- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
December 2010 Moms
Cheekers2010
member
Did having a LO make you reconsider your housing and lifestyle choices?
Cheekers2010
member
XP from another site.
Ended up quite long...
This may be different for my DH and I because we didn't plan on having kids and ended up with our LO later than most (I got pg when I was 35). Anyway, we are die hard urbanites. We bought our first house in the city when we moved here in our mid 20s. It was a single family home in a walkable neighborhood. After a few years we decided that taking care of an old house and yard was not for us. We sold and bought a condo even closer to the city center. I love our condo and I think our neighborhood is the best in the city.
But.....I'm starting to long for certain things that we just can't get here and it's all due to Gray.
I had naively thought that being close to parks would be enough but now I want a yard so he can have a little pool and a water table. I thought indoor gyms would give him enough room to run but now I want him to have a playroom. I never minded not having a garage but now I hate standing in the NW rain for months buckling him in and out of his car seat numerous times a day. I never really needed a pantry because we are two blocks from a grocery but now I have piles of G's snacks in my little tiny kitchen. We had plenty of storage space but now with all his crap we have to make compromises like having his stroller in our living room.
Soooo, we are contemplating the suburbs. Eeeeek! We'd be giving up a gorgeous old neighborhood and some of the best schools in the city as well as being able to walk to everything. We'd be gaining all that I listed above and more I'm sure. I'm sooo torn. In some ways I feel like I'd be giving up my soul if we move to the burbs. 
How about you?
BFP2: 10/27/13(edd 7/10/14) "Speck" ~ M/C 12/5/13
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Did having a LO make you reconsider your housing and lifestyle choices?
We moved to the 'burbs the week I got pregnant with Ava. We'd lived in downtown Chicago for 7 years in a 3rd/4th floor duplex walk-up. While I do miss being able to walk to anything, restaurants just around the corner, etc., I LOVE living in the burbs. Granted, we are still super close to the city (first suburb west of Chicago) but I adore having a yard, a garage, a basement playroom and tons of space. It does help that there are super active mom's groups in my area and I've met so many people that way. Just my two cents!
ETA: I am 30 and H is 31 and we are younger than most people around here with kids (most of them are mid 30's to mid 40's). It hasn't mattered!
We live right in the city for us, but we have a small yard. Our yard is usually covered in dog poop since DH never picks it up, so we don't play in it (and we can't get grass to grow).
We love living in the city. We have ton's of parks around and we put her small pool and water table on the porch. We talk about our next house and are torn between our love of the city and suburbia. If we can find a nice city close to our current metro area with a downtown area in walking distance, that would be ideal. I guess we will find out if we move someday.
Well...here's the thing. I grew up in the burbs. I work in the burbs. I live in the burbs.
And I love them. I love our house, I love my car and I love driving to get everywhere (that is not sarcastic. I seriously like driving to shopping centers and stuff). I love that we get a playroom and a deck and a yard and a huge driveway for basketball and bike riding. We live on a dead end street and kids just ride bikes and play out here all day.
But honestly, that's me and what I'm used to. You would probably really like all those things you were talking about though! Once you go suburban, you never go back...
He he he! Well...we'll see. I should point out that I grew up in the suburbs and lived there til I was 21. I know whereof I speak.
To answer the question in the subject line, yes.
We rented for 4 yrs before buying our first house & there was no way I was having a kid before buying our house (SF detached). For us, renting was really sucky - besides not having our own yard, driveway, garage, storage, etc, we always dealt with noise issues & a feeling of lack of privacy.
We were house hunting well before I got pg & finally closed on our house the end of Sept before DS was born. Even though our house is really small, we have a driveway & backyard for DS to play. We don't lay in bed at night listening to the neighbor's surround sound or stomping from upstairs, etc. For t hat I am truly grateful.
For you, I think you're having these feelings for a reason. Like other parenting things, I think you should follow your gut & at least look at homes in the suburbs so you can get more of a sense if it's what you truly want.
GL!
Well, I grew up in the suburbs and now live in the suburb right next to where I grew up. I don't mind at all.
DH and I did spend about 2 years living in a tiny apartment that was in a small-ish beach town near LA. We loved it since it was 2 blocks from the ocean, 2 blocks from the "downtown" section. It was a great place to live being in our early 20's with little/no responsibility.
But we always knew we'd end up back in the burbs someday. We always wanted a dog, a yard, a garage (especially since DH is a mechanic and has lots of tools/a classic "project" car/motorcycle, etc) and space for kids.
DH and DS are playing in the backyard with the dog right now. DS LOVES playing outside and taking little walks up and down our street. It really occupies him a lot and gives us stuff to do during the day that we probably wouldn't be able to in the city.
