Mama and The Hometown Blues
When I was a little girl growing up in St. Louis, I always pictured myself raising my kids…well, in St. Louis. Where else? I come from multiple generations of St. Louisans, and people in my family rarely move away from home. I envisioned my kids being able to do all the fun things that both I and my parents loved as kids…visiting the St. Louis Zoo with their cousins, cheering on the Cardinals at Busch Stadium, and enjoying Friday night pizza at our favorite local dive.
Even when I graduated from college and moved across the country to be a TV news reporter, I still wholeheartedly believed that when it came time to raise my chicks, this mother hen would find her way back “home.” And I did. For a while I was living the good life with a husband and two kids in suburban St. Louis, not to mention two sets of grandparents (a.k.a. instant babysitters) within ten minutes of our house. Then, life threw us a curve ball.
A year ago, my husband’s job relocated us from Missouri to Massachusetts. We had never even been to New England before our first house-hunting trip to Boston. While we fell in love with the beauty and the history of this place, the move has come as quite a culture shock. Primarily…I’m not raising my kids in St. Louis anymore. And it’s hard!
If you have ever moved to a faraway place, then I’m sure you know what I mean. There is just a big difference between raising children in an area that you can drive around with your eyes closed, and raising them in a place where you need a GPS to make your way to Target. As a parent, you feel like you’re operating with a bit of a handicap. I’m out of my comfort zone. I don’t inherently know where all the best parks and shops and doctors are. I don’t understand the weather patterns. At school functions and town events, I always feel like the “outsider.” And while I never say anything about it to my kids, I often wonder if they can sense that I’m off my game.
They, on the other hand, seem to be fitting right in. My daughter is six and my son just turned three. They started their new schools last fall and immediately felt like they belonged. Kids are very adaptable that way. And while I think that’s great, it freaks me out at the same time. I didn’t picture myself raising children who used adjectives like “wicked” or called a drinking fountain a “bubblah.” My son still doesn’t pronounce the letter “r” – and I am beginning to wonder if it is a speech impediment, or if it’s just because we live in Boston. I cringe when I picture a teenaged Kellen saying, “Mom, I’m going to take the cah (car) up to the ballpahk (ballpark) latah (later).”
That’s when I sometimes want to click my heels together three times like Dorothy and chant, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…”
But since that doesn’t really work, I have to be realistic instead. The reality is that a) we’re probably not moving back to St. Louis and b) I have to get over my preconceived notions of what my kids’ childhood would be like. Things change! To that end, I’ve made a list of three essential things for parents to remember when raising kids away from “home.”
- Your kids probably don’t have the emotional ties to your hometown/ state/ country that you do. So don’t share your baggage. Let them move on. For my kids, Missouri will be just a nice place they visit every once in a while. It doesn’t matter what memories I wanted to make with them there, because most of their childhood memories are being created here. That said…
- Your new area probably offers the same types of childhood experiences that you loved – just in a different package. Instead of trips to the zoo, my children will cherish their visits to ride the Swan Boats in Boston Public Garden. Instead of cheering for the Cardinals, they will root for the Red Sox at Fenway (don’t tell my family; some of them are still a little sore about a certain World Series smack down). And my kids have already declared a favorite pizza spot of their own here in Boston.
- Help your children fall in love with their “hometown” just as much as you loved yours. Allow them to put down deep roots and think of the place where they are growing up as “home.” Even if they weren’t born there. Even if your extended family doesn’t live there. Kids need a home of their own…not the home that exists in someone’s memory. When my children make that now familiar roundtrip flight between Boston and St. Louis, I fully expect that it will be Boston Harbor that makes their hearts skip a beat the same way mine does when I see the Gateway Arch standing proudly over the Mississippi River. And I will try to make sure they never miss that Harbor view.
No, it’s not easy raising your kids away from “home,” especially when it’s not the life you expected. But I’m learning. And who knows? Maybe the family experiences that feel so foreign to me now will become the ones that are legendary rites of passage for my great-grandchildren. Even I can admit that would be wicked supah (super).
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