[blparent] Baby on the Way! Now, Where to Live?

[Judy Jones]

I can't say enough about the ability to get where you want to go, when you 
need to go, whether you take a vehicle or walk, as long as you can 
conveniently get where you want to go.  I can speak to this, as my husband 
and I, too, are both blind.

And this need for freedom of mobility is even more important when you do 
have kids.

The house might be a really good thing, give you room to grow, and a quieter 
place of your own.  But:  the one bus stop.  is it easily get tooable?  Does 
it run often enough so you can take it when you need it and does it connect 
to most of the places you know and frequent.  What you don't want is to 
become a prisoner in a beautiful ideal castle.

You will want to be within easy walking distance of stores and schools, and 
to make sure you can get to a doctor's office as you need it.  Imagine 
yourself being the independent parent you need to be and should be, taking 
your child where they need to be and when they need to be there, and think 
through how you will get that done.  Granted, it is nice when the kiddos can 
get rides from other sighted parents, but do not depend on that.  Always 
have an independent backup, otherwise you will be at the mercy of someone 
else's schedule.

You'll find it easier to maybe live in a smaller place but with great 
transportation, which can give you the mobility you want.  If your suburban 
house has good transportation options, go for it, at least check it out. 
Ask about the neighborhood if you haven't already done so.  If you are 
buying, you will have to envision the big picture, years down the road, will 
the area stay quiet, or are they about to make your street a main artery 
with busy traffic?

About modes of travel with Baby.  Whatever is the easiest and cost effective 
for you.  Take cues from your baby.  If a noisy bus bothers them, maybe at 
first, a cab would be easy.  However, there are babies that do just fine 
with noise, while others get over-stimulated and upset.

How long of a walk is too long?  Take the cues from your child.  Start out 
with short walks, then you can always lengthen them.

I had to chuckle at your question about juggling baby and cane on stairs, 
making one crazy.  When all is said and done, you will be amazed at what you 
manage to juggle, how you do it.  These are things you grow into, just as 
your baby is growing, along with your relationship.  You will end up 
juggling much more and definitely in crazy situations, but more than likely 
love every minute of it, because it's really all about your child.

Revisiting the house thing again.  If you are renting, you may or may not 
plan to stay in that house for very long if you plan to buy in future.  But 
if you are buying, you will definitely want to imagine yourselves living in 
the area for years, seeing your child grow up there, know what you can walk 
to and how you can get there.  Pay close attention to the intersections you 
will have to cross and do a walk-through before making an offer.

A nightmare scenario that happened to us, and this was before kids.  My 
husband and I worked in Orlando, and we found the perfect house, perfect 
price, in Winter Park.  We had driven around the neighborhood with our 
realtor, and she had explained we were close to a bus stop at a lighted 
intersection.  There was also a convenience store there at that 
intersection, and she said there was a double set of lights, but they were 
regular traffic lights.  We should have caught on then what we were getting 
into, but we didn't.

We decided to put an offer, it was accepted, and she drove us over to the 
house the evening before the closing to answer a few of our last minute 
questions.

We decided to actually walk through the intersection where we would need to 
catch our bus.  Horror of horrors, the intersection had a double set of 
lights, because it is offset.  In other words, you would start to cross at 
one corner but needed to jog left several yards to reach the opposite 
corner.  In the middle of this so-called jog on the other side of the street 
is the convenience store parking lot.  So:  We would have no way to know if 
we were dealing with parallel traffic or cross traffic since the oncoming 
parallel traffic would have to pass in front of us to continue, let alone 
the traffic pulling out of the store parking lot.

We could not think our way out of this one, and was super frustrating to 
have good mobility, yet be unable to navigate intersections because of 
stupid geography and bad city planning, as far as I was concerned.

We ended the evening deciding we could not close on the house.  The realtor 
understood our needs, and fortunately, so did the seller.  We had already 
given notice at our apartment, and was very embarrassing to ask for it back, 
fortunately we were able to get it.  That was a rough couple days, not sure 
if we had any place to go, and were checking with friends to see if we could 
camp out until we found a place.

Moral of the story, walk it through, literally, before you make a 
commitment.

My husband and I have bought and sold, now, four houses, and never did that 
scenario come up again.

Best wishes, and keep us informed.

Judy, whose girls are now 29 and 25.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Allison via blparent
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2015 5:30 PM
To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List'
Cc: Allison
Subject: [blparent] Baby on the Way! Now, Where to Live?

Hi Everyone,

First a quick intro since, while I've been reading this list for a while, I 
haven't posted much yet. I did write a couple of times about ovulation kits 
and pregnancy tests a while back. I'm happy to say that our attempts with 
ovulation kits were a success, and my fiance and I are expecting our first 
child this January! We're really excited!

My fiance, Darrell,  and I are both blind and currently live in the Phoenix 
area. We have an apartment with a lease that will be up in September, and 
we're trying to decide where we want to live next. What we're finding so far 
is that, most of the houses that we can afford, are further from public 
transportation than we're used to. We love our current location, but we are 
looking for more space for when baby arrives. We went house-hunting last 
weekend, found one house that had a lot of space, a yard, was in our price 
range, and It was near one bus stop... sorta. We almost made an offer, but 
Darrell and I came to a hard realization. We're not sure we're quite ready 
to give up our urban lifestyle in order to become suburban home-owners just 
yet. We're willing to do it if it turns out best for raising a family, yet 
we're not sure if that's really necessary.

So I'm coming to this list to learn from your collective experience as blind 
parents. What did you find was and was not really important when choosing a 
place to live with very young children? As a first time parent, I realize 
that I don't know what I'll need in terms of location. It's entirely 
possible that, the things I think are important in a location, aren't at all 
necessary, and there may be other truly important considerations that 
haven't even crossed my mind yet. So here are some questions that I'd like 
to bounce off of you guys...

When you had babies or small children, did you find that you rode buses or 
light rails often? Was it more convenient to take cabs, paratransit, or 
hired drivers over other transit options? What is too long of a walk with a 
small child? Is a back yard a must, or is it more important to live near a 
park/playground? How helpful is it to be in walking or bus distance of 
restaurants, stores, or doctor offices? Will climbing stairs while juggling 
a cane, baby, and accessories eventually make us crazy? What of schools? 
Should I be factoring in proximity to schools if our baby isn't even born 
yet? What other factors am I not considering but are important?

Knowing others' experiences will likely be helpful to us when deciding what 
location may work best for our family. Any feedback or suggestions from you 
all are appreciated!

Thanks,
Allison, Darrell, and Baby





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