The last time I visited my hometown to see my parents and siblings, I found myself in the gym at my parents\u2019 church, juggling kids and donuts. One of the church elders saw me and struck up conversation. He asked where I was living now, and when I told him, he shook his head. \u201cIt must be hard to raise a family in such a godless place,\u201d he said. I found that comment so bizarre\u2014and yet somehow so insightful\u2014that I haven\u2019t been able to shake it.<\/p>\n
I live in a medium-sized college town that has a reputation for being hippie, liberal, and progressive. When I was looking into state colleges as a senior in high school, my parents intentionally steered me away from the university here because of its reputation, both as a party school and as a bastion of godless liberalism. I\u2019m sure they were none too pleased when I landed here for graduate school, but them\u2019s the brakes.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the thing: I literally cannot imagine a better place to raise a family<\/em>. Our school system is excellent, our local parks are outstanding, and the surrounding counties sport superb state parks and various historic and artsy attractions. The university here is an amazing resource for any parent. From the fossil and artifact hall\u00a0to the greenhouse to the science events and the art museum to the picturesque creeks that weave through campus and offer mossy stones\u00a0and crawdads, campus presents my children with a never-ending treasure trove of wonders.<\/p>\n The local YMCA offers excellent programming for children, and our local parks and recreation department outdoes itself with programs and events. In the summer, you can go to the park and spread out a blanket and watch an outdoor movie on a huge screen. Or you can go to an outdoor jazz concert and picnic in the grass while your children dance on the grass in front of the stage.\u00a0And in\u00a0the fall, the local farms transform into pumpkin patches complete with mini train rides and petting zoos.<\/p>\n And then there is the science museum, with its child-friendly programming, and the library, with story time and an array of multicultural programming. Want to hold a snake or look through a glass pane at a hive of honey bees? We\u2019ve got it. Want to get your pictures with adults cosplaying Star Wars characters and fire model rockets twenty feet into the sky?\u00a0We\u2019ve got it. Is your child interested in a lego club? Our local library has that too.<\/p>\n Every year, there is an event at the local convention center dedicated to\u00a0ensuring that local parents have the support and resources they need to birth and care for infants and toddlers. The various booths include\u00a0toy and book vendors and\u00a0information about local daycares, and there are workshops on things like how to use a wrap, what you need to know if you\u2019re thinking about pumping, and how to get your baby to sleep through the night. There is a similar event at the local convention center for parents of elementary aged children. The local support for parents is absolutely outstanding.<\/p>\n And my goodness, I haven\u2019t even gotten to the local farmer\u2019s market! It\u2019s like a weekly fair, complete with musicians, food stands, booths selling arts and crafts, and a man who makes balloon animals and swords for the kids. And\u00a0speaking of fairs, we have that each summer too\u2014my children would stay at the fairgrounds all week that week if we let them.<\/p>\n So when my that\u00a0elder at my parents\u2019 church noted sorrowfully how difficult<\/em> it must be to raise a family in such a godless<\/em> place, it took me a moment to fully comprehend what he had just said. Why would someone\u00a0think raising children in such an amazingly wonderful place would be\u00a0difficult?<\/em><\/p>\n I should note\u00a0that while the atmosphere here is very secular, we do have churches too\u2014and plenty<\/em> of them. A number\u00a0of Sally\u2019s friends from school\u00a0are in Christian families, and attend church regularly. Our churches run the gamut from evangelical megachurches to small conservative fundamentalist churches to progressive LGBT-friendly welcoming churches. While secular families like mine are not at all uncommon, the atmosphere isn\u2019t anti-Christian in the least.<\/p>\n Lest\u00a0this post becomes nothing more than\u00a0personal rant in defense of the\u00a0(unnamed) town I now call home, there are several broader points I want to draw out here.<\/p>\n First, when evangelical or fundamentalist Christians consider where to raise children, the religious flavor of a community often matters more than whether it offers\u00a0family-friendly amenities like parks, libraries, or outdoor jazz concerts. This is because while some parents, like myself, value exposing children to diversity, evangelical and fundamentalist parents often\u00a0value a certain kind of homogeneity\u2014namely, religious<\/em> homogeneity.\u00a0There is a reason for this\u2014-evangelical and fundamentalist parents tend to\u00a0worry quite a bit about their children falling away from the faith, and they often feel that surrounding their children with Christian influences will help prevent that.<\/p>\n So for people\u00a0like the elder I spoke with at my parents\u2019 church, it is a homogeneous Christian environment that makes a community family-friendly, not lego clubs, farmers\u2019 markets, or outdoor movies in the park.<\/p>\n Second, I think we have a wider cultural narrative that equates conservative<\/em> with family-friendly<\/em> and progressive<\/em> with, well, not<\/em> family-friendly.\u00a0This narrative\u00a0is false. Conservatives may have successfully captured the rhetoric of the family, but I didn\u2019t know what a family-friendly community looked like<\/em> until I moved to the\u00a0progressive college town I now call my home. We need to push back against this idea that conservatives\u00a0are on the side of the family while progressives are focused elsewhere.<\/p>\n And I did push back, in a little way, in the gym at my parents\u2019 church. Once I found my tongue I let my parents\u2019 elder\u00a0know that I actually\u00a0found the town\u00a0a wonderful place to raise a family. And while I said this simply and without launching into a rant, maybe\u2014just maybe<\/em>\u2014it was enough to give him pause.<\/p>\n Note: In case you\u2019re now wondering where this magical town is, I should note that I blog under a pseudonym, and that that\u00a0anonymity extends to the town I call home. However, I am fairly confident that there are a variety of towns across the country that meet this general description, and plenty\u00a0more that\u00a0offer similar resources and programming. As summer approaches, it might be worth looking into what your own town has to offer\u2014you may be pleasantly surprised.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last time I visited my hometown to see my parents and siblings, I found myself in the gym at my parents’ church, juggling kids and donuts. One of the church elders saw me and struck up conversation. He asked where I was living now, and when I told him, he shook his head. “It must be hard to raise a family in such a godless place,” he said. I found that comment so bizarre—and yet somehow so insightful—that I haven’t been able to shake it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,43],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-25319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","category-family","tag-children"],"yoast_head":"\n