Just like the ones I was talking about in the thread How about family life?, another family we know has moved to town because they got tired of constantly running back and forth to town. As anyone else seen this happen?
Someone built a house near ours (luckily, near the road, where we are about 1/2 mile back) and decided the country was too dark, so they had the electric company install a street light on the pole near their driveway.
In the summer it's no big deal because we have lots of trees. But in the winter, when the foilage is gone, that darn light shines right nito my bedroom window (well, shines is probably too harsh, but you get the idea) and blocks the beautiful display of stars that I used to be able to see.
Seems to me that if you're afraid of the dark, you might be better off in town! [img]/forums/images/icons/mad.gif[/img]
Around here, for every family that moves into town there seems to be several that are doing the same thing that we have done which is to get the heck OUT of town [img]/forums/images/icons/cool.gif[/img]
The issue I'm trying to bring up on this thread is whether families, ie parents with children, are being pressured to involve their kids in numerous activities such as sports, band, or whatever. A lot of these programs do not take into consideration that some of the kids might live out of town and it's a 1 hour round trip to practices, etc. So, they schedule practices almost every night (sometimes every night or even twice a day!). That's no problem for people who live in town and only have a 10 minute drive to the school, but for us it just isn't reasonable.
We're not to that point - yet. Our twins are only 6 and go to an elementary school that's only 4 miles from our house. They played on a T-Ball team during the summer and the practices and half of the games were at the elementary school. But, the day is coming. When they go to high school, it will be in town. The roller skating, ice skating, swimming, bowling, etc is all in town.
I'm just wondering if anyone has direct experience or knows someone who has experienced this situation. Do you feel guilty for not allowing your kids to participate as much as the kids who live in town, or do you just make the numerous trips into town, or do you give up and move to town?
We don't have any kids (not until April), but I cannot see us picking up and moving just so our child(ren) can participate in a few afterschool activities. I think "country life" is a much better learning experience than anything they might gain from these. What are the stats for the number of children who play sports and eventually make it a career and go Pro? It's very low. So what's left? Teamwork? Friendship? Coordination? I could probably ramble on forever about how these can be gained on a farm or in a "country" environment. My point is - If they are moving out of the country, there are other reasons helping them make that decision. Probably didn't like it there to begin with.
Guilty, we moved to a tract area so that our son would have some playmates and be able to attend a better school. It was a great neighborhood with plenty of children our son's age. We made a lot of friends but always planned on returning to the rural life.
We lived there for ten years and moved the spring that our son graduated from high school.
OK, I see. Sorry for going on a rabbit trail [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]
Our kids are 11, 7, 5 & 3 and we homeschool. At one time we were running all around about every day to different activities, but it became a stress on the family. My wife now limits her trips to town to about two times during the week. We have limited the kids to only a few activities (one each of their choice for the two older ones, mom's choice for the younger).
What we have seen is a change in attitude of our kids towards each other. Because they are forced to be each other's playmates, they do not fight nearly as much as they used to, or as much as some of our "in town" friends.
The bottom line, in my humble opinion of course, is that it comes down to choosing priorities for your family. "Activities" are fine as long as they don't overwhelm your family goals. If driving into town every day fits within your lifestyle and you feel a need to have your kids involved in a multitude of activities, then living out in the country would work. For us, it didn't. We had to choose either activities or country life.
Gerald, I agree that most people who move back to town probably should have stayed there in the first place.
Tim, My wife and I talked about the "friends" issue. We certainly don't have as many as people who live in town. But, we have enough and the ones we have are more "like us".
Frank, Thanks for the comments on this issue. As for the lights issue, feel free to chime in on the thread Yard lights. I agree with you 100%!
Personally, I think sports are way overdone in this country. I consider sports as a way to have fun and get some exercise. Learning teamwork is also a benefit from sports. But, it's become way to competitive at the grade school level on up. If a kid is not a top performer, he/she doesn't play. I think ALL kids should play and winning or losing should not matter. I'm not saying this because my kids are not top performers. They are both very good at athletics. I think there is something wrong with a society that makes instant multi-millionaires out of jocks who barely pass the basic college courses, but can run fast or jump high and/or handle a ball well (and act like jerks!). Meanwhile, very intelligent people who find cures for diseases or develop spectacular new technologies that benefit everyone's every day lives, only make a couple hundred grand a year. They're the ones that should be millionaires! I would rather get the kids into Boy/Girl Scouts. There was a guy in my Navy boot camp that was in Boy Scouts and he already had the discipline and organizational skills needed and boot camp was a piece of cake for him.
<font color="red"> We don't have any kids (not until April), but I cannot see us picking up and moving just so our child(ren) can participate in a few afterschool activities. I think "country life" is a much better learning experience than anything they might gain from these. </font color>
I am moving TO the country becouse of my kid.[Ok for me also] I don't realy want her living in the city, and as for frends, I would rather she have a few good frends, Then a ton of people from the naborhood I live in now. Where I am, I drive home every day, and there are 5-10 kids playing on the sidewalks, or the street. These kids run from 2-about 6 years old, and there is no one out watching them! I do not want my child to grow up thinking thats OK. Shes only 3 mounths old now, but I hope to be in the new place by christmas. She will have 4 1/2 acres of land to play on, and she can have frends over to play. I think maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, but I think there is a lot to be learned by living in the country. Things you miss, by growing up in the city.
We did not really want to move to the suburbs and did move back to the country life as soon as we could. There were several reasons we moved. An poorly run school system, a son allergic to the rock wool insulation in our old house and a great house to move to that needed just decorating. It was a fairly new home but the owners had the worst decorating taste. That might be why it was on the market for nine months and we were able to buy it well below market value. The house was also in one of the best school districts in our state.
We had great neighbors in the tract but that was not where we wanted to live. Jane and I are both much happier on our 23 acres.
As for the sports competition I have to agree with you. The grown ups have spoiled the old way of pick up sports. Everything has to be organized and therefore competitive. It seems that the days of pick up games are long gone. In the fifties when I was growing up, I played organized sports but spent many times as much time in pick up games. We all learned to play together without the parents. Each team had its blend of younger and older kids and good and not so good athletes. All disputes were settled quickly and the best solution was usually the do-over.
I took unbelievable flack from my tract neighbors when I would not let my ten year old play Little League Baseball. The fact that he could not react fast enough to move out of the way of a pitch was of little concern to them. It scared me to death. I pitched when I was growing up and there were times when I threw the ball and was really surprised where it went. I was not going to put my son in harms way.
At eleven he was better coordinated and I allowed him to play. There were a lot of hours spent in our back yard with me pitching to him and bouncing a tennis ball off his body every once in a while. He got better at protecting himself so I felt it was safer.
As for the salaries paid to the pros all we have to do is stop going to the games and supporting the teams with high ticket prices. One of my former students is a pro athlete with a big salary. He is a great person and gives away about half his salary to worthy causes and has not forgotten his roots or the people who helped him along the way. I pick on him because he plays a kid's game and should grow up and get a real job. He always responds that he is still a kid at heart and does not want to grow up just yet. Our society has it all wrong but we pay these guys huge amounts of money to play kid's sports. This time the enemy is us.
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