Loudoun's Mini Baby Boom

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/20/AR2006052001344.html


I don't know if this is good or a disaster!! I guess I should not be surprised by this article, yet I am. I wonder what this will do to the balance of life out here as these kids grow up.

My two boys are just out of High School and they take a very laid back approach to life. They are just enjoying it. I am not sure I would want to raise my kids in Loudoun these days after reading this article although my kids spent much of their school life in the Santa Monica schools which had realitively small classes, it really scares me knowing what this is going to do to the Loudoun school system and for things for these kids to do, with the limited resources out here these days. I this becomes a national trend we could be in trouble for the resources of this planet and the health of future generations.

I came from a family of six kids and it seems I had to compete for everything especially attention. ha ha I am not super close to my family but close enough, although my wife is close to both our families and so are my boys.

The competition for these Loudoun kids is going to be enormous out here for just about everything.

It will be interesting to see Loudoun twenty years from now!!!!

 

Here is what I see in some of those pictures Mr Linux!!! Tell me if I am wrong!

((((DISASTER ))) young children playing in the street with virtually no supervision should be a criminal offense.

There is no such thing as quiet streets. These streets also have young drivers learning to drive for one. We had a child ran over and killed in my neighboorhood a few years ago by someone that was not speeding or disobeying the any traffic rules, but that child is dead becaause the parents let them play out front without proper supervision. I never let my children play on the street even with supervision and we have lived on many quiet cul de sacs. Would not even think of it. That is the first thing that bothered me about the post article.

The other was this children boom especially in Loudoun. Hey I love kids and have two myself, but should we not solve some of the major problems on planet before we start to over populate it even more?????? I have two brothers that are mormon hey no problem with that except I wish they would of told Dad and our Catholic family many years ago after Easter dinner rather then before. ha ha ha Anyway my brothers tell me one reason mormons have so many kids is so they can increase the size of the Mormon religion to spread the truth. Interesting concept, increase membership through many many children.

But back to Loudoun county which is running out of money to build new schools and new programs if parents keep having all these kids per family it does not increase the school budget but actually makes it worse, you certainly don't collect more taxes for more kids and maybe that would be a novel idea you pay the school system per child not per home.

Oh well I bet when lawyers see pictures of not properly supervised children playing in streets they see potention big dollar signs.

All I can say the people on this planet need to have a little common sense to all this. Hey just pave over all of Loudoun and have a zillion kids and just wait to see the traffic jams and overcrowded schools yet to come. And mr toll brothers can go on Neil Calvuto and brag even more that the DC area is his highest profit per home of any place they build in the country. Hmmmm maybe are supervisors should take heed of those comments and try to get a little more money from these national builders to completely build our schools and roads, before they approve anymore. I don't know why I even comment on all this as I don't drive in traffic and my kids are in college so most of what goes on does not even effect me except I do worry about the big picture of the disasters yet to come because of poor planning from our county and parents alike.

Lee J Buividas

 

Lee, How about something positive every now and then?

Mike

 

Okay Lee, you're in charge of everything from telling parents how to raise their kids to telling all women of child-bearing age in Loudoun County to keep their legs crossed. Start with your own brother's family.

 

Thanks Dutchml and I will do my best and I take that as a compliment that you would feel that I should be in charge of everything thanks again and I love it. By the way my brothers only have two kids each and the oldest ones now in their twenties and have rejected the mormon religion to my brothers disappointment and other two kids are less then six years old and don't play in the quiet streets of their Utah neighborhood and that brother is a lawyer so that is a big hint.



OK Don't need statistics when you look at the pictures and drive around the neighborhoods on a nice weekend, you just need common sense. We need to be proactive not reactive. One child is one to many to lose or get injured when parents are not properly watching their kids or they are playing out in the street especially when they seem to be as young as 3 or four years old that is not common sense.


Now something positive

well they are going to open a chuckecheese soon.
Development is starting to slow way way down because of the lack of sales so maybe we can catch up with the roads and schools in the county.
The weather has been almost perfect these days
I decided to stay in Loudoun for a few more years and Dutchml put me in charge of everything what more can you ask for! ha ha ha ha

 

I'll sleep better tonight knowing you have a "few more years" to turn this county in the Land of Oz. Well, your idea of Oz, anyway. You go, Wizard.

 

Hi There,

I periodically read the forums and have found most information very helpful as well as interesting. However, one observation I have made is that Lee (while at times providing interesting information I do enjoy reading) often is pretty "doomsday" about this area. I am just being nosey...how come you still live here in Loudoun County and have not moved away to Texas or whereever? Sorry to be so nosey, just sounds like you are unhappy/disappointed with this area in general: population growth, roads, housing market, services, etc...

Again, sorry....just curious as to what holds you here?

Hope you have a good day!

 

Believe it or not Kahlua I am extremely happy about Loudoun and the DC area.

