Pros and Cons of Raising Kids in Ukiah | Ukiah Real Estate | Life in Ukiah

Whether you have a family or you're looking to raise a family the question always is, "Is it a good place to raise kids?"

Hi, my name is Kasie Gray, I'm a realtor, and a mom and I love helping families sell their first house and buy their dream home. Today, I'm going to kind of be answering the question of what it's like raising kids in Ukiah and I can't say if it's good or bad or if it's different because I only know my experience of being raised here. And my experience raising a child here I haven't done it anywhere else. So I'm gonna go through and also keep in mind my child is too. I haven't been doing it for that long but I do want to talk about you know some of the pros and cons and go through you know kind of the livelihood of a child and what Ukiah has to offer or doesn't have to offer.

I would love to hear your thoughts below on if you were raised here or are raising kids here. If you weren't raised here, why you decided to raise kids here, or any of your thoughts or opinions?

Starting at the very beginning of labor and delivery and prenatal care I do go to Care For Her and I'm currently pregnant right now. I have a video up about my experience being pregnant and delivering in Ukiah and I had a good experience. I know not everyone has a great experience some people have better experiences but I talked about my experience and I do think that we are limited on options there are not a ton of gynos available for your choosing. Care for Her is one of the only options at this point.

Previously, there's been lots of other options but currently, that's the main option and not everybody loves that and then there are also several different more natural facilities like Bloom birthing center and a couple of other different options out there as well. I do think that we have several options but maybe not as many as most but we have more than some. That's my thoughts on that when it comes to daycare. I do think we're a little bit limited but there are a ton of facilities under two finding care for kids under two is pretty hard as it is just such a limited option. I would love to have a daycare facility kind of like the gym where you can just go and like take your kid for a couple of hours but we don't have any of those sorts of options, besides the gym of course, which I think it's great that we have a gym that offers that.

I think it's great for you to know stay-at-home moms or just moms in general that need a couple of extra help with being able to you know go work out and have your kid get watched because not everybody has a family where you live. So that's one thing to kind of consider as well as far as finding babysitters. I've had a pretty lucky go at it and be able to find you know some nannies and some babysitters.

For that, I'm very thankful but I know one of the pros is that being a small town you can ask for recommendations. You have friends that have teenagers or art instants, and we have nieces and nephews that are of age to babysit, so that's great but when it came to looking for a daycare facility, we were on a waitlist for a while and there seems to be that problem in most places too.

I would think especially for under two but there are several different preschools available for once your kid is a bit older which is great. I think there could probably always be more resources when it comes to kids just in any area but that one probably could use some more when it comes to Pediatric doctors. In the emergency rooms, we have had pretty successful in getting ourselves into Pediatrics. We go to the Mendocino Community Health Clinic and we see a regular pediatrician there for checkups and such but when we have been sick.

We have had pretty successful at getting people in to or getting my daughter in to be seen and thankfully I haven't had to take her to an emergency room. I know that a lot of families have struggled with finding care for sick children and having to take them to the emergency room because there are not enough or there are no sick appointments for the pediatrician's office or there are just not a ton of providers.

I do think that Adventist Health is working on trying to be better and more equipped for things like that the family medical providers at Adventist Health had opened extended office hours for when there was an increase of sick people. So that they could kind of keep people out of the ERS but we have one ER here and then the ER and well it has great recommendations typically and for the 20-minute drive. It's sometimes probably worth it to go up there I think that the sixth season is tough on everybody and nobody wants to go through it with the pediatricians the children the moms, the dads, whoever, and so having me more resources for that would be great but as far as pediatricians go for normal, not sick times, we've had a great experience.

Next up, on my kind of categories, we're going to talk about sports everything from BMX to soccer to football. I think we have a ton of great programs new cheerleading programs that are coming or that are evolving. I guess if you're able or your kid has any interest in signing up for sports, I think there are lots of different options and during the Pumpkin Fest, Parade the BMX team had hundreds of bikes rolling through. So I thought that was super cute and then as always we have the Pop Warner football team.

There are a lot of different options not that at that point in my life yet for my child but I do remember growing up there were plenty of options whether it was traveling soccer leagues or City Rec leagues. There were lots of options and I think that's still the case today. Some people who want their kids to go further in sports than their kids to bigger schools nearby. A lot of kids go to Carl Newman to try to get further into sports or get more recognized or recruited.

So I don't have a ton of experience with that because I was never a sports girly but I know that is an option. If you are dedicated to getting your child to the major leagues when it comes to schools, we have a ton of options both private and public, and Charter. We have one immersion program that teaches kids to speak Spanish and English throughout their grade school and then we have several different middle schools and one large high school.  A couple of different programs that off of it I have a full video on schools. If you want to see more, they're listed in my guide to unlocking Ukiah but I think public school is a public schools and private schools are private schools. They're pretty much the same no matter what town you live in.

I guess I've never lived in it ever a different town, so I don't know, but I think they'll have their pros and cons each teacher has their pros and cons each student has their pros and cons. I think you have to find the right fit for yourself. I know lots of families drive over 15 minutes to take their kids to a different school just really depends on you and what your needs are.

When it comes to indoor activities, we are pretty limited there's a new facility coming called minda leap that is hoping to have an indoor playground for children. We just got an indoor miniature golfing place, I think, but it's not open yet neither of those previously had a bowling alley. It was closed and replaced with a Harbor Freight which is a bummer but I guess there's a reason why it closed I previously had a skating rink and it closed. Everything for children is a wonderful idea and it's a bummer when it's gone but so really does it get used that it makes sense for people or people retire?

I think it's great that we're seeing some new businesses come and evolve and make some activities for when it's super rainy like it is this week. I also take my daughter to Stars Gymnastics for toddler time and then they have a ton of different classes which is all indoors which is great several different dance studios offer family classes or yoga studios that offer kid classes for children.

I've talked about the gym daycare which is more for little kids but it is a nice little place to get them kind of exposure to other kids we have several gaming places. Slam dunk and Next Level gaming and sword and board do fun game activities other than that we're pretty limited on things to do indoors but when it comes to outdoor activities. We have a ton of different Parks Hiking Trails Sports and we have the road Valley outdoor education project which is a super fun place to visit weekly. Schools will take a field trip out there but it is great we have several softball fields that have recreational leagues and then it would be super awesome to have facilities with soccer fields and other resources but we aren't too far away from those types of facilities. So that's another Pro. When I was little, we drove to Santa Rosa every weekend pretty much to play indoor soccer. I think that if you have kids that are passionate about something, you'll find a way to live out that passion.

When it comes to the kind of resources and our location, we are pretty close to the city. We are pretty close to higher medical grade facilities that we don't have any here. I wouldn't say we're entirely too far away from them UC Davis is just a couple hours away and the city's close. If you need to go shopping or catch an international flight or all these things. I would say I had an experience growing up in Ukiah, which is a small town. So everybody knows everybody. and I got told on plenty of times when I was going five miles over the speed limit or doing something I wasn't supposed to. So when I was younger, it wasn't my favorite place but now that I'm a grown-up and I'm so thankful to have family close by to know a lot of people, and to have all these resources available to me. So that's my experience, I'd love to hear from you guys about raising kids!