I can't tell you how many stories I know of people buying a house in a "really good school system" and realizing after a year that it wasn't going to work for their child.
Yup, DH was already living in a 'really good school system' sort of town, but I wanted a 'more cultural amenities' sort of neighborhood.
I got swayed by the 'school' idea - wouldn't it be nice to send my kid to a school where he felt normal more than I did?
Yeah, it would have been nice. I wish I had looked into that feeling of being a 'leftie-outie' a little more closely.
And public schools mattered because both DH and I felt a strong emotional allegiance to the idea of public schools,
Isn't it called Stockholm syndrome? Let's check Wiki:isolation, long hours of intense contact, dependency, kindness...that does remind me of elementary school to some degree. I don't perceive myself as being desperate to learn, being more in need of learning to live then air or food, but after hearing about our kids, maybe it was true of me too? At least when I was little?
and certainly we weren't 'the kind of people who sent their kid to boarding school.'
Sorry to be offensive, but that is how shallow our thinking was back then - for those who are just tuning in, we did 2 years of local private school during Middle School, and DS14 is now away at boarding school.
It's hard to know exactly, but part of the reason we limited our parenting to our 'one and only' is because we were 'house-poor' in the 'fabulous' school district for so long. (Of course DS gets some of the blame - needy, fussy, 2E, PG, anxious toddlers are a great form of birth control. See 'quote' below)
Hey - I just realized something! I've been drooling over the families of 'more than one kid' for so long because I see that the kids are happier and mellower and I've been assuming that the 'gifted cluster group' is making the kids happier and mellower and better able to delay gratification and be flexible. While I still think that this is true - I now see that I've been making the ol' 'Association - Causation' error. Maybe happier, calmer kids are less of a deterrent to siblinghood?
So if misery loves company, we followed all the familiar advice such as 'pick a 'good' school district' and 'buy as much house as you can' and well - I think familiar advice works great for people in general, but my life has been all about how general
=all, including me.
I love the renting idea!
See our Flylady thread on how to declutter so that moving in a few years can be an opportunity instead of a disaster.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
