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SallyT
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I think for me the appeal of acreage, at least in the idealistic part of my heart, is that I'm a very, very private person in real life. I love my neighbors, but it doesn't take much for me to feel over-scrutinized, or to feel that I really don't have the energy for the guy next door who's out of work (for reasons we haven't quite worked out) and constantly wanting to do some odd job to make a couple of dollars for cigarettes. So maybe it's good for me that I live so close to people, because otherwise I would be a recluse. On the other hand, whenever I look out a window and see the side of the house next door, I really wish I were looking at trees or garden.
And I know I feel jaded about cities right now, because ours is so darn dysfunctional. The mayor resigned last week, after winning a 5th term in a hugely divisive election last fall, but before we were all through jumping up and down and opening bottles of champagne, he announced that he might decide NOT to resign, if he doesn't get the now-vacant school superintendent's job (and he's already BEEN superintendent of schools here -- we've DONE that. Why why why will he not just go away??). Anyway, all this just days after he announced the closure of five libraries. So right now it's hard to shake the sense that "urban" means "chaotic ungoverned poverty-ridden crime-addled mess."
*sigh* Pray for Memphis. (though on the other hand, our basketball team is great, and our tap water is first class).
Sally
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Chari
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Born and raised in Los Angeles........moved to Lake Tahoe when I was 16yrs.......and then few years in Reno for college and early marriage.........and the rest here in beautiful Mount Shasta. Adds up to 44 yrs, next month.......my vote?
country, any day.....even if it takes over an hour to get to a medium-size city. My town now is about 6,000.
I LOVE visiting most cities (yeah, you all know I like to travel  ).....if I can park a car and stick with public transportation.......all the better. But my heart rate goes up the minute I hit the Bay Area or Los Angeles traffic......I feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people. Suffocating, you know?
But, I DO grieve when I think of all of the culture we are missing .......so much out there for city folks. Oh, and other Catholic homeschoolers, in REAL life.
....just rambling  ......night
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Chari...Take Up & Read
Dh Marty 27yrs...3 lovely maidens: Anne 24, Sarah 20 & Maddelyn 17 and 3 chivalrous sons: Matthew 22, Garrett 16 & Malachy 11
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SusanJ
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Well, I can certainly relate to the dysfunctional city thing, Sally. One of our former mayors (the cocaine addict, among other things) recently won a seat on the City Council . . . I could write as much about what is wrong with DC as I could about why I love living in cities but, really, I won't this time.
On the issue of solitude, though. I feel like my natural inclination to solitude and privacy is met better in the city than anywhere else I've lived. In the small town where I grew up (pop 8000, closest bigger town 25 mi) I can't go to the grocery store without having to give a narrative of my whole life since high school. Sometimes that's fun but if I moved back there that would wear me down. In the city there are so many people that I find anonymity much easier to achieve. If I go for a walk no one wonders what I'm up to because everyone walks here. There are enough people around all the time that I, as an individual, do not attract all that much attention (having a kid in a wheelchair pretty much shoots this out of the water and I end up getting stared at by everyone all the time which is a cross but I don't think that is a common experience of the people having this conversation).
I read a fantastic book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. I really recommend this book to anyone interested in cities and how they develop and what a healthy one should look like. It is very readable. She discusses neighborhood dynamics and levels of acquaintance and I've seen her ideas hold up more or less in our city. She argues that in a city you have a lot more levels of acquaintance than elsewhere--especially in the number of casual acquaintances. There are a lot of examples of this but my favorite for moms is "playground friends." Its pretty standard here to have mom friends who you would never get together with socially, never have in to your house, never even meet their husbands, even though you hang out with them several times a week at the playground. That can be a superficial way to live if that is all you have for friendship but most of us do have real close friends in other circles.
All this just to say that in my experience it is easier to be sort of alone and anonymous when I need to be in the city over other types of places.
One big caveat in all this is that I don't want to sound like I'm condemning other choices in where to live. I do think cities are misunderstood and unfairly maligned by many people, especially conservative family types. I know my "spread-the-City Gospel zeal" gets to some of my IRL friends so I just wanted to be clear about that.
