Young Stay at Home Moms in Dallas (the city)? (Fort Worth: apartments, to rent)

[Sanchez14]

What city neighborhoods are best for young stay-at-home moms.

My wife and I are moving to Dallas in a few weeks for the summer. I will be working at a law firm downtown, so we are most interested in neighborhoods w/in 20 minutes of downtown for commute reasons. Over the summer, we want to take time to get to know neighborhoods to figure out where we want to live once we return permanently in 2011.

We are late twenties and plan to start a family in the next few years. My wife plans to stop working for at least a few years once kids come along.

We both like city neighborhoods a bit more, and would prefer to stay in the city for commute reasons. We'd like to have stuff to walk to, parks, grocery stores, etc.... My wife is concerned that there will be few stay-at-home mom's in city neighborhoods though.

We used to live in Boston and this was the case. If she had been a stay at home mom where we lived there, it would have been miserable since she wouldn't have had any neighbors/friends home during the day.

Given our preferences, do the typical neighborhoods near downtown have a decent number of younger stay at home moms? We are considering M Streets, Park Cities, Oak Lawn, Uptown, Lakewood, Forest Hills, Lake Highlands, etc... Also open to any other suggestions. We don't have strong preferences toward SFR, condos, or townhomes. Price range would preferably be under 2k/mo rent for something in the 1250-1800 square feet range or so, but would go to maybe $2500 if need be.

Don't care so much about schools either, since no kids quite yet. Also, don't care about nightlife and don't want to be too near to the noise from it. We plan to rent for a few years and will worry about that when we decide to buy.

Suggestions.

[Lakewooder]

LECPTA - you don't need kids for this - many great events, I go to some of them and I've never had kids!

Lakewood Service League | Home Page - great organization with fundraisers, fun parties, no pretension

In addition, the neighborhood associations all over Lakewood and East Dallas have groups and fun events such as this one in my corner of Eden:

Junius Heights Spring Fling April 24



Junius Heights will sponsor a Spring Fling on Saturday, April 24, from 4 pm -7pm on Fulton Street between Junius and Worth. Get to know your neighbors! There will be hot dogs, crawfish, fresh catfish and more. Please join us for food, drinks, and fun!

Admission to the party is membership in our Junius Heights Historic District neighborhood. At $15.00, it is one of the best bargains around! You may join in several ways: paying through PayPal the Junius Heights website (juniusheights.org), by mailing a check for $15.00 to Junius Heights Historic District, P.O. Box 141004, Dallas, 75214.

If you just go to times ten cellars - Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas Winery - Wine Tasting Bar - Texas Wineries and chat with folks you will make some friends or get some tips..

[TurtleCreek80]

Tons of SAHM's in Lakewood, M Streets, University Park, Preston Hollow, and the neighborhoods just west of the Tollroad running parallel to UP (Devonshire, Greenway Parks, & Briarwood). Neighborhoods with houses are going to have more kids (& SAHM's) than Uptown/Oak Lawn/Knox-Henderson's apartments & condos.

Being said, I would live in Uptown/ Knox-Henderson while you are still childless- more to do & more young professionals to make friends with easily. Then, whenever you decide to start a family, look into the more family areas listed above. You may find it difficult to meet the neighbors/ make friends if you immediately settle into a family neighborhood while you are still both working long hours.

[Sanchez14]

Thanks for the quick replies. The Lakewood links look perfect for groups like what she is looking for. That's good to hear that a lot of the neighborhoods do have stay at home moms. I guess we got too used to the Northeast, where stay at home moms are a real anomaly in a lot of areas. We're considering more family areas now since the time we permanently come to Dallas (summer 2011) is when we plan to be starting the family.

I hope this isn't being too nitpicky, but do many neighborhoods specifically have young stay-at-home moms, like late 20's early 30's? My wife is fine with having friends that are older, but she (and me) definitely wants to find people in the same stage of life as us. As well as there being kids in the area the same age as our family grows up.

Obviously this will depend on specific streets/areas in a neighborhood, but just knowing it commonly exists is enough for us right now.

[SMS_Parent]

Turtlecreek is absolutely right -- you will find lots of stay at home moms in all of those neighborhoods. The trick to making friends as a stay at home mom is to get out with your children. Neighborhood early childhood PTAs (the North Dallas Early Childhood PTA is a great one), the mother's group at your church, Gymboree, Little Gym, Kindermusik, the Town North YMCA, and even the local Dallas Public Libraries all provide fun parent/child activities that are great ways to meet other stay at home moms with babies.

[TurtleCreek80]

Most of the close-in neighborhoods I listed are the more expensive places to live. I'd say most of the SAHM's will be mid-30's to 40's in age. There aren't just a ton of families who can live in $350k, $500k, $1M homes on one income unless they are older/ more established in their careers.

The really young SAHM's are all out in the suburbs where homes are less expensive- Plano, Frisco, McKinney.

But 29 and 37 or 40 aren't that far apart. You ARE in the same life stage- parenting babies and young children.

[Sanchez14]

That's a good point on the age difference. I guess I meant stage more than age. My wife is most interested in people at the same stage in raising their families. And to be honest, she probably has more in common w/ the 37 yr. old mom of young children than the 22 yr. old mom of young children

[codytravers]

Lakewood is a sweet neighborhood. I live in uptown now but I am 23, single, no kids. I think I'd like to live in Lakewood if/when I start a family.

[FarNorthDallas]

Devonshire is a popular place for couples to live who are in the stage of about to have kids or have very young kids.

[blwoods77]

There are even quite a few high rise complexes in downtown that are now catering to the younger parents (mid 20's to mid 30's). Third Rail Lofts is really good about activities for people in that demographic.