"Where'd You Go to High School?"

I will never be considered a native St. Louisan, though I've lived here for 14 years, long enough that I have become more like a local than an interloper.

When I was 18, I moved here to go to Washington University and then stuck around afterward. When I graduated from college, my boyfriend was still an undergrad so I looked for a job here. When he graduated, I already had a job so he looked for a job here. Then after we were married (here) we both had jobs here so this is where we bought a house. Now we have children who will indeed be native St. Louisans.

During college, our friends were from all over, and our first exposure to large groups of St. Louis natives came after graduation, with our first jobs. "Where'd you go to school?" was the first question we noticed people asking each other at parties, rather than the more commonly heard elsewhere "What do you do," and "How do you know the bride and groom?" Or, in my family, "Who'd you vote for in the last election?" and "What's your favorite NPR program?"

I didn't use to understand the high school question, but now I do. St. Louis is, more than many other cities, truly a city of neighborhoods, and residents are categorized by which part of the metro area they're from. I could try to explain that, but this does a better job than I ever could. Suffice it to say that if you move here, expect to be confused for about 5 years. Also, pick someone you really like and live near her family, because your neighborhood will become your identity pretty quickly.

St. Louis is also a Catholic city. I understand this much less, not being Catholic myself. Basically, whether or not you went to Catholic school says a lot about you, and there is a hierarchy within the parochial schools, which helps place you as well.

Some people from out of town try to answer accurately when asked where they went to high school. I always say that I'm from away, which stops the line of questioning immediately. No one cares what state I'm from; there's no important frame of reference outside the St. Louis metro area.

Given the importance neighborhood plays in St. Louis living, school district was definitely a part of the consideration when we were house shopping. We're still a little flummoxed. We don't want our children to grow up to be Hoosiers (it's hard for me to accept that this is a pejorative term here, raised by a proud Indiana native as I was). We don't want our children to go to unaccredited schools. We believe in the importance of art and music in the curriculum. But we don't want our kids to grow up surrounded by over-privileged kids, either. There's only so much that occasional community volunteering and church work camps can do to counter-balance a life of being surrounded daily by kids who have so much.

We're still figuring it all out. But at least we have a few years until the kids are in high school.

[This blog post is part of the first St. Louis Blog Carnival, topic: High School.]