I also do think, by the way, that most cities these days are bad. That's unfortunate. I think the government (federal and local) has done a lot to ruin its cities with policy decisions. So for all my enthusiasm, I know that a lot of families don't have a real choice about whether or not to live in a city.
Susan
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Life Together
[URL=http://thejohnstonkids.blogspot.com]The Kids' Blog[/UR
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Kathryn UK
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Town for me. I have lived rurally (my Dad was a farmer), in a village, a town, and a big city (London). Town wins hands down, though for many of the same reasons others have put forward for cities. I like ...
* library, Church, parks, shops and so on in walking distance (I would hate to be totally dependent on a car)
* being able to send a child to the shop for milk / bread / whatever when we run out
* feeling a sense of community (wherever I go, chances are I will run into someone I know)
* having the option of public transport
* plenty of activities available for the children (dance school, sports clubs, art classes, music school, drama groups, toddler groups, playgroups)
* having countryside nearby
London was too impersonal and just too busy for me. Rural life can be too isolating and means too much car dependence. The town we live in now has about 35,000 population. This size or a little smaller feels just right.
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Kathryn
Dh Michael,  Rachel(3/95) Hannah(8/98) Naomi(6/06)  (11/07)
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Lisbet
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I had a long thoughtful post drawn up yesterday and it disappeared!
We long to live in the country. I was raised on 9 lovely acres of land 20 miles from the closests town. I've lived in the city (not the suburbs) for 14 years now. We lived in the inner city for awhile, wanting to be part of the revitalization and renewal, but opted to move when the rats overtook our backyard, the after the second time the house across the street was raided for drugs, and the lesbians beside us nearly killed one another. We still try to help out at the parish there, but it's slowly fading away now, and the school was just closed. We used to walk two blocks to mass each day. I did love that.
Then we moved here, still a very urban area, but not inner city. I walk to the butcher, hairdresser, coffee shop and such. But we just don't fit in this neighborhood at all. My children are confined to our 40x120 lot, the closest park is 9 blocks away, but there has been so much drug activity there. I have 6 very rowdy boys, and our neighbors all have the 'it takes a village' mentality and are constantly trying to 'save us from ourselves'. I can't stand it.
I would suffocate in a suburb, I'm sure. So we are working so very diligently to move our brood out and into a rural area.
*eta, Our city goveronment is crazy too. Our mayer is a tyrannt, our we are being nickled and dimed to death in taxes and 'fees' Our schools are horrible. Jennifer, I saw the pic of your snowey house on baby girls baptismal day and thought "THAT is what we are lookking for!"
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Erin
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insegnante wrote:
One thing I'm really curious about is what small town/small city life is like in a place largely independent of any nearby metro area. Like a town of 30,000 people that is the largest population center within a radius of 100 miles or more. Those probably still exist somewhere in the U.S., right? |
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What sort of questions do you have Theresa?
Here in Australia many towns are like you describe, we live on a rural property of 140 acres only 10 minutes from our local town of 20 000 people. It is classified as a city but in reality is more a country town atmosphere. It is 100km south of our next town of 10 000 people and 80km north of the bigger coastal city of
80 000. That is where many make a day of it to shop for the bigger things. Dh and I rarely bother, maybe once a year maybe longer. Our next town is west and over the Great Dividing Range it takes a couple of hours and is only a tiny place of approximately 5000.
We lived in town until Christmas last year and although it is a country town you still tend to keep the children cooped up in the backyard unless you are with them. Perhaps as they grew older this would have changed some. Out here on the property they have so much more freedom.
Susan makes a good case for city living, there are certain disadvantages to country living, medical is certainly one, we find it very hard to attract doctors here, all doctors in our town for example have closed their books and are taking no new patients, if you are new to town you better hope you don't need a doctor. My 20month old fractured his arm on Easter Monday and we have to travel next week 80km+ to see an orthopedic surgeon as there are none here. But then again if there was a real emergency they will air-lift you out.
