Yeah, that might be a problem. Depends on the neighbours, honestly. Mostly sane neighbours won't give you a hard time if he's not playing the trombone for hours, and isn't playing early or late. And of course, check if any immediate neighbours are shift workers.

It's a mirage that you can control this aspect of who they are. All parents can do is expose children to their own values. Kids will conform to those or they won't, but either way, it's really not something you have much control over. If diversity is a value (I honestly don't know what this means - acceptance and experience of other cultures?) you hold, the kids probably will too, though kids love to push back, and the environment is much more than mom.

Headphones if he's listening. Being careful of instrument type and practice times if he's playing.

Idk. All I know is what my kids tell me. I assume they're not pulling the wool over their own eyes You can combine a humanistic approach with acknowledgement that bias etc exists. Also I was kinda riffing off your post, not arguing with you, so...

Apartments for me were great with babies and toddlers and would be fine with older teens and young adults, but I was lucky enough to be able to avoid them in between. Noise, space and laundry were all issues. I would not move anywhere without an internal laundry. Many people around the world live in apartments their whole lives though, so it's definitely doable.

You just keep living out your values, and hope that your kids end up being the kind of kids who can bring a critical eye to their environment. Some of this is temperament and personality. It's not easily influenced. I think it's a valid question, but a much lower order question than 'are we safe?'

But that has nothing to do with diversity. Clearly safety trumps all. If you move due to safety you move to the safest available accessible place, and diversity can go hang. To clarify, I meant the convenience to your children of being close to school and being able to access that community out of school time. I'm very confused about the focus of the question, so bowing out. Eta so it's about how do I handle my kids being poorer than their peers? Idk. My kids always have been, you just manage. Someone hopefully has better ideas.

OK. So the problem is move closer (convenience + independence) or stay where you are (inconvenient, less independence but more comfortable) ? To.me, this isn't really about diversity but fit. Unfortunately, it sounds like you have to choose between a less convenient good fit, and a more convenient poorer fit. It would be good if there was a third option, but there isn't always. I'd probably look for that first though. Somewhere combining elements of the two. Maybe not as close to school but with good pt, for instance?

I'm trying to work out the problem here. It's about giving your econ dis kids the chance to learn how to navigate econ advantage? At some point, you pick your poison. Stay comfy and diverse, where your kids aren't disadvantaged by comparison, or choose the discomfort of being relatively disadvantaged, with the perceived long term.pay off of comfort with the upper classes That's it. It's one poison or the other. Same as it was for us. Take the job but have the kids be the only brown Asians in town, or don't take the job and have them be three unremarkable brown kids among a multitude of Chinese, Korean, Indian, Nigerian kids.

If the problem is you don't want your economically disadvantaged kids in a economically advantaged area, then the answer to that is somewhat straightforward. Don't live/school in an area that is an economically advantaged monoculture. The same way we didn't move to White McWhiteVille when then dh was offered a job at the University there.

Please don't have kids volunteer in low income areas for the sake of their exposure to diversity. That's...ugh ..that's not ok.

Yeah. These were the towns/suburbs we did not inflict on our kids, even though at one point, it meant a career sacrifice. I just think that there's an error of thinking that goes on when we consider the other (any other) to be so far apart from our human experience that we either avoid meeting the other or, conversely, we make a 'thing' out of the other. Human suffering and resilience is universal, but the particulars differ. Educating ourselves about the particulars is a process you don't co-opt the other into. A good faith exploration of what is offered to you because you are curious to learn more about other humans and their experiences is one thing. But you can't just plonk yourself down somewhere out of moral virtue.

This I can get easily so than you, will try it.

I have to say, this is why art and literature matter. They are our pathways into the experiences of others. Engagement with the created world provides the tools for empathy, an understanding of difference, of bias etc. And these things are meant to be taken in and then generalized out. I don't have to read a book about every minority experience in existence. I need to internalize the theme of the outsider, for example, through a single novel, and then use that to inform other situations. I'm thinking about the L Shaped Room, by Lynne Reid Banks - young single mom story. Art meant I could take the singular story - of what it was like to struggle, to be cast aside, to be stigmatized in that circumstance - and apply it to, say, victims of the AIDs crisis. Please, if you want your kids exposed to diversity, read them good books, take them to exhibitions, plays, festivals etc. This is a huge part of why we have and make art!

Yes, the language I would use would be humanistic. I see the light (of our shared humanity) in you.

My kids prefer not to be someone's 'diverse' friend. If it's a choice between 'I treat you kindly!' because you, like me, are human, and 'I treat you as a learning experience', they'll take kindness every time. Of course, they rarely choose interracial friendships where there is zero acknowledgement of difference in experience, but they have no interest in being the tool that gets a white or a rich or a neurotypical or a straight person there. Golden rule is always going to trump 'my brown/gay/autistic/poor' friend from whom I learned bias is a thing in the world and now I am a better person.

Time is an issue here too.

I have a real problem with the idea in the first place, of deliberately seeking out diversity so our white, middle class kids can consume it. Poor families/Black families/Brown families etc don't exist for the moral education of others. Move to the place that works for your family. If it lacks diversity, raise it in conversation with others, including your kids. Why is it lacking? What structures are in place that make it a place your kids can live, but not poor kids or Black kids or whomever. To me, that's the more respectful path We chose to live where we did because we didn't want our mixed kids growing up in a majority white town or suburb. We wanted it to be comfortable for them. To me that's very different from having white kids but seeking to live somewhere less convenient do they can get their diversity exposure.

I think the rash around the eyes is like dermatitis...I've just switched to another type of mask which is otherwise much comfier. I'd try going back to the other mask, but that one was sweatier.

Oh, will try that, ty.

Contact points, yes. Yes, fresh mask, white.

Two weeks into term, so two weeks of wearing a mask 6+ hrs a day, and the rash which cleared up over the holidays has returned. It's at the corners and underneath of my eyes, where the mask edge sits, and then along the bit where the nose clip is, and then down the sides of the nose. I'm using a 1% hydrocortisone cream but that only seems to help when I can go maskless for a week or so. What have you tried that works to prevent a rash/facial irritation?

I don't use them, don't find them helpful. I start a writing session with meditation and/or yoga.

Buy a house. Invest $ for a house deposit for each of my kids + my niece. Buy and run as a non-profit a block of units for older women at risk of homelessness. Buy a really good mattress. Get a dress maker to make me a wardrobe of clothes that are the fit, style and colour I love. Go to Japan. Go back to Scotland.

The room you teach in has no windows? Is that not a safety issue for other reasons? Sorry, I thought it was just the bathroom. My bad for not reading properly. I guess I'd be rethinking the job. That's probably unhelpful, but I have never seen a windowless preschool room. How is it ventilated? A/c?