I dwell more on the negative around here because Loudoun is brand new and though it is growing very nice compared to many high growth areas the visionary in me I guess because of what I do for a living is always wanting to make it perfect. I know people comment like it's my vision but it really isn't, it's all of our vision and I like being pro active. We all want better roads and would love to have beautiful drives home rather then having streets lined with junk architecture or as we call it disposable or temporary design - architecture. We all want our children and families safe as well as great public schools for them. I talk about things like that here because this is the grass roots where change or better yet keeping the lifestyle of Loudoun great because that is why many of you like living here. I see people complain here about these basics in life and become disappointed when our school board make and supervisors make decisions that will adversely affect them. The time to keep growth beautiful and with a good road system, schools and well planned and designed developments is before not after. Most people don't know how these things will effective until they are built; I try to show the adverse effects of this and how to change them for the better.

I am not against development, but I understand it because I am involved in it for a living and I have lived many places so I have a broad knowledge base from all over the country and different parts of the world and I have traveled extensively. I have projects all over the world including a couple of new ones on the palm tree islands of Dubai. I like to take my knowledge and inform people of what can be done to make it better and I get paid very well to do just that. Weather it is a design of a boutique style hotel or restaurant laying out the design of a new subdivision and mostly the design of new homes. I live and work at what I want to make better everyday. I work visually at what you all see everyday going down the road and how you all live. What you see as you enter your neighborhood what your home will look like as you drive up how you drive into the garage or your guest and you enter the home even to where you sleep and take a shower where you put your clothes away. How rooms and everything in them relate to each other and your family even the way the sun enters your home.

My placement and design of your entire home your yard the visuals you see going down the road are all what I do day after day. So when I talk about how things can be better that comes from what I get paid for everyday. I am not bragging here and I do not design a lot here where we live my work is worldwide and on top of it I am an extremely small firm in the scope of all things.

I spend a lot of time thinking of how things should look like to the fact I will lay out all the structural in a home or hotel etc. for my engineers because I want to make sure the structural does not adversely affect the design and My engineers love it because it makes their job easier. Many designers and architects don't do that even though they control the entire project they allow others such as engineers to design their own structural layouts.

Every time you walk through your home and wonder why a column or wall or window or even the roof was placed like that and why in the F**k it was not done differently. Most development architects don't give a rat's a** about that kind of stuff.

Anyway I am not a doomsayer because a doomsayer dwells on the negative, when I said several years ago the market will crash that came from experience not a crystal ball. I gave out my opinion not to hurt people but to let them know of a potential downfall and be prepared no different then being prepared for a hurricane if you are prepared and it does not come so what but if it does thank your stars you were prepared. I live in the building business and we always look for the problems before they get out of hand much easier to correct then after the fact.

I will probably step on some toes here and I don't mean too but we call it government thinking when something happens that we should of been prepared for. Large builders have the same problem too many layers to get a decision many a time to avoid a problem. That is why I like being small I can many times solve a problem before it gets worse.

I will end with I am extremely pro development as long as it is beautifully done as well as the roads and schools are well taken care of before the fact not after. I would develop all of Loudoun if it was done beautifully and tastefully and the roads and schools can handle it from day one.

Why don't I move simply it started with my kids then my wife's family lives here so then I rethought about where I am going in life and how to make a meaningful difference if it is nothing but to inform and possibly politics then maybe some of you might not think of me as a doom sayer but pro-active. I try to leave a positive message of what could be changed after my prediction of doom. Hmmmmm could be some kind of campaign platform there. ha ha ha

Hey for some of you the throw the darts out me, I actually find that helpful somewhat into the insight of what people are thinking and relating to their environment. I absolutely take no offense to it and actually enjoy it. I have been worked over by the best over the years and my buddies that I grew up with well we are still known as the animal house gang back in Houston!! and we get together every year to relive it now that most of us are scattered around the planet. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha This year it will be Sept 9th at my house. ha ha

Hey I am not telling you all how to build satellites or anything I just know what I know from experience and things I say here are just my opinions not trying to tell anyone how to live their lives or how many kids to have although I have more influence on you, if you live in one of my homes which would be very rare occurance but a scary thought non to less. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Lee J Buividas

 

http://members.shaw.ca/faithshannon/baby-mabelinne.htm

 

I will add a very funny story many years ago my buddy brought over a friend of his and after many a beer we got into a lively discussion about many of the things we talk around here about Loudoun. It got very heated between my buddies friend and me. He started bragging about how well his home was designed and how beautiful and what the hell do I know and should come over and see it if I want to see great design.

My buddy then that brought him breaks out in this uncontroled laughter and looks at his friend and says to him " Lee designed your home." Total silence and his friend then could only say Wow!!!!!!!! He did not know the resale he bought was a home I designed but my buddy did.

We got a big laugh after that and The tone of the rest of the evening changed dramactically. ha ha ha ha ha then he wanted to know how to add on to it and I said I don't do remodeling or work for family or friends or especially friends of friends. ha ha ha

 

overlander that is very very funny and the scary thought is my kids still put on that stuff sometimes. ha ha ha

 

My two cents on this is that it is socially irresponsible to make the decision to have more than 2 kids. I realized multi-child births and "accidents" happen, but the world is already crowded enough.