Okay you don't have the shopping choices but just imagine how much we save 
Seriously we love the country town, the atmosphere, the sense of belonging, the freedom that our children are able to enjoy growing up. The convenience of how quick it is without traffic (people here whinge because peak hour traffic takes 15 minutes to get across the bridge)how quick it is to get in and out of shopsetc
We love our property even more, the children can roam and romp at will and yet they have the best of both worlds as access to town isn't far.
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chicken lady
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I am with Pope St Pius the X, Hillaire Belloc, GK Chesterton, Louis and Zelie Martin...... country life is more conducive to Catholic living.
I live in an ideal situation, I am less than 5 minutes from 3 Catholic churchs, public library and a public pool. I am under an hour from a major city filled with all the culture I care to enjoy (and it is abundant). Yet when you are here you feel like you are far from all that keeps one busy and constantly moving. We need quiet and solitude as humans, and living in the city (as I have done in Ca.) does not afford most people that need.
Great thread, I haev never heard some of these responses before, fun food for thought 
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JenniferS
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Dh and I both prefer country living. Right now we are rural, but we don't consider it country. We are on six acres on a paved road that leads to the city lake. The summers are filled with maniacal drivers trying to get to the lake as fast as they can. We have wonderful neighbors, but they live close by. When we married, we lived on an acre and a half, but that acre and a half was surrounded by woods and pastureland. Our nearest neighb or was a mile away. We miss that. We are trying to find a place out in the "boonies" as dh says.
We are getting ready to look at a farmhouse on 17 acres six miles out of the city limits, on a dirt road. Thre is one neighbor, a very nice neighbor, we are told. We are still thinking how many trees we could plant to make the place less visible, should we buy it. It's no bigger than the house we have now. Some think we are crazy to move seven kids from one small house to another, but I guess we feel like they spend most of their days outside and spend most of their nights climbing in bed with a sibling or with us, so why do we need a bigger house? We just want more land way out of town, where dh can have the cattle he's always wanted, and the chickens.
Jen
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LisaR
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this has been so interesting! I am wondering if for myself, a part of it is the appeal of the wonderful community that we have found within our neighborhood/nearby.
Since our marriage almost 16 years ago, we have always lived within walking distance of our Catholic Church (in Ohio, MI, and now IL) and did not want to ever change that dynamic.
I grew up non Catholic/non connected to any Faith community, and dh grew up VERY small town (400 people, 30-45 miles from anything over 10,000 people) and has very bad and scary memories of kids gone wild on country roads, all the parents providing booze and bedrooms for parties because "there's nothing else to do way out here", etc.
It is a joy and a dream come true for my sons and daughter to be playing with neighbors one minute, and sitting next to them at Mass or adoration the next. It is nice that in the summer, I never ever have to drive to get to visit friends. We are such a central location, everyone zips by our neighborhood and can easily swing in, but usually, the group of at least 17 boys give or take (all Catholic!) end up in the large grassy lot one house down playing football, baseball, soccer, or at a basketball hoop, etc. They devise elaborate all day games. Us moms just set out pitchers of water and plastic cups, and they know if they want food, go home!
The other day it was quite warm, and when dh came home from work he counted 13 boys ages 8-16 playing capture the flag. He came in and told me, and I replied- "oh, they are still playing that? they started before lunch!!"
so for us it has been so nice.
We are really really frugal, and it makes us feel good to know we have everything within walking distance if need be.
Most of our city council is Catholic, our Mayor is a daily Mass goeer, and one city council man's family just moved in diagonally across the street. He'll come over to clarify with Tim about Church teachings (he is a Catholic Republican and Mexican!) and Tim in turn will talk with him about the issues.
so, long windedness aside, I wonder if what we desire now for our families has anything to do with what we feel like was lacking in ours growing up?
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Lisa
dh Tim '92
Joseph 17
Paul 14
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Isaac Vincent 9/21/10! and...
many little saints in heaven!
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SusanJ
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I want to challenge a bit the idea that living in the country is more natural or more Catholic. Again, I don't mean to say that it is a bad choice to live in the country but I'm glad to see so much interest in a topic I love so I'm hoping to keep the conversation going.
