AndersonD wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 10:11 amSort of funny listening to you, Ken along with Josh talk of creating a community that last 10 generations. If I am not mistaken, both of you have moved geographically quite a bit which is 21st century behavior. We're a highly mobile society, unlike the 18th and 19th centuries. Sorry I don't understand.
Well, I certainly can't speak for Josh. But for myself, my thinking and priorities have changed over time as I have gotten married and made a family. I did not get married until my mid-30s and our 3 daughters span 8 years. When I was younger and single I was very much the adventurer. I went to Guatemala in the Peace Corps out of college and then followed that by shorter term development assignments with different agencies in Honduras, Costa Rica and northern Brazil with MCC. And then worked as a fisheries biologist in Alaska which led to graduate school and a professional job with NOAA in Seattle, Alaska, and Washington DC. But that was my single life.
Eventually I fell in love and got married to a young doctor from Chile who moved up to join me in Alaska. But her required medical residency in the US brought us to Texas through no particular choice of our own. The selection process for medical residencies is a complicated lottery system and it turned out that the top programs that were interested in bilingual Hispanic doctors were in Texas (also New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada) and not the Pacific Northwest. So we ended up matching with a program in Waco, TX. I clung to my old life for two years doing consulting work with my old agency but eventually tired of having a professional life 3 time zones behind and having to travel back to Alaska for weeks at a time with young kids at home so I made a big career change into science teaching and began to invest myself much more into the local community rather than a professional world in distant states. We looked at moving back to the Pacific Northwest but in the early years my wife's professional options were so much bigger in Texas and as a newish teacher I was invested with my work and co-workers and teaching team in Texas so the years kind of slid by.
When your kids are young, your world is their world and they go wherever you go. We frequently traveled back and forth to South America with our kids in tow, and to the Pacific Northwest to see my family. But as they began to get older and start having their own lives it became clear that the geography that we had picked for them was very much going to determine the trajectory of their lives. We were involved in two local churches during that time but they were small and our girls' circle of friends were not really centered on our churches. In fact most of their friends were Southern Baptists and they were getting sucked into that world. The big Baptist mega-churches have endless youth and social events that they would be getting sucked into and it is hard to say no when your daughter wants to go to some entirely wholesome Christian youth related function with her friends.
So I began to think much more about how geography really does affect the trajectory of your family and future generations. We had never really intended to stay permanently in Texas and began to think much more seriously about moving to some more permanent place to finish raising our kids and set up something of a family homestead for future generations. Not a physical homestead so much as a geographic one. We looked at Pennsylvania and upstate NY and Vermont where we have family (especially in PA). We looked at various thriving and growing places around the country where we didn't have ties but had good opportunities (CO, MN, CA, NC, NM). And after much vacation travel, research and thought we landed in Southwest Washington just north of Portland. The location provided both of us with good professional opportunities which wasn't the case everywhere. There were good schools and university options for our girls. We were close to my parents and lots of extended family so our girls got to know cousins much more than in TX. And in terms of the environment, the Pacific Northwest seemed to be on a much more sustainable trajectory with climate change and drought and population pressures from Latin America. One can never know the future, but for potential grandchildren growing up in the 2030s, 2040s, or 2050s it seemed like a better bet than TX. As did the upper Midwest.
Despite having lived here now for over 20 years, my wife is still very much a Latina and wants to have her children (and future grandchildren) within her orbit. We have a bigger house than we need because she likes to fill it on holidays and likes to be the center of everyone else's orbit. And we wanted to put down roots that would not only last for our immediate family but provide stability and opportunity for future generations as well. She wants to be the home that our kids and future grandkids want to come back to. And geography plays a big part in that. We have daughters not sons, and their interests are not rural. One is in college and thinking of a future career in biomedical research. The other is about to go to college and wants to be a psychologist. And the oldest is a marketing exec with a social media marketing company. These are not rural careers. And while carving out some rural off-the-grid compound in Alaska or Montana or Nebraska or someplace might appeal to one side of me. It would not interest my wife or my daughters. So life is about compromise too. I also think much more locally than I did when I was young and want to be much more invested in my local community than I ever did when I was in my 20s and early 30s and only saw home as a launch pad for international adventures.
In the end I think we made the right choice for us. My wife has one unmarried brother and I have two unmarried brothers so it is really just us carrying on the next generation. Will our family roots take hold and last for future generation? Who knows. But at least I think we have picked a location where that is more likely and where there is plenty of opportunity. We have found plenty of church community to get involved with here. The physical geography (cool green climate and beautiful outdoors) suits us more than flat sweltering Texas. A warmer planet will affect us less than most other places in the US and world. And our girls are all thriving and
not growing up as Southern Baptist Texans and marring into Southern Baptist Texan families.
Long story short? As we have gotten older we have thought much more about the legacy of place and family than we ever did when we were young and more carefree and adventurous. And putting down roots for future generations and investing in our own local community has become much more important to us, especially in this global world. And I have come to appreciate and admire those who came before us and built the world we live in now. People who were building a world not just for them and their children but for their grandchildren and great grandchildren and generations yet to come. History and heritage are still important in a 21st Century world. Perhaps more so because they are more fragile.