Who Would Want to Live in a Small Town?

 

I am aware of the drawbacks in small towns. Behavioral researchers will tell you that, across a small population, very few people are going to “make it big” and not many highly accomplished people will emerge as “aspirational examples” for others to follow. It's just math.

This reality can temper the dreams and ambitions of children growing up in small towns because, after all, aiming high and achieving greatly is less likely for those who have no examples to follow. Striving toward what you have seen around you is kind of the norm and aiming low can become a self-perpetrating cycle. 

Also, small towns can feel stifling. Rampant familiarity and a sense that everyone knows each other's business can really make one feel boxed in with no room to experiment or grow. Who would want to live like that? 

Then of course, there is this sort of thing: 

I recently traveled across the country and visited the small town where I grew up. Imaginary readers should note that it has been more than 30 years since I lived within a thousand miles of my boyhood home. One day during my brief visit, I ventured out to buy groceries in the middle of a snowstorm. Upon arriving at the store, I realized that I was not carrying my wallet and had no means of paying my bill. I didn’t want to drive back and forth unnecessarily through the snow and, as I pondered my dilemma, I spied a classmate from several decades ago. I approached her for help and, in true small-town fashion, she was handing me money before I could even finish explaining my predicament. I assured her that my brother would stop by to repay her in the days to come, but she waved off that suggestion as some sort of insult. 

Stuff like that happens a lot in small towns. It's a way of life that you can't get anywhere else. I think it's probably okay to forego worldly ambition in the name of simplicity and contentment, but I fear that all too often, the sparkle of the big city blinds many people from the humble glow of the small town. 

24 Years

At some point during my early years of fatherhood, I considered the 6-year gap between the birth of my oldest and the birth of my youngest child. I calculated that I would have 24 years of parenthood before they were all adults which seemed like a luxurious eternity, practically endless in its expanse. Definitely enough time to perfect the art of raising children.

I wrote about this before, at the ten year mark with my "A Decade of Parenthood" post. At that point, I admitted to not knowing much about parenting, but I still thought I would learn it all eventually. It also seemed to me that I had all the time in the world to do so. Wrong and wrong.

By the time any of my imaginary readers see this post, my youngest will be 18 years old; my 24 years will have completely elapsed. Along the way, I came to realize that there is no right way to parent; it's clearly an ongoing exercise of "make-it-up as you go". But I surely underestimated how quickly it would pass. The whole ordeal is like a runaway train that picks up speed every year... you can't slow it down and you can't catch up to climb back on. It just barrels down the track toward an uncertain future that arrives too soon. 

I guess you're never really finished parenting, at least not until your offspring begin providing more care to you than you do to them. In that regard, I'll keep my job for much more than 24 years. But it is already clear to me that parenting children and parenting adults are two different experiences that bring different flavors of satisfaction. For sure both are great, and both are fulfilling, but they are not the same.