First, I'm not really sure where the idea comes from that living in the country is more natural. It may be that I don't have the same idea in mind when I hear "natural." Is it that you are closer to nature? This is pretty obvious, I guess, and if that is a high value then country living would win. But do you mean it is more true to the nature of the human person? Here I would have to disagree. Humans are born into a community and need community to live and thrive. And by this I don't simply mean that we all need family, friends, and a parish--though we certainly do need those things. We need the cities. I think in the history of civilizations you don't see real development until the cities arise. I'll stick to examples from our own country because it's what I know best. The native peoples did not all live on farms by themselves. Some of them farmed but most of them moved about in large communities. The first settlers to American did not come as individual farmers but as communities of people who set up the village before they planted crops. The pioneers out west relied on cities. Think of the Ingalls family: they moved west, following the railroad, to set up a town. The homesteaders came, too, but because the town was there. The town provided seed, equipment, dry goods. Laura Ingalls worked for awhile making shirts for the farmer men who didn't have wives. During the Long Winter when the trains couldn't come to town they all almost starved to death. I'm not suggesting that because communities are necessary we all need to find the most extreme example (Manhattan, maybe?) and move there. But I do think the cities are more in keeping with our human nature in that we are people born into and relying on community. I am grateful for all those who have a calling to farm in the country. I love farmers and am a proud consumer of farm products.
Then on the question of the country being more conducive to Catholic living--here I am really rusty. I haven't read much of Pope Saint Pius X or Chesterton and I haven't read any Belloc. Dh is more familiar with these thinkers and I do know that I disagree on a lot of points with friends of mine who are big fans of these men. But I really don't know the arguments and I would be interested to hear from those of you who know them better. What makes the country better for Catholic living? Is it silence and solitude? I know that many religious communities, especially the contemplatives, locate purposefully in the country. But these men and women religious are called to live, in a very radical way, apart from the world. I don't think most families have that calling. Is it that we are called to contemplate the beauty of creation? I certainly agree with this. Our family loves to escape to the country to revel in creation on a regular basis. It's hard to keep from cursing the suburbs that have paved over so much of creation making it so much harder to get to real, wild, nature for most of us. I would argue, though (see above) that there is a certain nature to the city as well. Someday I will get around to writing that urban unit study! I can't help but think of Pope John Paul II's exhortation to contemplate the face of Christ as I walk around our neighborhood or run errands in our city.
This is a fun conversation,
Susan
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Life Together
[URL=http://thejohnstonkids.blogspot.com]The Kids' Blog[/UR
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LisaR
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PS, did I mention I love having Catholic mom walking partners? Our sub goes for about 2 miles self contained, and there is more than one mom that will regularly walk with me. It is nice to have mom time without having to go anywhere!
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Lisa
dh Tim '92
Joseph 17
Paul 14
Thomas 11
Dominic 8
Maria Gianna 5
Isaac Vincent 9/21/10! and...
many little saints in heaven!
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Tina P.
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OK Lisa, you convinced me. Even though I'm nearly 2000 miles away from you, I want that house down the block from you!
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LisaR
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It is funny, because among the Catholic homeschoolers here (about 60 families) - the trend seems to "get out of town"!! and that is sad to me. ALthough I should not complain- I STILL have 7 Catholic homeschooling families within 4 miles of us, LOL! But really, when we first moved here almost all of the families lived within city limits, and you would run into them more at libraries, Mass in one of the "town" churches, etc. Now there are quite a few who are out there 15-20 miles away.
I like the Catholic=Universal type theme that I see by living in my neighborhood. My kids know Black Catholics, Indian Catholics, and (lots of!!) Lebanese Catholics just from within our sub!
Our next door neighbor on one side is getting his MDiv from Moody in Chicago and goes to an all out Pentecostal Black Holiness Church, yet he and his beautiful family go to our parish fish frys on Friday. Our next door neighbors on the other side- also black, she has a Phd in Educational Policy and teaches at two Universities- yet we have GREAT talks about homeschooling (she even mentioned us on the news!) and she is an Attachement parent who nurses her kids til age two, slings them to University with her, etc. Her dh owns a barbershop nearby.
anyway, just by our living experiences we have been able to dispell alot of myths about Catholic large family homeschooling life/but more humbling, we have learned to disspell so many myths ourselves about "school kids", "small families" (many here are not by choice as I assumed earlier on), ethnic minorities, etc.
