Disclaimer: may offend.
I’ve no sooner moved in with the big oily bo-hunk than we’ve begun talks about selling The Big House for something more bungalow or cottage-y closer to the city. We bounce around that big beautiful beast like pinballs with no bumpers, leaving a bigger carbon footprint than I can rationalize.
Rewind three or four weeks and watch me as I walk out of the local grocery, pausing in the vestibule and glancing over the stacks of Auto-traders and real estate booklets. I close in on one in particular and grab it, whisking it away to it’s new home where I promptly plop on the couch and “oooh” and “ahhh” to The Mc while rattling off details of one neighborhood after another.
The booklet was empty-nest centric, with beautiful homes that were all kinds of Goldilocks: not too big, not too small, and just the right price.
Always the realist, he says to me from across the bar “you know we can’t live in any of those neighborhoods, right? They’re for 55+”.
So finally we reach the catch/the point of my babble: I’m not a breeder, nor am I technically an empty nester. What I am, apparently, is screwed.
The fact that I desire a child-free neighborhood (it’s not the children; it’s the squealing/gleeful sounds of play at 8am on a Saturday and having something in common with my neighbors) is complicated by the fact that I am not, in fact, retirement age.
I’ve long lobbied for newbie-free days at IKEA and child-free days at area venues (cry free movie theaters, stroller/over tired mom free shopping centers) as my attempt at a chaos free existence but this one could be the end all / be all.
I want: a neighborhood in the city where the architecture hasn’t been contaminated by jamming a modern structure in a village of neo-craftsman bungalows, where the trees are large and healthy and huggable, where I can’t hear gunshots or car alarms or the excitement of tiny voices.
Is that so wrong?
26 Jun 07
10:51 am
Maigh, you should be able to have a place like that. In fact, I would like to live there too.
and I have offspring.
Sign me up. Now.
26 Jun 07
11:13 am
LOL…There are more moms than will admit it that don’t actually like kids either…their own offspring are probably OK, but every other child on the planet is an annoyance (probably because other parents are terrible
)
They won’t tell you until they have had a certain number of margaritas…but when they hit that threshold, watch out. Moms are human, too!
BTW, those neighborhoods do exist, with the nice houses and the big trees and the peace and quiet. They just usually have gates and big price tags :-(…or they are not in the city. However, if you moved to a smaaaaller city, the gated-neighborhood-price-tag would likely go down as well…I’m just (cough, Austin, cough cough) sayin’.
26 Jun 07
11:47 am
I live in the Morningside Neighborhood (Virginia Highlands) and while they are a few kids around, There is not an over abundance as to bother you. I have a 4 year old and it hard to find playmates down here. They’re around, but other than the little park down the street, thy stay well hidden.
26 Jun 07
11:54 am
Your seester is 150% correct.
the problem is that I don’t have to have any alcohol to admit it. that’s probably not a good thing….
in fact, a close family member asked me to be nanny to their 2 small kids. I told them, “I don’t even like my own kids. What makes you think I’m gonna like yours?”
Just keepin’ it real.
Since 2002.
26 Jun 07
12:07 pm
Xavier - Welcome!
Morningside - while in town, lovely, and quiet - is not *quite* my cup of tea. My sister had a great point I neglected to include: price.
No thank you: http://tinyurl.com/38culx, http://tinyurl.com/2mcjns
26 Jun 07
1:53 pm
Come to Kirkwood with us!
26 Jun 07
2:15 pm
Unfortunatly, at least intown, the neighborhood you are looking for does not exist. If the neighborhood is safe and the schools are good, there are going to be kids.
No kids in Morningside? Come on, look again. Even Kirkwood has its fair share of young kids. Forget Decatur … the schools are too good.
26 Jun 07
2:18 pm
Well, yeah if you buy retail. Plus those were new homes. You can pick up a foreclosure and many of the houses here are duplexes or have apartments that you can rent out.
26 Jun 07
3:56 pm
@ ming - The Mc refuses to consider Kirkwood on the grounds of “shanking”. *shrug*
@ x- It’s all about weighing risks, I suppose. My friend Kyle bought a foreclosure in the burbs and what he interrupted amounted to some work I’d never agree to. Every situation is different and I’ll make a note to keep my mind open to a foreclosure. Good call.
26 Jun 07
5:15 pm
Did I mention Austin?
26 Jun 07
6:03 pm
$790K+ !!!! I can’t even get a fix’r'upper for anything below $550K. $800K will get me an average home in an average neighbourhood.
WRT kids, you can always send them to boarding school when they stop being cute, OTOH ebay is a great place to go while they still are cute.
26 Jun 07
10:33 pm
E, you don’t count - you’re in DENMARK for crissakes. Which means those probably aren’t even dollars, they’re marbles. Though why you’d be carrying around 550 thousand marbles, I don’t know.
27 Jun 07
2:24 am
I’ve been told repeatedly that I have no marbles!
27 Jun 07
2:25 pm
Midtown midtown midtown midtown. Quick! Move into our condos before some crazy couple with a screaming baby moves in.
Seriously, if you are persistant and have the time, you can actually find decent/affordable housing in the midtown/surrounding area.
27 Jun 07
5:10 pm
I hear ya. I’m the same way about dogs. I like dogs, but I sooo don’t want to live next to the yipping, yapping, barking “OMG someone is walking down our street! There goes another…”
Of course, the kharmic irony to that is my rental neighbor currently has 3.
27 Jun 07
5:47 pm
LMAO!
I hit the comment button to say something that your seester has already done hit the nail right on the head of first.
It’s really not the children - it’s the PARENTS. Quite likely, anyhow.
I would love to live in a place where people must be scrutinized and licensed before breeding. And then… Then??? There would be no wandering 7 year old appearing on my property, or stealing the hose-spray-nozzle off folks’ hoses, or picking flowers, etc. etc. They would all be taught better and supervised. And the world would spin more properly on its axis. Which includes no excited voices and excess noise of any sort outdoors at 8 am on Saturdays.
And that from someone who sincerely loves children. (But doesn’t have any!)