Upheaval

In the last two weeks, we yanked Wolfgang out of his inner-city magnet school and moved him to the white bread suburban middle school right here in town. (And, yes, btw, I'm fully aware of the implied meanings of the phrase "inner city.")

You know, you try to do the right thing for your kid, try to expose him to different ideas, experiences, people. We sent him to the school because of its science and technology focus, but I also hoped that being in a racially and economically diverse environment would be a good life experience. After all, life isn't all upper middle class white suburbia.

Well, when I went to the parents' open house at his old school a couple weeks ago, it became clear to me that eighth grade was not going to offer Wolfgang the academic experience we were looking for. I believe that if we left him in the inner city magnet school he wasn't going to be adequately prepared for high school here in white suburbia. So, we pulled him.

After the first day at our local middle school, I asked Wolfgang how it is different from his old school.

His response: "This school is way less ghetto." Or maybe it was, "There are way less ghetto kids here." Either way, you get the idea.

Yeah, I don't what the hell I'm doing when it comes to this parenting thing. About the only thing I can say with any certainty is that whatever I do, I do it deliberately. For whatever that's worth.