It's all good Tina, come on over!!
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Lisa
dh Tim '92
Joseph 17
Paul 14
Thomas 11
Dominic 8
Maria Gianna 5
Isaac Vincent 9/21/10! and...
many little saints in heaven!
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happymama
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1 - LisaR, don't tempt me, I prefered living there to here. :)
2 - I think our "ideal" is to live in a town (not a huge city) and have a few acres in the country that we can go to on the weekends or, as long as I'm not working, whenever I feel like it. Specifically we have been looking at a log cabin like this one for a few years. On an acreage we would plant an orchard, dh would teach the boys hunting & fishing, I would plant a Mary's garden, and so on.
3 - Reading J.M. Escriva recently: he is constantly repeating that the laity belong EVERYWHERE in the world, in order to bring Christ to it. Obviously, God wants Christians to be in both cities & the country! It isn't either/or, it's both/and. As long as we have young children living with us, we try to do what's best for them. I lived for 6 months in a rough part of D.C. with Mother Teresa's sisters, and let me tell you, what a light they brought to that neighborhood. But hearing gunshots at night and knowing what went on in the closest parks convinced me that I would not want to raise small children there. That's just one neighborhood in this country, though, and other parts of DC were much safer.
One thing dh & I certainly agree on is not wanting him to have a long commute to work. I pity the families with husbands driving an hour to work each way... that's 2 hours the family is missing out on dad!
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Maddie
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happymama wrote:
3 - Reading J.M. Escriva recently: he is constantly repeating that the laity belong EVERYWHERE in the world, in order to bring Christ to it. Obviously, God wants Christians to be in both cities & the country! It isn't either/or, it's both/and. |
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That is exactly what I was thinking, why does it have to be either or? Why is one the better Catholic way of living? We are needed everywhere, the country folk need evangelization just as much as the city folk.
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Lisbet
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Again, (just like the vanity thread) personal discernment comes into play big time with this topic. We ARE indeed needed everywhere, and where each individual and family can best serve Our Lord is the right place for them to be. Susan and her family seem called to evangelize in the city, their family seems to thrive there. Ours is suffocating in the city.
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Lisa, wife to Tony,
Mama to:
Nick, 17
Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
Cecilia born 10.29.10
Josephine born 6.11.12
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DeAnn M
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Oh how I wish I had the time to respond to your questions and comments, Susan. I will have to opt for lots of bullet point types of thoughts:
*Yes, the Ingalls and other pioneers chose to move out west... the cities/towns were needed along the way, but think about the reason so many people wanted to move west...maybe some wanted fortune but most wanted land...property to call their own and to build their legacy for the future generations. Land...owning and working the land has been just as muchh the American dream as owning a business and providing services to others ( not that the two are mutually exclusive)
I can't speak for everyone but most people that I talk to are drawn to owning land, working the land and enjoying the beauty of the land. Nature...space...a place to SLOW DOWN and breathe. While many times I would love to be away from people and be left alone, I realize that I need people. We were created from a relationship for relationship, first to God and then to others. I dearly love my friends and often sense the need to connect with them as well as those I don't know and would not necessarily choose to spend time with. However, recently, my husband and I have also sensed the need to connect with our land and our home--difficult to do in our current suburb. We want to leave our children with something more than things and money. Obviously, there's our faith, but we also want to leave them a legacy with which they can work, enjoy, love and prosper...meaning land...property.
I realize, of course, this is just us. We all want to leave our children with valuable faith, memories, etc. And, I'm not placing physical inheritance above spiritual inheritance. Family inheritance is not always tangible. This is just on our hearts.
