keeping your opinions

I had the unfortunate pleasure of having someone personally attack my life choices today. This person had the audacity to judge where I live and where I plan to send my children to school. What frustrated me the most about the situation, though, was that this person did not even want to consider that there are a great many POSITIVE reasons for living in the city. She summarily dismissed it and implied that I, my family, and especially my children, were doomed to live a life in urban filth and amongst criminals and the uneducated.

It boggles my mind that such narrow-minded people exist.

I’m all for people expressing their opinions, but do not attack my choices. If you choose to live in the suburbs — fine. If you choose to send your child/ren to private school — fine. Everyone makes their choices based on what they believe is best for them and their family.

Me, I choose to live in a highly urban area and will send my children to a public school. I like it and it works for me and my family. We like living within walking distance of restaurants that run the gamut from African to Asian to American to European. We like living in a neighbourhood that is diverse (ethnically, racially, and yes, even with gender and family types) and where I can hear up to 5 different languages spoken at the playground at the same time. The public school in our neighbourhood is one of the best in the city and, I’ll wager, will provide my children with a better education then some of the private/charter/parochial schools in the city.

As I’ve said before on this blog: Don’t you judge me.

trend, pattern, habit

Madeleine has give us 3 consecutive nights now of sleeping from 8pm to 6am. This is promising. I’ve probably jinxed it now, by saying this!

3 occurrences make a trend; 10 occurrences make a habit. Arbitrarily, therefore, 6 occurrences make a pattern.

Excerpts from definitions according to this dictionary are as follows:

trend (trnd)
n.
1. The general direction in which something tends to move.

pat·tern (ptrn)
n.
5. A consistent, characteristic form, style, or method, as:
a. A composite of traits or features characteristic of an individual or a group: one’s pattern of
behavior.

hab·it (hbt)
n.
1. a. A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition.