The recent tragedy in our community (Olivette and the Ladue School Community): Two boys in the fatal University City crash were best friends, next-door neighbors
Quote: Deion and Demetrius, known as “Meechie,” were next-door neighbors. Both of their families moved in 2018 from Pagedale to the 9300 block of Rothwell Heights Lane.
Reference: school districts serving Pagedale
The other day I also happened to come across the below tweet in Chinese, which is relevant.
@Pandazhq “怎样让一个家庭变富有？这篇文章可以看看。”
I am putting some English articles here.
Opinion | Does Moving Poor People Work? – The New York Times
Moving | HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
My family experience in China when we (the 3 kids) were little
I think it’s fully understandable that all parents want their kids to be successful or do better than their parents when the kids grow up. Also many parents believe their kids are gifted.
My parents moved me from village school to town school in grade 5 and moved my big brother to a better middle school in 8th grade. Those moves were probably strategic helping us get into the Zhenhai Middle (High) School. The reason I said “probably” is my other bro just got into Zhenhai High School after graduating from our hometown middle school.
Some random thoughts
One thing from my own experience and observations is it’s very important for kids to have friendships during their adolescent age. As parents, we should all pay attention to that. No judgment, just to make sure they hang out with the right friends, don’t do drugs, solely focus on appearance or getting Lululemon, etc. You get the point.
Another thing, maybe more relevant in Ladue, is we have a diverse community in terms of economic conditions, and races. Try to integrate (from school, and parents’ point of view) and hang out with kids from all backgrounds, if possible. Some kids could really use some friendship. Remember Mr. B asked why we don’t let the kids pick roommates for the 6th-grade camp 🙂 Hint: don’t just hang out with the “cool” kids.
Our goal is we have one integrated school community.
Last but not least, this whole thing reminds me of 孟母三迁 story.
Equality
(Update 09-16-2023) Something I just recall. I thought of team sports. Note I don’t think my kids can make the Ladue varsity team, be it basketball or tennis, at this time. But a few years ago I did try to push my older daughter to the basketball, and we played a few leagues and games in the process. At one time, I think the girls wanted to get hold of one of their friends, but we could not because we didn’t have her mom’s (or dad)’s contact info. I tried to ask the school, but the school couldn’t give out the info. I recall the girls just passing out the info themselves. We didn’t get the specific girl to sign up for the team. A related thing I could think of, is we need to consider health insurance too, what if the girl didn’t have health insurance, what if she played basketball and got hurt? This is a uniquely American problem because in all the other developed economies in the world, there are universal healthcare.