Sticky Business

Deciding where to settle, married or not, is not easy for anyone, parent or non-parent. Childfree adults will have a different set of criteria, naturally. We do not have to research the best elementary schools in the county, but a place to get that master's degree we've been thinking about may be noteworthy of a desirable location.

Since moving back to the States, my home state of California specifically, I have been hyper-aware of what has changed since I have been gone.

First off, I am a Purple Woman, so naturally I view my world from a different frame of reference than the majority of adults around me in the small country town we have settled in. We are not in total bumpkin-land, but we are in a decidedly remote part of the San Francisco East Bay. It can be problematic, being a childfree adult in suburban heaven where people move to raise kids. You have to find your niche. You have to think about it, create a social structure that works for you. Parents fall into one that is designated by whom their kids attend school or play sports with.

AlphaGirl posted recently about what I will call subliminal messages about what we "should be" in our environment, from doctor's offices to parking lots (think: parking for moms and moms-to-be). What I have noticed is stick figures. More than a few minivans and SUVs are emblazoned with stick figures, one for each member of the family, even the pets get an emblem.

A columnist in our local newspaper featured it at the top of her column last Friday: Spin Cycle - "the fluffing and folding of the news".

This must be related to that other annoying trend of placing a bumper sticker on your car bragging about your child who made the honor roll. What's up with that? Do teenagers actually think that's cool? Local fast food chain, Taco Bell, which makes a living targeting this youth market, makes fun of this tired trend with this slogan on their taco sauce condiments:

My Sauce is an honor student at Taco Middle School.

There has always been something about the suburbs that brings out comparisons, a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses feeling. Each small town, if you can call a city of 78,000 plus small, will have its characters. Norm Crampton, author of Making Your Move to One of America's Best Small Towns, advises that it's okay to be different -- just be consistent. I think he means that it is important to be authentic. Be yourself.

When my fiancé, now my husband of nine years, first moved me to this town and married me here, I was 30-something. How different it feels being here again at 40-something. This time it will be on my terms. This time I will do it differently. After all, I am different. Oh, and if I do want to get a master's degree, the California State University, East Bay is not so far.

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