The difference between city and country children!

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I have grandchildren both living in the big city and living in the country. My two soon-to-be-thirteen-year-old ones are so different! My country chickie knows how to cook, can, clean, garden, sew, horseback ride and how to take care of livestock. She also knows the Bible better than I do! The city girl is interested in music, boys, makeup, jewelry and going to the mall. In retrospect,it's sad. The country raised child will be able to be self-sufficent, whereas I wonder what the city girl will do when she grows up. I'm not saying that all children from the city are frivilous. They simply have less opportunities to learn self-sufficency.

-- Ardie/WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), April 16, 2002

Answers

The really sad part is, that so many country kids are getting to be more like city kids.

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), April 16, 2002.

Yes Cindy that is true. A lot of kids who live in the country have no interest in learning anything about gardening, cooking, or animals. I really beleive it is the parents influence that makes the most difference, whether you live in the country a small town or the big city. However I am so glad I am able to raise my kids in the country!!

-- Melissa in SE Ohio (me@home.net), April 16, 2002.

Self-sufficiency will be different depending upon where you live. For example, in the future, being able to do an emergency patch on your spacesuit is going to be important, not how to take care of livestock.

For a more "down to earth" example :-), a city child can usually negotiate whatever public transit system is available, whereas a country child probably wouldn't have a clue, and would wind up spending big bucks on a taxi. Different kind of independence, not necessarily better or worse.

As to sewing, canning, etc., both children can learn those things, but whether they will continue to do them depends upon other things, like whether they perceive homecooked to be better, or look at food as we look at gas in the car (in other words, simply as "fuel" for the body), or, yes, I can sew, but why spend the time when I can find adequate clothes on sale or at garage sales/thrift stores in a tenth of the time and cost of sewing my own (this is not to say they shouldn't learn how to sew, by the way).

Country children can be just as flakey about boys, etc., they just don't have the mall close by, lol.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), April 16, 2002.


I totally agree with Melissa I believe it is the parents & grandparents & who ever else/ who has a part in raiseing the children- --is what is expressed in their interests----

My Grandsons live in a large city----they just called a little while ago--to tell me/ we are now-over 20 chicks hatched out of their incubator in their den----the chicks are in a wadeing pool in the basement---some day will have to be returned to Grandma's house--

You would think they were totaly country if you didn't know where they live!!! And yes they would love to find a small farm to move to-- -but until then the boys are being raised "country" in the big city--

There garden is started also!!

-- Sonda in Ks. (sgbruce@birch.net), April 16, 2002.


The city girl is learning the skills necessary to succeed in her environment- the city. It isn't really her fault that the values are so different where she lives, she's just adapting to it. Let me tell you, from one who knows; a kid living in the city who wasn't up on the current music fads and stars and TV shows, that didn't know how to apply makeup or wear jewelry, and cared more about horses then finding a high status boyfriend (that's why the makeup, jewelry, etc), would be treated as a total dork and outcast. If the country girl went to the city, she would have to learn city skills or face riducule and rejection, maybe even physical attacks. And if the city girl came to live in the country, she'd learn country ways as soon as she found that her country peers had entirely different values.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), April 16, 2002.


Rebekah, I was trying to point out that the interest in boys, etc. was not confined to city girls only, lots of country girls are just as preoccupied with that--they may just snare them with other means, lol. Not all city girls are boy crazy, or make-up crazy, and everyone generally finds the level of friends they are comfortable with, no matter what the "popular" kids think.

The original post was dealing with self-sufficiency, and inadvertently (I'm positive of that) painted all city girls as being vacant, stupid, lacking religious values, etc. The particular city child mentioned was raised with different values by her parents, and other people around her, not the city environment per se. I am assuming here that the parents are Ardie's children, and were both raised in the country, and that perhaps the in-law of the city grandchild perhaps sets the tone of that child's values education.

"Values" are also different from "skills". Values DON'T have to change, skills probably WILL change, especially depending upon environment or time (future/past). Some skills will probably stick around as long as there is a desire/need for that particular product or service--crafts, for example. Others will be only read about as they are replaced by new and/or better technologies--who says "the rabbit died" when referring to a pregnancy test anymore? We may even someday develop a meat substitute so good that we don't have to raise animals to kill for food anymore. Some of these "forgotten skills" will be preserved in museum workshops or theme parks (like Colonial Williamsburg).

I also noticed a slight bias towards the city in general, and it should be pointed out that computers and other things we take for granted in whatever field we're in, would in all likelihood not have been invented out in the country, probably because no one would have seen the need for them. So, just as people look to the country for food, they should look to the city for innovation. One cannot function well without the other.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), April 16, 2002.


I think the point is to teach your children how to be independent, self-reliant, and smart thinkers in any situation. Like myself for instance, although I have lived in the country my whole life, I can drive in a city just fine. Mostly because I speed read, and have the ability to look at a map and pretty much memorize it at a glance. It is simply a matter of teaching your kids how to think in any situation.

I want my kids to have as many experiences as they possibly can. They are as "at home" in a big city museum, as they are on a horse. They can play classical piano music, and know where the murrel mushrooms "hide." They can clean out a barn, split firewood, write a poem,sew a straight seam, use a wringer washer, and the older girls know how to use make-up tastefully. They can cook a good meal, and order in a fancy resturant... It is not an either/or proposition. So my advice is to teach your kids EVERYTHING...you never know just which skill will come in handy, and really it will help them throughout their whole life.

-- Melissa in SE Ohio (me@home.net), April 16, 2002.


I grew up in the city and so did both of my children. My DD took to the country like a duck to water after I found her a country husband!

-- Ardie/WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), April 16, 2002.

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