<p>The faceless suburbs and frequent moves all in pursuit of “the dream”… Many times the dream is back where you started out.</p>
<p>I thought that the guy who wrote the article was pretty condescending about the family he was profiling. It smacked of judgement to me. You could almost hear the asides:" She joined the Junior League" = (what a dimwit) and “she went to bible study 2x weekly” (ditto) Maybe it hit a nerve because there are alot of people like that family where we live. When people start climbing the corporate ladder often they’re right out of college without a spouse or kids. The money looks great and there’s alot of opportunity. It definitely becomes more complicated once there’s a family involved, but by then you’re used to the lifestyle and are halfway up the ladder. Jump off? Rarely…</p>
<p>I agree on some of the “tone” in the article. He was also pretty obsessed with her SUV.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the article but I have got to stick up for the women in the Junior league- they work hard to improve life for less fortunate families.
Of course the women I know stay put and are usually married to their original model husbands and even often in the same house they were 10 years ago.
We are in the same house we were 20 years ago- I don’t know why anyone would want to go through voluntarily moving so often.
We could have gone elsewhere- living in an upper crusty suburb to get better schools and commuting to where the jobs were, but the benefits of staying put outweighed the benefits of adding a couple thousand sq ft to our house
Now of course it is one of the “hot” cities in the “hot” neighborhood
@@ people if they make enough are selling their suburban house and moving back into the city.</p>
<p>I think that this rootless lifestyle is what happens when your overwhelming focus is on your job/prestige. I sometimes think an earlier precursor to this lifestyle is overvaluing going to whatever college, wherever its location, which is said to be most “elite” or highest ranked, disregarding the effect on your relationship to family, friends or community.</p>
<p>texdad for someone with only 159 posts you are pretty wise :)</p>
<p>I agree with TexDad. I didn’t feel the tone that DKE/Barrons felt. I did feel revulsion at the hamster-on-the-wheel scampering and rootlessness that those families goes through and felt sympathy for the kids. Of course, I knew in high school that I was going to do my damnedest to work in any field where relocation at employer’s whim was the norm.
Now that I think on it, I obviously married someone who felt similarly as TheMom just passed her 25th anniversary at UCLA.</p>
<p>My stepfather was a mathematician with an oil exploration company: Kansas, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, a couple of different locations in California… I consider it a moral victory that my D went to the same school district K-12.</p>
<p>Sometimes people feel as if they can outsmart the relo system…It’s a big deal for them if they can eek out a couple of more years in one place. It’s tough. They’re not any more money grubbing than anyone else in my opinion. Alot of them came from extremely humble backgrounds and want to make sure that their kids don’t have to do without the way they did. When I think of the ones I know, probably 90% of them are from modest backgrounds. I agree that it is tough of the kids. Here’s the flip side: At soccer this season I met a missionary family who’d lived all over the world with transfers for their church. She said she’d had enough now that the kids are starting middle school, Sounded like a corporate wife:" Sorry, no more transfers! We’ve decided to stay put for awhile!"</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4, you’re right about the Junior League. They do amazing things and work very very hard. I was a member years ago and found myself washing walls in Newark at a homeless shelter. At one point, I thought, “hmm, my mother was going to tea parties at the League… Looks good right about now!”</p>
<p>Couple more observations
I don’t know these people obviously, but I don’t think it matters how “humble” their living situation was when growing up. If your values encompass constant striving for “prestige” and sq footage over connection and realationships, you are always going to be searching for that greener grass. Even my brother in the service didn’t move that much.
All of the families that I knew through my oldests private elementary school that we still keep in touch with are still in this area. Perhaps this is a suburban thing? I grew up in a tony bedroom suburb myself, but people stayed put, only moving perhaps after the kids were grown to a smaller place ( well there was one famiy who had 5 kids, people didn’t remodel so much then, they moved to a larger house in the city)
I do know one family who has had to relocate to Kazikstan but this is their only move and the position gave enough responsibilty that position would be different when they returned to Virginia . Incidentally although initially the mom wasn’t too thrilled as it also meant she had to get a different job, she really likes it.
