Gosars on the Go!

In our introduction post, we told you about our dream project – our forever home. But let’s take a moment to talk about how and why we decided to back to the East Coast.

We love California and it will always be special to us because it gave us our boys after a long battle with infertility. It also gave us some amazing friends that are like family to us now. For that, we will always be thankful!

Boston is special because it’s our first home since immigrating from India, we met each other at UMass Boston and we still have some of our dearest college friends & family in Boston. 

Our hearts belong to both coasts for different reasons, we just had to pick which part of our heart we wanted to be with.

The birth of our boys (A&Z) really forced us to pause and think about how we wanted to raise them. What did we want for them and for us as a family?

Here are the key takeaways from our endless discussions that really moved the needle for us: 

Family: 

Most of my family is in the NJ/Boston area and Amit’s is in India. We knew it would be so cool if our boys had the opportunity to know their cousins, aunts, and uncles just as closely as we did growing up in India. So many of our friends had all of their family overseas. But we were fortunate to least have one half of that, and we would be foolish to not at least try to give our kids that experience growing up  

Schools: 

It isn’t a secret how overcrowded and underfunded public schools are in Silicon Valley (and California). Here is a great article if you’re interested in some comparisons. It was either come to terms with that or shell out top dollars to live in the wealthiest towns of the valley; the only ones that had enough property tax revenue to have well-supported schools or send the boys to a private school – an option many end up with. We tried, but none of these options had us totally sold. 

Career: 

This wasn’t an easy one to navigate given CA is hands down the best place to be for tech professionals (both of us are in tech). But, for us, this was the only silver lining of COVID-19. The pandemic has changed the hiring landscape of the tech industry. We didn’t have to live in CA to work for an employer headquartered there. It also helped to know all major tech companies have a significant presence in New York along with numerous budding fintech start-ups when compared to 2012 when we migrated to the west coast.  

Racial Diversity:

Diversity, in general, is a thing of dreams in CA whether it’s racial or economic diversity. Don’t get me wrong I loved being so close to “our people”. It reminded me so much of my home country. But I also yearned for A&Z to experience friendships outside of that circle like I did when I first moved here. I also wanted them to organically get to know people from all walks of life before they hit an age where opinions would already be formed. 

Economic Diversity:

We realize being able to have both parents work in tech is a privilege most kids in CA had, including mine. But they are surrounded by so much of it and the benefits that come with that, they often innocently form an opinion that life as they know it is the norm of the world, not an exception. Being on the East Coast allows me to organically expose them to so many other professions their friends’ parents have (ask Aariv about what some of his friend’s parents do).

More bang for your buck:

Not sure how true this is today with the rising inflation in the country. But at the time this one is a no-brainer. The cost of living in CA is a lot higher than in most places within the country. So if we had the opportunity to still somewhat keep our tech salaries but move to a place that gives you more bang for our buck, why not? 

Quality of life: 

Everyone in the valley is hustling and running to work for the next coolest company on the block or be the nest unicorn on the block. While this is great for some people and there is nothing wrong with that – Amit and I knew we couldn’t be bothered with catching up with the rat race because it often comes at the cost of sanity and time with the family, both of which we value more than being the next “IT” thing.