Any gardener knows that you need a good medium to grow things strong and healthy. Dirt, or rather the right kind of dirt, can make all the difference.
Our ideas of the perfect environment in which to grow children in has evolved over the years. How did we go from an artistic, if not somewhat elitist, mother's dream of raising the next Einstein or Mozart in a very controlled environment, to the soccer-mom dream of living in a suburban neighborhood with all the right schools to deciding to grow our boys in dirt? Let me take you through the process.
We started out growing boys in a bit too sanitary environment, I believe. When we only had one small child we lived in a small but clean condo that we owned in San Diego. It was in a gated community with security guards, pool, club house, tiny playgrounds, a mature flowering landscape, and meandering cobble stone paths lined with quaint, old-fashioned park lights. It was safe and sanitary but it was a bubble. I took my small child on regular outings to Balboa Park to go to the zoo to learn about a different animal each visit. We'd go to the art and history museums for some culture and stroll the acres of gardens for sensory learning. A diaper backpack equipped with wipes, anti-bacterial gel, numerous changes of clothes and diapers, and 3 back-up pacifiers was lugged around because I had to protect my child from germs and felt a great need to keep him looking clean but, I know it was also to protect myself from the judging eyes of strangers. I breast fed, I taught myself to sew and did sew a fair amount of his clothes, made homemade baby foods, and was obsessed with making my infant's library collection bigger than my own. I set up play dates with a select few and could organize toddler theme parties like Martha Stewart. Yet, at the age of two, my child did not know how to play. At the age of 5, my child did not know how to run. Clearly, I was doing something wrong. Right?
A second try at getting it right.....After my husband graduated college with a EE degree, we made the no-brainer decision to move to the high-tech capitol of the world - the Silicon Valley in California - south of the San Francisco bay. We knew it would be a financial struggle to live there but figured it would be a stable environment for our growing family. The schools are some of the best in the state and, even if Kevin changed jobs, we would likely be able to never have to move because of the plethora of high-tech companies in the area that he could work for. Don't laugh. This was pre-dot-com-bubble-burst.
The neighborhoods were nice enough. Quiet, clean, low crime rate, nice parks, good schools. It was a step up from our place in So. Cal, though, because of the greater cost of living in the area, we could not afford the gated community anymore. But, look where that got us. It was better to expose our children to what we saw as more "normal". We lived in three homes during our time there. Each one bigger than the next. We ultimately settled in the "right" neighborhood so that our, now family of 4 boys, could walk to the best elementary, middle, and high school in the area. It seemed the perfect medium for our boys to grow up.
Wanna hear the rest of the story of how we got to where we are and find out where that actually is? Check back soon for another installment of How to Grow Boys to find out.