Which brings up another point, so since in many couples both work, not just for $$ but to keep up in their field, personal fullfillment etc, do they move just for one of their career needs or does the * man* of the house come first? How retro.</p>
<p>I didn’t get the vibe that mentioning that the Mom participated in Junior League and Bible study was meant as a put down. These were neutral facts in a list of her activities. She also edited a newsletter, participated in PTA, taught fitness classes, etc. It would’ve been more condescending to leave parts out.</p>
<p>My take on the tone was one of wi****lness–the family was becoming more and more conscious of what the relo lifestyle was doing to them. It was especially apparent when the woman reminisced about the genuineness of the neighborhood they had lived in in Rochester, as opposed to the fake “community” they were stuck in now, where you can get in trouble for leaving toys on your front yard.</p>
<p>I really hope that their move to a different kind of town in NC works out, and that they can stay through HS.</p>
<p>What I was struck by was that, with all the energy required just to make all these moves, join the “right” clubs, etc., and get the kids involved in their activities in the new place, it was hard to see how any connection to or even feeling for poor or other less fortunate people in the local community. It is as though we have the upper-middle, mobile class alongside the “townies.” </p>
<p>The article did not define these people as “upper class,” but instead makes it clear that these people are on a corporate treadmill – unlike certain highly paid professionals. </p>
<p>I do fear for the generation of children who grew up this way.</p>
<p>I cannot imagine voluntarily moving every couple of years, but sometimes the relo packages are really tempting. </p>
<p>My friend who lived in a house bought for $300,000 moved to Seattle when her husband took a job with Microsoft last year. It was a huge step up, with massive sign-on bonus, double the salary etc. As soon as the 1-year term was up, they returned to the East Coast, and moved into a $1,400,000 house. I just about died. She explained that they had to stay 1 year there, so that he would not be obliged to pay back all the bonuses, relo costs etc.</p>
<p>Yes, that is incredible, moving the next year to make more money. We have also lived in the same house for 12 years now and the same town for 14…no moving. Both my husband and I have a commute, though. I had it from the time my son was about 10. I do feel guilty about it - I spent a lot less hours on the job when he was younger. I feel I missed out on his life when he was about 14-15 and I regret that. That year, I had a huge project to do and a lot of responsibilities. It just went by in a blur and I feel I let him down at school and other stuff. </p>
<p>I do worry about kids growing up this way, as aparent suggested. Not only do they don’t grow up with any empathy for others but it is also a very non-diverse atmosphere; everyone in the same “class” nearby and total involvement in that “class”.</p>
<p>It isn’t just people in subdivisions that are separated by class…look at the towns like Scarsdale, Rye, Upper Saddle River, Lake Forest, Wellesley…people separate themselves from other economic classes in various ways.</p>
<p>My real estate office is in Brentwood, Brentwood of OJ Simpson notoriety but I live in Santa Monica. The two communities border one another and have a lot in common. I vastly prefer Santa Monica because of its diversity…yes, there are people with $4 million homes…there are also people living in apartments with eyeshot and earshot of the freeway. Our “status” at D’s school changed with the school: at the elementary school, we were in the top 5-10 percent economically; in middle school, the bottom 25-30 percent; in high school, somewhere around 60-70 percent. D’s elementary school featured something like 40 different home languages and one year they were one student away from having to hire a Farsi-speaking aide. My own preferences aside, I think that my D is much the better off from living in a cosmopolitan environment as opposed to what I call “communities with a guard-gate mentality.”</p>
<p>We live in a community which pretty much doesn’t have truly rich people (and the few we have are in hiding). Not too many poor folks either. Average home has just reached $200k, with an “explosion” to reach that in the past two years (we are just now beginning to have Seattle commuters.) No Abercrombies, Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, Banana Republic, and, sadly, no Trader Joes (which would do well in this town.) Only one Wal-Mart, and folks have thus far fought off two more. No one would ever move here to make money, or at least a lot of it (unless they were wild mushroom smugglers.)</p>
<p>I have known people who have commuted from Seattle to teach at Evergreen but I suppose you are talking about the other direction.
$200,000 sounds really good to us- our house assessment has been increasing over 10% every year- it is now worth $38,000 more than last year and it is 100 years old!
We do of course have a few Trader Joes though, and all the standard stores which are pretty interchangable from any major metro area. No walmart though yea!
It is a pretty cool area though you must admit mini.
One aquaintance moved back to Olympia after leaving his job in the presidents cabinet when he probably could have chosen where ever he wanted, even Seattle!</p>
<p>I posted a very long reply that got eaten by the computer. I don’t feel like retyping it, so here’s a bullet-point recount:</p>
<p>[ul]
[<em>] I turn 20 in November. By then, I’ll have lived in 23 houses.
[</em>] We are not “corporate relos” – we make the “American average” (per the article) of ~$50,000/yr, and we have never moved for more money.
[<em>] I don’t live in (nor have I lived in) the corporate price-point neighborhoods described, but have seen them. It’s creepy. These are what the movies are talking about when they talk about suburbia.
[</em>] Relocating is no fun (rootless is right!), but it is not the end of the world. I hated it growing up (I went to 10 different schools before college), but now I’m ingrained in the mobility mentality; staying in one place too long makes me nervous and claustrophobic, and I have little problem with change.
[<em>] Homogenous neighborhoods exist where people have lived their whole lives. It isn’t a corporate relo community exclusive, and it amounts to the same thing in the end.
[</em>] I knew a kid who was the child of a corporate relocator. She most likely grew up to be a brat because she got everything she wanted – including horses on the too-small “horse ranch” as described in the article. The fixation on money probably ruined her for normal functioning in that respect. I wouldn’t know, though – I haven’t seen her in 10 years.
[/ul]</p>
<p>Our neighborhood isn’t homogenous
The suburban neighborhood I grew up in was, even though we had the token black/asian family, when all the houses are 5 bedrooms with big yard, you pretty much attract families with 2 dogs.
It was beautiful but boring.
Our urban neighborhood is more diverse. Unlike the develoment where every one moved in at about the same time, the neighbors closest to me are : a man and woman ( not a couple) who have lived together since she was a young single mom looking for a good deal on rent.
The single man who lives in tiny house on the back of the property, he is an attorney from Texas, but is now scrimping so he can write.
The elderly woman across the street, still out digging dandelions at 91.
The musician in a rock band and his girlfriend, thankfully, they don’t practice here.
A young family with two kids and a dog wanting to be closer to work.
Thats pretty descriptive of the whole neighborhood, young familes , a few renters, seniors who have raised their families and are still able to stay put with the help of their neighbors, a few couples without kids, a few college kids…
Obviously some havent’ lived their whole lives here, but as neighborhoods get established, especially if there is a mix of housing types, larger and smaller houses, mother in law apts, it is easier for there to be gradual transition so that there is a mix of households. I like living where there are grandparent age folks as well as college age.
They are designing better suburbs in some areas. Even shared housing communities where folks come together for dining and the play areas are communal. Very intriguing hard to sell my spouse on it though, he doesn’t want to share his workshop with anyone-</p>