Small Town Living

I grew up in a small town in Ontario (Canada) and enjoyed it. I could walk to the store, although it was probably a 20 minute walk but it was safe and there were sidewalks. I could ride my bike without care or concern.  I played in the woods down the road from my house and in winter skated on a small patch of ice there, running home to get hot chocolate when my feet felt like ice blocks.  The school I attended wasn't overpopulated like the schools I see here in the USA. We had 2 grade 8 classes, so a total of maybe 60 kids in our graduating class. We all knew each other.  It was a great small town life. That's one of the reasons my husband and I chose a small town to raise our kids. He grew up in a small town too.

Being kids in a small town, not adults,  meant we didn't hear about the gossip that went around town or in church.  I'm sure it was there but we were too busy being kids to notice.  Now we're adults and our eyes were rudely opened when we moved to a small town down South.  We thought the South was supposed to about hospitality and friendliness.  Apparently not everyone got the memo.

When we moved here a neighbor brought over a fern to welcome us and I thought that was so nice, even though I just have to hold a plant and it will wilt in my hands because it knows it's going to die soon so it might as well kill itself before I have a chance to kill it.  Anyways, that friendship with those neighbors lasted a few months before we saw the claws come out on the grandma, the head of that household, and we steered clear of anything to do with her and her grand kids from that day forward.  It was a bit tense in the cul-de-sac for a while.

I won't go into the gory details but suffice it to say that rumors spread fast in a small town.  If something happens at school then the kids bring home the details, not usually accurately, and then the parents talk to their friends about it and the details get even more skewed. Then there are the police who have nothing better to do than stop kids for just walking around town or riding their skateboards.  Kids can't just be kids and hang out?  As soon as the police in town knew a kid's name they were sure to let other people they were in contact with know that kid's 'reputation' and let the parents know they should stay clear of them.  Do you know that a kid will do what you expect them to do? So if they figure you don't have any confidence in them to do right then they'll think there's no use in doing right because you expect them to do wrong anyways.  They will be as good as your expectations about them are.  This plays out in schools, at home, in society.
The principal, I think, found it fun to interrogate kids.  He should have gone into police work instead.  His philosophy, as far as I can tell, was that it's better to get them out of 'his' school than to have them there contaminating the hallways and classrooms with their 'bad selves'.  Whether getting them out meant juvenile detention or alternative school, either one would work for him. And don't expect him to keep things confidential. He would call parents and tell them that the friend their kid was choosing to hang out with was bad news and they should do something to stop the friendship. There was no attempt to help the troubled kids at school. There were too many kids to do that. It's just easier to get them out of that school.

So, in the end I've come to the conclusion that small town living isn't for me (not here anyways).  Perhaps things are different in the town we moved from in Canada.  Before we moved I didn't see anything like what I saw in the small town down here.  Kids could ride their bikes and walk around without being stopped by police, parents stood outside school waiting to pick their kids up after school and we talked, principals cared and had time for students. There weren't arrests and suspensions like I've seen here.  We've since moved out of that small town of drama and gossip and are living much more peacefully. Praise God.