Valerie

Here I go being different again...I grew up in a rural area (acreage, small
farms). We had plenty of room. I thought it was terrible that in "the city"
you could actually see your neighbor's house from your own. But now I've
lived in town for over 10 years and I'd never want to go back to gravel
roads and cow manure. I like things like sidewalks. It's all just personal
preferences.

I also like how (in my experience) kids are _more_ supervised here in town.
There's less room to hide. I can hear or see my children nearly all the way
around the block. Back in "the country", kids would go into the woods to do
drugs or have sex. (or set fires or torture animals, etc, etc) My old
classmates weren't the best sort.

We've had ups and downs with the neighbor kids. Some are allowed to run
around the neighborhood at the age of 4. If they seemed to have any
redeeming qualities I'd let them play with my kids at my house only and get
them used to our rules. If they did rude or obnoxious things I sent them
home. There's only one kid who was permanently banned. The others have
developed into reasonable playmates. They are all p/s-ed so we don't see
them much now. Their best friends are other unschoolers they have common
interests with....theater, ballet, etc.

---Valerie