**Community is not about close proximity or location ...it's about people. It doesn't matter if you walk 1 minute or 1 mile to your neighbor's house...you can have community either way. The Ingall's lived on a farm...away from others, yet they were still part of a town and community. Towns and cities were necessary for supplies, places to trade and sell goods, etc., but were not totally necessary for "community."
I would strongly recommend that you read anything by Wendell Berry. His fiction is beautiful and his non-fiction is beautiful and thought--provoking. I think it will help you understand this "country" point of view and give you a different perspective on community. Even if you don't agree with him, you will benefit greatly from reading his work.
Also, I can't help but comment on Chesterton. Reading his writings as an Evangelical completely changed my way of thinking about life, God and family. His writings really paved the way for my road to Catholicism. I've run out of time to go into this too much, but try to read his writings before you decide that you disagree with him a lot.
I wish I had time to tackle the Country Life is Catholic idea. Let me just say that I think the intention was not to deem cities as "unspiritual, or un-Catholic" but, rather, just as you had mentioned before...connecting with nature, space, slowing down, QUIET, solitude. These are more readily available in the country. (Aside from the rednecks revving their engines :) Once again, not that you can't have any of those things in the city, but it's simply more conducive for those of us who cannot connect with God in the hustle and bustle and crowds of an urban atmosphere.
Gotta run..hungry kids!
God Bless,
DeAnn
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CrunchyMom
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Wendell Berry
Agrarianism
Here are some resources from the non-profit for which my dh works (ISI) that those interested in reading more about DeAnn's perspective might find interesting.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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LisaR
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| Posted: March 28 2008 at 11:49am | IP Logged
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oh, I could chat all day long about this topic!! I find much more quiet and solitude here than I think maybe I would when I compare myself to the "country families" that I know. They seem to be wrapped up and busy busy busy with repairs, phone calls, running in and out of town (even just Dr appts alone for one family was driving the mom crazy!!) and trying to get their kids together with others, even if it is only once or twice a month.
I feel like for me, personally, I can practice the present moment right where I am. If my kids play with neighbors, fine, or they play alone. If I walk outside and end up with a mom neighbor friend, that is fine, or I can go alone. I like that dh is home literally 6 minutes after he says he is leaving the office.
We live very very simply, clothes on the line and all!
I honestly do not think we could ever afford the price, the time, the attachemnt that we would need to live a country lifestyle. We are very free here. If our home burned down, oh well. we just don't have an attachement,a dependency, that I fear I would need to have if I was called to a country life.
and maybe this is because the families we know still live with one foot in both worlds? they "want" the country self sustaining lifestyle, but realistically are not 100% there, and so the struggle is dependency on both the city and country??
they are not the types with 300 plus cans of potted/dried meats for the winter, put up fruits and vegs, could live through the long winter a la Laura Ingalls without lots of help...??
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Lisa
dh Tim '92
Joseph 17
Paul 14
Thomas 11
Dominic 8
Maria Gianna 5
Isaac Vincent 9/21/10! and...
many little saints in heaven!
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LisaR
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Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: N/A
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Posts: 2226
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| Posted: March 28 2008 at 11:57am | IP Logged
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chicken lady wrote:
I am with Pope St Pius the X, Hillaire Belloc, GK Chesterton, Louis and Zelie Martin...... country life is more conducive to Catholic living.
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Molly, when I think of country life, REAL country living, I actually envision Chesterton gambolling around for a stroll, not a care in the world!
Sometimes I fear I have a stereotype of the country-ites out there- they seem "rich" in a way and have a desire to have it all- bigger home, more land, more cows, deeper well, bigger riding lawn mower (while we can use the push blade reel thingy) more more more. I know this is just as grave of a stereotype as the one I cringe at when people think city=busy/noisy.
anyway, I am so glad for your and many others examples that living in the country can truly be very freeing and very very small/simple/satisfying- thanks to you all! It really is a calling either way or somewhere in the middle, isn't it? Glad God calls us each in the way that is best for us!
__________________
Lisa
dh Tim '92
Joseph 17
Paul 14
Thomas 11
Dominic 8
Maria Gianna 5
Isaac Vincent 9/21/10! and...
many little saints in heaven!
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: live in town or the country?