LOLing at the stroller in the living room b/c ours just moved from there to our bedroom! The move occurred too only because we finally took down the PNP in our bedroom and found another home for the full size wagon (yes, wagon!) that lived there before.
Our situation is pretty much yours except that we live in a different city. We did however buy our condo 4 years ago with the assumption that we would have a LO so this is why we did buy the 2 bed/2 bath instead of a smaller condo. As much as I would love to have a backyard for LO, that is pretty much one of the few things I long for. It does get a little noisy sometimes but that never, ever bothers C. Also, we just really love living in the city. We can go for walks every night and there is always something fun going on, neat people or dogs to see, etc. C loves it as much as we do. We also have at least 6 playgrounds within an easy walk that we visit every day on weekends and have tons of other cultural activities that we do frequently (several great museums, zoo, botanical gardens, libraries, etc.). We can easily visit these places if we have say only a couple hours till nap or dinner because we're so close. We strongly feel that C would not have all of these same experiences AND be exposed to all of the different people that he sees if we didn't live here. While our school system is not great, really none of them (even in the burbs) are that wonderful. In the city though, we have easy access to some great private schools and will probably send C there is we can scrape it together. So, for all of those reasons, we will probably stay here for at least a number of years unless we have another LO (though we're not planning on it). Also, our traffic in the burbs is suffocating and I hate that!
We lived in a large city until V was about 3 months old, when we moved to my very small hometown. And I love it.
The things we loved about city living are now things of the past - staying out late going to sporting events, concerts etc with friends on a weeknight, having nice dinners at nice restaurants, drinking too much wine & taking a cab or public transit home, happy hour with friends after a bad day at work, deciding on a whim to go to a movie on a Saturday night because there was "nothing else to do". These things don't happen anymore now that we have a little one. We consider it a big Saturday night if we share a bottle of wine and manage to stay up to watch SNL... There's no such thing as taking a cab home!
We have family close by that are all very keen to babysit, but it's still a hassle and I still feel bad asking. So we don't go out a lot. But that's ok. I love our family, and I love our new life.
I just answered your other post, but will add that once you add in a LO and toys and their stuff and even more stuff, city living becomes tough. I moved into DH's roomy townhouse in the burbs after we got engaged, and I'm already itching to move into a bigger house. Just as you mentioned, I want DS to have swings and a yard to play in. I want him to have a dog growing up like I did. I want to have BBQs with friends and their kids. I want him to have a play area (and a place to store his zillion toys). I do miss the city, and I miss walking everywhere. I loved that I could drop off my laundry, get groceries, pick up a cup of coffee and run to CVS all within one block!
But the city isn't going anywhere. As I mentioned in my other post, I still work there and we still drive in on many weekends to visit friends. So, I get the perks, but not the hassles.
Sigh...and you have listed all the reasons we love city living. And the reasons I've always said that if we ended up with a kid we would want them to be raised in the city. This is why I'm torn. Reality is never quite what you think it will be.
Go ahead and explore the burbs, but I think kat has a good thought.
We live in the city - a very very large city. We're very much like you, but we rent instead of own, and the stroller lives in our car trunk. Our place had the right amount of spaciousness when it was just the two of us - now it sometimes feels cramped with the three of us.
DH (and me to a lesser extent) would love to give B some of things you mentioned - more space, a playroom, a yard, a dog... But for us, the lifestyle change isn't worth it. Right now we're a one-car household and can both get into work in about 15-20 minutes. If we moved to the burbs our commutes would likely go up to about an hour each way, not to mention it would be much much harder to be a one-car household. For us, as much as we want to give B those things, losing over an hour of time with him every day due to longer commutes makes it a not at all worth it for us.
Check out some urban neighborhoods that are still walkable but have townhomes instead of condos. Maybe you can find a compromise wtih something that still gives a smidge of outdoor space but preserves a lot of what you like about urban living.
BFP #2 5/27/12. EDD 2/1/13. m/c and D&C 6/21/12.
Yes! That would be perfect.
I grew up in the burbs in the same area I currently live. In my younger single days (also dating DH days) I lived in the city and loved it! Walk to everything! Great vibe!
Then we got married and moved out of the city to the burbs when we bought our first house. We have a (small) yard and such but we're still close enough to the city (10 mins to the city line) and near a lot of great burbie stuff and a much better school system. We thought it would be a good starter home.
But yeah. Then the market crashed....so we're kind of stuck. We don't have a driveway, we have a shiitload of stairs to get in to our house, our kitchen is teeny with minimal storage, we have 2 bedrooms that share one itsy bitsy bathroom. Our stroller lives in the trunk of the car because there's no place for it inside (and i wouldn't want to haul it up and down the stairs anyhow) And then we went from one and done to wanting 2 kids. We've come to the conclusion that if we want more kids, we'll have to move, and unfortunately it's going to require going way further out in the burbs which makes me super sad.
