids until you get home and she drives your minivan to soccer practice. Your housecleaner was there today, so no probs there. So was the lawn crew.

If you have the right nanny, maybe she cooked you all something healthy for dinner. She shopped for you at Whole Foods while you worked. If not, you go to Sushi-Ko or Pete's Apizza and call it a night. Your commute was about 36 minutes, door to door (11th and Penn to 35th and Macomb). It's all good, and really the only thing you're stressed about is making gluten-free pancakes for your daughter to bring to the pajama day party at School ____ .

Fact: The people who have recently moved to upper NW(Last 10yrs) are wealthy either by their own means or trust funds. THey're the brightest, go-getters in this area and they can afford to live in DC comfortably.

Data to back your statement up, please. I smell some bs!

I have some! NP here. Checking 2010 US Census data, I can see that approx. 40% of the people in my very immediate neighborhood make more than $200,000 a year. This is a 10-fold increase from 10 years ago. As I click around the rest of upper NW DC in 20015, 20016, 20008 and 20007, I see the same thing.

We can debate whether $200,000 a year + is 'wealthy' or not, but I think it's safe to say where the trend is going here in CCDC and AU Park. It's LawyerTown now. Not so much NPRtown

Look under "more maps" then click "Income"

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer?ref=us

Anonymous wrote:I love living here, the weather, the people, the culture, how easy it is to hop on plane and go home for both me and DH (direct flights).

The one thing I don't like is that there are all these wonderful events for kids (and for adults sometimes) and they are always so packed it's not worth going because one can't find parking or the metro is too crowded to navigate or once you get there the lines are too long to wait with young kids.
With two under 3 now we think twice about venturing anywhere, even the zoo in the summer, since the crowds usually make it too much trouble to actually enjoy it. I imagine it will only get worse, so sometimes I dream about moving somewhere else.

"Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded."
-- Yogi Berra

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you work that you are 5 miles and 45 minutes commuting? Not being snarky but really?

Yes, really. We live in SE DC, over the bridges. Not a section many moms on the DCUM board know exist, I suspect.

So you're unhappy with your own life, have not indicated exactly what would make you happy (is there even anything?) and you've chosen to just insult others? Nice. Good luck ever finding happiness.

Every once in a while someone starts a thread like this that stirs up a brouhaha. Have you noticed that most things you complain about can be solved with more money? The problem seems to be that you don't have enough and other people who have more beat you to the closer/larger house with better things for you LO.

Maybe you should focus on getting a higher pressure job so you can earn more money instead of whining about how you can't have this or that with your low pressure job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The crazy part is some people LOVE the weather here. I don't like the hot summers, but we have mild winters and exceptionally long spring and fall. Also, where is it that has year-round ideal weather? Maybe in Northern California which is just insanely expensive.

Are you kidding? Spring and fall are exceptionally short, here.

And to answer your weather...southern coastal California.

See this is where weather just becomes incredibly personal. I would hate to live someplace with no seasons. And I also think temps in the 80s (like they get in LA all summer) are honestly too hot. I think San Francisco has close to pretty perfect weather. Just personal preference.

I think in a place that truly experiences four seasons, 1-2 months for spring and fall can be pretty typical. We often get up to 3 months.

I lived in San Diego for 8 years and San Francisco for 2 years. I prefer San Diego, because it's almost always sunny and moderate, except for the occasional May Gray and June Gloom days. And once you've lived in a warm weather state, you do notice the subtle seasonal changes. You're right; it's personal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How shallow are you people to make the weather a major factor in where you live? It's all about jobs and education for the kids. Anything else, like real estate values, follows the jobs and education picture. Anything else is much less important.

Oh god, you're obnoxious. Weather matters because it's about being able to get out and enjoy the outdoors with your family. Where I grew up people spend most of the summer hiking/biking/camping/fishing and most of the fall and winter skiing, hunting, etc. It's about a lifestyle and values. And FWIW, I grew up in the sticks where people didn't obsess over jobs and education like they do here, and somehow I'm still smart and motivated enough to have a great job in this seriously competitive city. It's not so cut and dried.

Couldn't agree more. I find the "jobs and education" argument ridiculous. There's more to life than work and formal education. I hate that it was so hot this weekend, my family had to stay indoors most of the time.

I don't hate it in DC like many of the posters here. I've been here for 20 years. I do live in the city and I do send my one school age kid to public school, the other one is too young still but in a not outrageously expensive daycare near my office. So my commute is no problem and we have a house that is small but big enough and has a small yard. I like hot summers and short winters so the weather is fine with me. Endless mid-western winters are much harder then hot summers to me. Work is stressful, money is often tight but I honestly don't think those things would go away for us if we moved.

Something I think about when I consider moving is what it would be like to be a mom at my age in other areas. DH and I both have mid-western families and its true that the cost of living is very low where we are from and that the style of living seems to be lower stress. But we've lived in DC for 20 years and didn't have our kids until we were almost 40. All the moms in the towns we grew up in in with pre-school and elementary kids are 10-20 years younger then me. Here I am not an old mom and everyone else in my DC NW neighborhood is just like me. When we visit family I feel like an odd-ball older mom. I'd rather have a little extra stress then be an odd ball. There are probably other areas of the country with a high percentage of older moms like we have here in DC, but I'm guessing that those areas also have all the same stress factors we have here too.