I never saw myself as a suburban mom. I never even 100% saw myself as a mom, if I’m being completely honest. I never wanted to drive a mini-van. Or join the PTO. Or be part of a Friday Night Lights kind of Pop Warner high school community.
Most of the women I went to school with (in the midwest) got married within a few years of graduating from college. My 27th year was the year of the wedding. By my 30th birthday, all of my college friends were having kids. Which of course meant, as you guessed, moving to the suburbs. It was cute visiting them. And they genuinely looked happy spreading out, getting dogs, and putting kiddie pools in the backyard. But the more I visited, the more I realized that I did not crave that. City life was for me. Some of us are just made this way.
The mistake happened when, during Covid, we went to upstate NY to get away from the closeness of neighbors during a time of danger and uncertainty. It was lovely to spend a few weeks there while the world was confused, angry and afraid of what was to come. As I desperately wanted to get back to city life, city life had actually changed. Everyone was inside. Nobody was commuting to work. NYC was empty. Life in major cities was totally different from how it was before.
It seemed realistic, even OK, to commit to a life outside of the city when we had no idea how long it would last, or what things would look like afterwards. So we made the change. We decided to move, full-time, to the safe, protective suburbs. The city schools were making me crazy with their lack of organization during Covid (no blame on them personally — things were a mess). My partner needed a change — one that came in the form of a new business after years of over-working and over-stressing in a NYC medical practice. It was about change overall, and a new family adventure.
Plus, I was already working remotely, so I figured it wouldn’t be THAT different.
Right?
WRONG.
Very, very wrong.
When the Covid fog lifted, I was left to discover day-to-day life in the ‘burbs. Now to be clear, my town leans rural suburban versus urban suburban, so it’s quieter than most. There’s no Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s or Starbucks. Facebook groups often share ‘found someone’s lost cow in my yard’ and ‘how do I get rid of a raccoon under my porch’ type of posts. Stores close at 8pm and restaurants aren’t even open on Mondays or Tuesdays. It is sleepy. And it’s exactly what many people are looking for! I realize this life might be really amazing for so many other people — including my own family! But as I already knew, it was not the life for me. To me it’s lonely, isolating, and very, very quiet.
In the ‘burbs, the kids walk to their bus stop and jump on the bus. At the end of the day, they walk themselves back from the bus. We don’t walk them to school like we did in the city, and we don’t get to see the other parents — often when we’d make weekend plans and commiserate about our days. We don’t have to dress up, or even leave the house in the ‘burbs. We don’t hang with other parents at the playground after school. We don’t meet our friends’ significant others, dogs, or even parents visiting from out of town. In city life, we spoke to teachers face to face, whether to hear problems or praise. This normal part of everyday life was lovely. It was social. It was vital (to me).
City life was also ACTIVE. Having worked in NYC for years, I was regularly walking 100 blocks a day. Commuting to work, running out for lunch or to the drugstore, was all I needed to get in my steps without ever having to think about exercise. Suddenly, in the suburbs, movement stops — unless you really make an effort to be moving.
Maybe it’s just me, but I miss the energy. I miss the early morning coffee runs. I miss talking to people in line about whatever crazy is happening at the moment.
I know we all grow up with a roadmap that looks something like this:
Go to college
Get a job
Get married
Have a baby
Move to the suburbs
Have another kid (or a few)
Get a dog
Etc
But I’m here to say, you don’t have to.
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