Julie

However, for now (and this could change in another year), we’ve chosen to stay at the old school. I AGONIZED over this because we are in a position with my husband’s business that we won’t be moving to a more-diverse city in the next 10-20 years, and moving to a more-diverse neighborhood isn’t in the cards, either, so I’ll be expecting a lot from my daughter’s school environment (and the Chinese language activities we join) to make up for the choices we’ve made for the adults in the family.

In the end, I chose the old school because my daughter has made friends there, so have I, and I feel like the teachers and administrators there really love and care about my daughter. I think the “academics” (such as they are for 3-year-olds) are better at the Montessori, and as I’ve said, the diversity is far better there, but I chose warmth over my high-minded liberal ideals.

Did I make the decision for selfish reasons? Was I more worried about where *I* would fit in? Am I shortchanging her opportunities to meet children from other cultures? I suppose so, but diversity isn’t everything. It simply can’t be; there are too many other factors to consider.

Now, my situation is just preschool. You’re talking about where to live. Much bigger. But I don’t think you should beat yourself up over whether the decisions you make are solely for your children’s interests or for the family as a whole.

I agree with what Trope said. I think you need to live in a community of *your* choosing and that your children will learn from that. It seems very contrived and artificial to choose a community “for them.” Besides, they’ll have the opportunity to live they way they want when they’re adults.

What we can do (and what you are doing, really really well) is think as carefully and thoughtfully about our decisions as we can. When our children are old enough to discuss these decisions, at least we will be able to detail the thought processes we went through to reach our decision.

Me? I’m a caucasian mother with a caucasian husband and a biological caucasian daughter, but I lived in Japan for two years and consider it my “adopted” culture, and I really want my daughter to learn Japanese. But now I’m angsting because I think probably another language would be more useful for her–either Mandarin or Spanish (we live in the Intermountain West). And I worry that whichever one I choose, she will eventually say she wished I had picked another one. Like I said–the best we can probably hope for here is a draw!

P.S. I understand that this is not an earth-shattering decision, to say the least, but providing the opportunity for my child to be fluent in another language is something I have always been adamant about.

Exposure to “Chineseness” is a complicated one, because there is no set baromter of “Chineseness”: north v south v east v west? Domestic via diaspora?

I’m glad for your sake the Shanghai move never materialized – life as an expat taitai would be at best miserable, at worst could have destroyed your family. Not to mention that Shanghai culture has is 100% foreign to your family, unless you accepted a reductionist pan-Chinese all the sameness. If your kids went to Chinese school here, they’d be subject to all sorts of abuse as the “other”, as overseas Chinese, as an adoptee, as mixed race, as white. Chinese culture is rather brutally un-pc. At foreigner schools, they would become the most racist/classist, entitled little neocolonialists.

I worry about this issues a lot, and my half-immigrant children remain still imaginary. The preschool woes of even my fully Shanghainese friends keep me up at night. I hope, that as long as kids have happy parents and a great community, these issues won’t matter. But, I know they will. Just not as much as the things I’ve yet to imagine.