On mothering by non-mothers
I was raised in suburbia, but when I went away to college, I was suddenly living in the middle of a city. Oddly, the land-grant university with agricultural roots was in an entirely urban setting. I could only stand three months in the on-campus dormitory; soon I was in a rooming house, then another rooming house, then my first apartment – in a building owned by a bona fide slumlord. At the same time, I was becoming increasingly aware of the city’s problems, many of which were caused by the middle-class flight to the suburbs. The middle-class was fleeing the diversity resulting from court-ordered desegregation of the public schools. People feared the diversity that I craved as a teenager. By the end of my Freshman year, I vowed to live in the city, not the suburbs. I lived that promise for thirty years. During those decades, I also did what I could to help attract some middle-class people back to the city by supporting the fledgling historic ...