Back in the Bay Area

After having lived in Los Angeles for the past 10 months, I feel strange to be back in Silicon Valley. This time, I am staying at my sister's house while Robby frolics away on an adventurous bachelor party at Lake Tahoe. I am left being the temporary chauffeur for my nieces - dropping them off at school, picking them up, taking them to swim classes & gymnastics. The life of the parent is constantly behind the wheel. It doesn't seem too attractive to me right now...until I sit down with a niece & listen to her say the most insightful & surprising things. A few days ago, the three year old said, "When you get older, you get smaller and smaller. Then you go to the ground & be under the ground." She also called me a "girly girl", but I don't think she knows what it means.

When I heard that my niece's kindergarten teacher is a Menlo Park native, I realized that many of the children who live here are like legacy children. They grow up here, go off to college, explore the world, but eventually return to their hometown. They live in their parents' house or find a place on their own with their parents' help. But they stay. Okay, I'm doing some generalizing, but there are so many privileges to growing up in an upper middle or upper class family. This includes the option of moving home, being supported by generous parents, & being able to continue a life of cushy customs, like going to Cafe Borrone at 10am and paying $12 for breakfast. Many people in our country can't lead this lifestyle, and I am amazed that so many Palo Alto & Menlo Park natives return to this insular lifestyle. They leave the grittiness of city life & the mundane ennui of the suburbs for the placid, academically rigorous, financially thriving neighborhoods of Silicon Valley. I guess this is a great place to raise children. There are gymnastics classes at noon, swim classes after school, after-school Chinese programs, soccer teams, summer camps. What else could a kid want?

Enough mental meandering. Time to pick up the kids.