Red Town, Blue Town

Last updated on: April 14, 2015 at 12:01 am by Libby Anne

Red Town, Blue Town 2015-04-14T00:01:02-04:00 Libby Anne

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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.

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’m sure they were none too pleased when I landed here for graduate school, but them’s the brakes.

But here’s the thing: I literally cannot imagine a better place to raise a family. 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 to the greenhouse to the science events and the art museum to the picturesque creeks that weave through campus and offer mossy stones and crawdads, campus presents my children with a never-ending treasure trove of wonders.

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. And in the fall, the local farms transform into pumpkin patches complete with mini train rides and petting zoos.

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’ve got it. Want to get your pictures with adults cosplaying Star Wars characters and fire model rockets twenty feet into the sky? We’ve got it. Is your child interested in a lego club? Our local library has that too.

Every year, there is an event at the local convention center dedicated to ensuring that local parents have the support and resources they need to birth and care for infants and toddlers. The various booths include toy and book vendors and information about local daycares, and there are workshops on things like how to use a wrap, what you need to know if you’re 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.

And my goodness, I haven’t even gotten to the local farmer’s market! It’s 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 speaking of fairs, we have that each summer too—my children would stay at the fairgrounds all week that week if we let them.

So when my that elder at my parents’ church noted sorrowfully how difficult it must be to raise a family in such a godless place, it took me a moment to fully comprehend what he had just said. Why would someone think raising children in such an amazingly wonderful place would be difficult?

I should note that while the atmosphere here is very secular, we do have churches too—and plenty of them. A number of Sally’s friends from school are 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’t anti-Christian in the least.

Lest this post becomes nothing more than personal rant in defense of the (unnamed) town I now call home, there are several broader points I want to draw out here.

First, when evangelical or fundamentalist Christians consider where to raise children, the religious flavor of a community often matters more than whether it offers family-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 value a certain kind of homogeneity—namely, religious homogeneity. There is a reason for this—-evangelical and fundamentalist parents tend to worry 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.

So for people like the elder I spoke with at my parents’ church, it is a homogeneous Christian environment that makes a community family-friendly, not lego clubs, farmers’ markets, or outdoor movies in the park.

Second, I think we have a wider cultural narrative that equates conservative with family-friendly and progressive with, well, not family-friendly. This narrative is false. Conservatives may have successfully captured the rhetoric of the family, but I didn’t know what a family-friendly community looked like until I moved to the progressive college town I now call my home. We need to push back against this idea that conservatives are on the side of the family while progressives are focused elsewhere.

And I did push back, in a little way, in the gym at my parents’ church. Once I found my tongue I let my parents’ elder know that I actually found the town a wonderful place to raise a family. And while I said this simply and without launching into a rant, maybe—just maybe—it was enough to give him pause.

Note: In case you’re now wondering where this magical town is, I should note that I blog under a pseudonym, and that that anonymity 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 more that offer similar resources and programming. As summer approaches, it might be worth looking into what your own town has to offer—you may be pleasantly surprised.

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