Hmm, what to call this post... if they won't let me work here I'll be an amateur sociologist.

I've been thinking lately about how the places that we live affect who we are and particularly how we parent. I didn't realized it before (I suppose because I'd only been a parent in one place) but every place seems to have its own parenting culture. My current LA 'hood, for instance seems to be made up of dual-income parents in their late 30's to early 40's. The other day I was chatting with a mom at a park which seems to be my form of sociological research these days. She said "wow, you must have been young when you had Asha". I was 27! In my world that is not particularly young to have kids. My mom was 23 when she had my oldest sister and she felt positively ancient at the time.

Women generally wait until at least 30 to start having children here. A 34 year old mom I was talking to said that often when she's at the park she finds that she is the only one there that's under 40 (except for the nannies). The reason for having children later seems to be twofold. First, it's so damn expensive to live here it takes a while to attain a standard of living that you feel comfortable raising children in. Also, women generally wait until their career is on-track before procreating. Which brings me to the other common theme here which is that most moms work full time. This is also at least in part due to the aforementioned expense to live here (seriously, half a million dollars gets you an 800 sq ft, 2 bedroom house in a decent neighbourhood). I have yet to meet a mom that stays at home full time and doesn't work at all.

Working full-time can make it difficult to arrange preschool for your kids, which is another interesting theme here. Getting your kid into the right preschool is a huge deal. Some places have wait-lists that are over a year long. Since some people start their kids in preschool at age 2 1/2 you pretty much need to call to get on a waitlist from the delivery room. I guess at home preschool seemed a bit more optional to me. One mom told me about the homework assignments that her daughter gets at preschool. She thought it was "cute" but I was horrified! Preschools seem to be either very academic or very crunchy and play-based. I'm leaning in the direction of the crunch but I'm trying not to get caught up in the craziness!
Another woman I met in the park who recently moved here from Tucson, AZ told me that the split between working and stay-at-home moms is about 50/50 in Tucson and there is a pretty fierce rivalry between the two groups. She also seemed to be consciously slipping things into the conversation to ensure I knew she was a good mom and human being (i.e., "sometimes I freeze those yogurt tubes... the organic ones...", "there's our car, there's our Prius"). She was really nice but she just seemed to be trying so hard as though she had been judged in the past. I hadn't noticed it until then but most people around here are pretty easy-going and unapologetic about themselves. I had imagined a bunch of bleached and botoxed "kept" women but people are actually quite normal! Of course the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills"  are around in this city but not in my humble little neighbourhood. I did get a bit of a taste of it when I went to Playa Vista which is a bit more glitzy. I saw my first botched nose job (well I thought it had been botched but she seemed pretty pleased with herself).

Oh dear, this post has gotten a bit judgemental. I will end on a positive note. Back to my sociological experiment (i.e., taking my kid to the park and talking to other moms). The biggest insight I've gained from this move so far is that people in general are pretty cool! I always thought that I was lucky because I fell into a good group of friends when I was a kid. I was lucky because I found a great group of girls to hang out with in university. I was lucky that when my husband dragged me to a town in northern Alberta that he happened to work with a group of great people in forestry. Well it turns out that most people in general are just really great and you just have to go out there are meet them. And if you meet enough people you can weed out the occasional wierdo! Ha ha!