CP Editor Brian Howard writes:
We're thrilled to introduce you to Amy Z. Quinn, aka the blogger Citizen Mom. She'll bring her mix of "democracy and domesticity" to our pages starting ... now. Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, her column for us will be a compliment to her popular blog (quinnchannel.typepad.com), not a compendium of it. Don't believe me? Check her debut column. Why does she live in the suburbs? Better schools. Is she ashamed? No way.
By Amy Z. Quinn
Exactly 73 steps separate the front door of my family home in Manayunk from the Philadelphia public school across the street. James Dobson Elementary, built in 1929, consumes the entire block between Hermitage and Wright streets, off Umbria, its concrete schoolyard serving as the unofficial backyard of a neighborhood with few real backyards to speak of. It's where I learned to roller skate and to ride a bike, where I jumped double dutch (not well) and, later, sneaked cigarettes and kissed boys in the long shadows cast by its heavy iron fencing.
What I never did there was attend a class. In 36 years of life, 22 spent growing up on Dobson's doorstep — close enough that its squawking afternoon dismissal bell would wake a napping baby — I've never gone into the building beyond the auditorium that serves as the local polling place, or the claustrophobic basement gymnasium where my nephews played floor hockey. My parents sent their six kids to one of the local parochial schools — and let's not pretend it was just for the religious instruction.
When my husband, young son and I were moving back to the Philadelphia area from Central Jersey a few years ago, not once did we seriously consider moving into the city itself. Like many couples we know, we moved to the suburbs specifically so we could send our child to public school there. In fact it's probably fair to say we pointedly and unapologetically avoided the city of Philadelphia. You want to know why? Let's start with two words: persistently dangerous.
