Walk to School

Raising kids in a city means not having to depend on a car to get them around.  (It also means when they're pre-teens they can get themselves around rather than you having to schlep them everywhere, but that's a post for another time.).  In fact, it occurs to me that it has been exceedingly rare for the kids to get to school by car over their entire lives.

All of the day cares and preschools we've sent our kids to have been within walking distance of our house, with the exception of this summer's emergency back-up situation, which was 3 miles away, so I'd drive Asher and bike home to work, and then bike back and drive him home in the afternoon.  Besides that, I can probably count on one hand the times I pressed the family car into service for drop-off or pick-up, usually because of torrential rain.  Even the one day care that was probably closer to 1.5 miles away, I used my bike to lug a then four-year-old Aaron on my back seat.

As for grade school, the neighborhood elementary school is two blocks away (as is the location where Asher is attending kindergarten remotely with adult supervision).  Jada has taken public transit to high school every single time, the one exception being when I drove her straight from Rehoboth for freshman orientation.  (When I dropped her off, I told her "this is the one and only time I'm doing this.").  And I suspect Aaron and Asher will end up at places that SEPTA can take them to.  

College is just around the corner for Jada, and I'll be curious to observe how she goes about - and then Aaron and Asher too - deciding which places to look at, which to apply to, and ultimately which to attend.  And, to what extent will how you get around those places factor into their decisions?  (It seems likely that any place Jada would have to drive to class would be a non-starter for her, for example.)

When schooling is up to our kids (i.e. college, and then their own housing/education choices for their kids), I hope they'll keep an open mind to what works for them, and to keep an open mind about places that require driving.  That said, I do like that their default is that getting to school doesn't involve a car.  (As an aside, 10 of my 13 K-12 years I walked or biked to school, and this was in suburban California, and then of course all six of my Penn undergraduate and graduate years I walked to class.).  We shall see.