 

That is my personal opinion too silly yak now we can both be roasted around here. ha ha ha ha You are brave to post something like that on this very republican pro life forum yet kids die every second on this planet and we do virtually nothing except start wars and kill and murder innocents (collateral damage as we call them) I guess wars are population control too. Didn't the lord say turn the other cheek and vengence was not ours but his hmmmmm
Strange but we don't get any totals anymore on how much collateral damage we cause I guess that would only drop Bush's extremely low ratings down to nothing. We have a lot of people from that part of the world living right here and some of you should listen to these friends and hear what the really think not what they think they should say. Two very different ways of talking and one that you rarely hear gets to the heart of things.
. OK Lee now you did it with those last comments. ha ha

 

I posted that once and I wasn't called 'brave', I was labeled a child hater.

 

Lee,

This does not have to be a pro-life/pro-choice thing. Individuals who are pro-life can still decide to stop having kids. I don't believe it says anywhere in the bible that couples are supposed to keep reproducing until the woman's uterus falls out...

 

I think it's in there:

Thou shalt have as many children and bring them up with like religion so as to further multiply the potential revenue generating ^H^H^H^H^H tithing base population of the church.

Not to turn this into a religion debate.

If you have five kids and each of those have five kids and so on and so on, you can easily see that there's not gonna be anywhere for anyone to live not to mention all of the resources they will consume in future generations.

 

As much from a personal point of view I do believe there is much truth to what both Brim and silly yak say. We are also fortunate that we live in a country that we have the freedom of choice and I do respect that even if someone wants to have 10 kids or more although I can't see the logic in it other then selfishness but maybe there is reasoning I can't see!!!

Hell I can barely afford to raise my two and the big thing is to give them a lot of attention growing up is a big job and still is even though they are in college and that cost.

Aside from that as both Brim and yak say it is all about the resources of the planet and trying to make sure that all the people already here have a good life and we certainly are failing at that.

I have lived both in the city and the suburbs and I really find people in the suburbs can be at times more all about ME then in the city.

Maybe because the suburbs are new yet all the problems people left the city for are showing up in the suburbs especially the older ones and there are several goods books on this. My kids actually spent a good part of the life growing up in the city of Santa Monica in a small condo overlooking the pacific and the beach was there yard as well. I made a life style change when they were about to enter jr high school that I thought the suburbs would be better for those years. A nice home on a quiet street as opposed to a small place in the city on busy streets. My kids still wish they would of stayed out in California and felt the city beach life much better then the suburbs except for the home they live in yet they said the condo would of been just fine because of all the things to do close by. Yet they refused to move to Texas when I said it would fun to live on the lake out in Austin like when they were little. Yet would go back in a second to a small place by the beach in the city out in California and they probably will end up there as the youngest wants to study film making and will go to school out there once his grades get better so he can get in. ha ha ha Or maybe he will go the independent route ha ha ha Far cheaper for me too ha ha

Anyway the burbs vs the city is an interesting study and discussion and having lived both there are pros and cons to both. Spoiled by the kind of home I have here yet prefer the lifestyle of the city well certain cities anyway. This comes back to the discussion of kids because people prefer the burbs when raising kids especially if they are going to have a lot of them yet the right city offers so much more for the children to experience first hand and many more varied lifestyles that you don't get in the burbs and personally the city promotes better social conscience. Feeding helping the homeless was a daily occurrence in Santa Monica and even in that very wealthy city there was still poor people and people really did go out to help these people much more then I see in the burbs. Sometimes I think we live in the burbs to run away from the real problems of the world they are no more then fiction on our TV someone else’s problem we want to protect our kids from this. I even believe we all should serve our country one way or another as mandatory basically draft for everyone no exceptions even for health there plenty of things people can do for our country other then fighting even in the military, well that is a whole other discussion.

Lee J Buividas

 

Just could not help "putting my two cents" in the fray of the baby boom topic. My husband and I have quads and are having a set of twins in six months; needless to say, I will be busy!

As a food scientist and now at home with kiddos; I enjoy not commuting to work. My husband commutes to Grumman for a Vice-President managerial job with his company for about 15 minutes or even longer some days . Anyone needing a job lead--email me for a defense contractor or electrical engineer job. I will pass to hubby.

I also clean my home, mentor other moms with nutrition questions, and other sundry jobs. Being at home is not just a "soccer Mom" mentality. I find I would rather be doing what I never had a chance to when I worked 40+ hours and commuted.

Currently, we have 25 acres and farm--so we never are at a loss to stay busy. Your life is what you make it! Each person's choice is their own.

I worked as a sales manager at Georgia Pacific and obtained a B.A. and M.B.A. with GP paying the bills! I worked and returned to school online to do my own new career as a food scientist and now parent. Not bragging--but every one deals their own life and playing "poker" is half the fun!

Don't sweat the small stuff--plus it helps not to be in debt. Seriously, I am still interested in mentoring moms and kids in nutrition 4H clubs. Email or post response kindly!