I've always had the notion that California's Bay Area is rather unfriendly to parents who support school choice, tougher standards, and charter schools. But if Oakland resident Jennifer Nelson's article is to be believed, Bay Area residents dislike parents - period:
...in the months and years that followed [the move to Oakland], I discovered an angry, unpleasant element to the Bay Area kookiness. My first real experience with the rude attitude prevalent in the area started when I found my way into Berkeley. A friend had recommended Berkeley Bowl as a great alternative to haunting farmer's markets.
Berkeley Bowl is a fabulous market. The parking lot and many of the patrons, however, are not. I have never seen such angry people as I saw on my first visit to Berkeley Bowl (and every visit thereafter)...After parking and shopping next to these folks for three years, I'm starting to think that a steady diet of edamame, veggie burgers, organic greens and soy milk makes people really, really angry.
Part of my problem, I've decided, is that I'm easily tagged as a "breeder" by the many folks in the Bay Area who believe in population control or who just dislike children... Probably the strangest experience I've had is being pregnant in the Bay Area. During my other pregnancies, I lived in Sacramento and was used to people smiling when they saw a pregnant woman. Here, no smiles -- mostly scowls...
After my [third] baby was born, the hostile looks and mutterings continued. While I was waiting in line for coffee one day with the kids in tow, one woman offered to me that she thought three children constituted a big family. When I told her it really isn't considered a large family in many other parts of the country, including the Midwest town I had recently moved from, she asked me with disdain, "Where was that, a religious community?" Then there was the woman who said to me as she pushed by my stroller, "Three? Don't you think you have enough?" It's not like I was asking her to contribute to their college fund! I was just taking my kids to the bathroom.
Hopefully, Mrs. Nelson is getting used to this sort of hostility while her kids are in strollers. It will give her the strong will she'll need to deal with naysayers should she decide to homeschool, or to push for school reforms in her district. Oh, wait, she's already started raising heck about that. Good for her!
Posted by kswygert at January 6, 2004 04:37 PM