Neighbours

 Don't ya hate it when people who have immigrated here tell you how much better everything is in their home countries?

Well, WTF are you doing here then?!

We have a neighbour like that.  Naturally, he's a Brit; they seem to be the worst offenders.  He has a wife and two daughters and he rules over them like a lord.  His accent tells me he is from East London, but you'd think he was related to the King himself.  His wife is basically a doormat, very sweet and friendly, but basically a doormat.  His daughters fear him.

Naturally, his wife home-schools them because apparently the education kids get in Alberta is vastly inferior to anything provided in Jolly Olde.  Well, as I said, WTF are you doing here?!  The biggest problem with home schooling, in my opinion, is that children spend all day with their parents and don't socialize with other kids.  They don't connect with peers and become Canadians and Albertans.  Both his daughters still have heavy British accents, which in jarring since they have been here for long enough to have lost them.

The father has been on some kind of disability since we moved here two years ago.  Don't ask me what's wrong with the guy because he's the most active, disabled guy I've ever run into.  "It must be frustrating to not be able to work when you're so fit and active," I actually said to him a while back.  I know, I know, that was a sly move, but I just wanted to hear what he had to say.  

Not much.

When B emigrated from England as a kid, he was sent to an elementary school in Montreal in a very tough neighbourhood wearing his British school uniform -- complete with beanie.  Naturally, his classmates went all in kicking the sh-t out of him the minute he entered the school yard.

His accent disappeared almost immediately.  "Speak Canadian," they yelled, as they punched and kicked him.  To help him cope, his grandfather enrolled him in a rough-and-tumble boxing club.  "Hit first and hit hard," he told B.  It worked.  B quickly adapted to Montreal and was no longer bothered and beaten by the bullies around him.  Did he tell his grandparents, who were his guardians?  Never.

I grew up in idyllic Lindenlea in Ottawa -- a neighbourhood designed by British town planners in the twenties and still one of the most desirable locations in Canada.  When I grew up there, it was very white and middle-class with modest, single-family homes.  Bounded by Rideau Terrace, Springfield, Maple Lane and Acacia, it had no through traffic.  The only cars on the roads were those of residents.  We also had a playground, which turned into a skating rink in the winter, and a community centre, where I took ballet and was a Brownie and Girl Guide.

I thought everyone grew up like I did.  I later learned they didn't.  But after elementary school, we had to go further afield for grades seven and eight and that's where the trouble started.  We had to cross the French girls' neighbourhood, which is where I was regularly beaten up on the way to class.  They even beat me up on the streetcar (remember those?) on the way there.  

Did the conductor intervene?  Did I complain?  Did I tell my parents?  Never.  You just didn't back then.

I was thrilled when I learned that one of the neighbours's daughters would be going to regular school in the Fall.  At last she'll meet kids her own age and socialize with them, I thought.  Not to be.  The father said they are sending her to a special school for other special kids who have been home-schooled.  That's too bad because she won't get a chance to be beaten up or befriended by "normal" kids from a broad spectrum of society.

I don't think it's a good plan because I really like the kid, but who cares what I think?