You generally have a choice about where you want to look for work.
For example, back in 2000, I knew that living in the NYC or DC area was probably a bad idea. Yes, I would start at $125K and go up to $200K fairly quickly, but there were better places to work with shorter commutes and less stress.
Those places would have been much more fun to live, but with respect to raising children, you can find plenty of cheaper places in the U.S. to live.
You just generally have to take a pay cut if you want to change locations to a less economically congested area.
Last pay cut I took several years ago (for the purpose of avoiding billable hours) was 40% and I moved to an area with a higher cost of living. Now I did reduce my commute from 30 minutes. My commute is now at 7 to 10 minutes depending if it's a school day or not.
I'm just pointing out that you can generally find extra $$$ for kids if you are willing to adjust your life or lifestyle for that purpose if you want to accomplish that.
And my point is that most people do not have those same options. You do, sure... but you're not working-class. As a lawyer, you'd be in the professional class, and likely in the 4th quintile for your local area. Unless I'm very much mistaken, schoolteachers and HVAC repairmen aren't making $125k to start in DC. It's a lot easier to justify relocation costs for a lawyer's salary than a schoolteacher's.
I did exactly as you advise 5 years ago, but then again, I'm also solidly in the 4th quintile, and qualify for jobs offering low-six figures to start in DC. I relocated for a 25% pay cut and an area with significantly lower costs of living. I incurred no relocation costs, as they were employer-paid.
And then I found out that the figures I'd seen for insurance costs were grossly understated, and all the perceived savings in cost of living were offset entirely by those. So the grass is not always greener.
