Sorry for huge post here. DP and I are in the same boat (bit cramped in here innit) and this feeling has bothered me for some time. We have other non-negotiable reasons for needing to stay living in this area, which happens to be in a naice part of town. In any case right now we can't afford the costs of moving out from our tiny 2-bed flat which we really stretched ourselves to buy pre-DCs. God knows what we will do when interest rates go up.
The costs of buying a bigger flat locally are way beyond our wildest even if we both worked full time and didn't have to now factor in for childcare. We have one baby DC and I am SAHM partly because the costs of local nurseries are so incredibly crazy because of the minted local clientele.
I suspect it's not that helpful for me to encourage you to be grateful for what you have. I think what you're saying is you are grateful, it's just that you worry about the possible effects on your DCs. That is legitimate to have as a worry I think even if you do get to enjoy the up-sides of living in a naice area, of which there are many. (DP and I each had previously always lived much more cheaply in dicey parts of town before this and have been victims of crimes there.. So the difference in terms of a liberating feeling of greater personal safety etc in just walking the streets is brilliant. Esp. Now we have a baby to take out.)
but I have all the worries that you do about how much where we live is making a lot of decisions for us. I know loads of people have to make this same choice for financial reasons and i really feel for them, but I am becoming increasingly sad that we will have to stop at one baby. If we had another and they were of opposite sex we would have to move to get them an extra bedroom and we can't move. Also the second bedroom here is minute so even if we chanced it and got same sex baby again they two would be in bunk beds with virtually no storage space each until they left home! As it is, once our DC is older, we won't be able to sleep with them in our bed for the night if say, we want to have the grandparents to stay overnight on the camp bed in DC's tiny room. (I really feel for families affected by he bedroom tax because not having a spare room makes all kinds of family and friends relationships and the possibility of occasional informal childcare impossible unless you have a massive sofa and give them your bed...)
I fear my DC's future local peers being judgey about our shoebox flat as in my limited experience (within my group of NCT mums) they live in either much bigger and swisher flats or bigger houses so that will be their norm.
I am realising in writing this that I am being U but I am so bothered by the other much more obviously wealthy (and definitely more sophisticated/materialistic) local NCT mums reactions to our place that I haven't invited anyone of them back to ours. This has probably already been noted as I am always very much on the edge of the group as they must be getting a 'don't get too close' vibe coming from me. My pre-baby RL friends who now have kids all live in cheaper ungentrified areas, mostly in houses which they find affordable although they are getting to worry about the quality of local schools, so its not easy for them either.
We almost entirely socialise at their houses (we bring our DC and the dinner to theirs and cook for the group at theirs on the excuse that then they don't have to get a babysitter). We have to do this as many of our friends have more than one DC now and at our flat there is hardly any space with two sets of parents, let alone multiple small DCs in the mix. One of their nursery age kids came over and mentioned how small our place was compared to her house and I didn't know what to say- I ended up apologising to a three year old!
I'm waiting for a flaming as I can obviously see how much this is 'a naice problem to have' and how privileged we are. but I do find it makes me feel anxious and isolated and is affecting my social life. Writing this I can see I am letting it dictate my DCs social life already which must be tackled before DC reaches an age where wants to play with others. The issue is not so much affecting DP as he meets his bloke friends out at the pub usually, or if myself and DC are socialising with him as a family, we will go to our friends' houses as I say.
OP- if you have managed to stick with this thus far, thank you- how many DCs do you have and how many bedrooms? What do you plan to do as they get older?