Have you done some driving around in the suburbs around Portland? In SF, we have some pretty kick-ass burbs. Tons of cute shops and restaurants. Maybe go explore in the burbs and see how it feels. If you get the cold sweats and you start picturing the neighborhood in Edward Scissorhands, then head on back to the city!
I know it's a tough decision...we've lived in SF for 11 years, and I've loved it every day! But now it's time for a yard and a garage. And it's time to not have a homeless man peeing on our front steps.
Good luck!
Lol about the homeless man (not saying that homelessness is funny. Just that this is a daily occurrence around here, too).
I was just about to write this. We have a massive yard, but I don't feel comfortable using it because the neighbor behind our house doesn't believe in fences and has a massive dog he just lets run free. He also thinks its cool to throw his dog's ball against our house when playing fetch. We rent, and we can't afford to blow money on a real fence, however if have to stay through another summer we may consider some tacky bright orange temp fencing or chicken wire to keep that damn dog out of our yard.
Currently we live in the 'burbs of a town with a pop of 30,000. I would never recommend it to anyone. We can't get cable, and our internet choices are dialup and satilette. We also live down wind of a horse farm. Now if we get to move (God willing this summer) we'll be looking for a house in the 'burbs of our hometown. But compared to where we are now it will be like an urban setting.
Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Nutrition Facts For Foods
This is something my H and I have thought a lot about. I'll disclose my bias up front, so you can choose whether to listen to me or not.
When we first were ready to buy a home, we were on the very low end of a rapidly rising market, so all we could afford was a normal single family home in a dismal exurb with an hour+ commute or a tiny urban condo with a 15- to 30-minute commute. We chose the city, thinking it would be a starter home for about three or four years. Then the market cratered, and now our home has lost about 80% of its value, so unless we want to declare bankruptcy or rent at a loss every month, we're in it for the long haul.
Anyways with that said, here's what I think... I think in middle-class America we're trained to have a very specific vision of what childhood looks like, and a lot of it is centered on consumption. The big houses, the big yards, separate playrooms filled with great big plastic toys, etc. None of it is bad, but none of it is essential either. How many of us or our parents had water tables, right? How many kids in NYC have this kind of crap? Or kids in Europe? Having the house, the minivan, the playroom, the swingset to keep up with the Joneses is not what makes the difference in whether a child has a happy childhood or not. Whether parents are happy, thriving and able to give their child lots of attention and learning experiences... now that's what makes a difference! Depending on the parent, that may mean that your family does best in the city, or in the suburbs, or in the country... it all depends on your personality, what experiences you enjoy and value, and where your support network is.
Also, as mbenit mentioned, a lot of this stuff is temporary. The smaller the child, the more crap they need! It will only be a few years before the stroller is out of your living room for good, and your son is playing with smaller toys (or reading or playing with a computer), so the condo won't feel this small forever. (I keep telling myself this all the time! LOL!)
So, only you can know what's right for you, but have faith that you know what's best for your family and what makes you happy and not what TV or your friends or the Bump tells you your kid should need.
GL!
P.S. - To the pps who mentioned having a dog in the city, go for it! It is totally do-able! We have two dogs, including one who is very active (sporting/hunting breed). It is a big responsibility because you have to be actively engaged in your dog's exercise and socialization, but there are so many opportunities to go places and do activities with your dog that actually city dogs have a great life.
I absolutely agree that those things aren't enough to make a move. They are just emblematic of the differences between where we live and the burbs. And, they are temporary for the most part. Thank you for the well thought out post.
I fully agree with your comments on consumerism, etc. Sometimes, though, it's hard to remember that one chose this lifestyle on purpose when one is standing in the pouring rain trying to juggle child and groceries instead of in a nice garage. But, you're quite right. We very deliberately chose to downsize and move to a walkable part of the city because we didn't want to be accumulating a ton of stuff. I think part of it is that I had a typical suburban childhood and it is what I think of when I think of growing up.
Food for thought. Thanks!
Just a difference in lifestyle, eh? Have you read Simplicity Parenting? It really spoke to my desire to keep G's environment pared down (ie not tons of toys, books, etc). You'd probably enjoy the read.
And, yes...we also went down to one car. My DH bikes and takes public transit to work and we walk everywhere we can. It has been a very deliberate choice we've made. As I said to Tobio, though, I think I've been longing for my childhood (typical suburban). Funny cause rebellion against that is why we've made a lot of our choices.