St George us a great place to raise a family!
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1/29/2010
I am troubled by any review about St. George that bashes those of the LDS faith and their beliefs. The LDS of St George are not all secretive, close-minded, cult-like people. Most are simply dedicated to their faith and choose to live a very family-oriented, wholesome lifestyle. Anyone who is more liberal, drinks, smokes, etc. of course will not become best friends with their LDS neighbors, as they do not share the same values. This is true no matter where you live or what your faith for goodness sakes! One tends to gather friends that share the same values as them. And what parent of a non-drinking home would want their children playing next door at little Johnny's house where it's perfectly acceptable to chug down a 6-pack of beer in front of the kids? I am not LDS, but am not a drinker, and therefore do not allow my kids to go to a friend's house if I know a parent in the home drinks in front of the kids. It's just not something I'm okay with my children being around.
And as with every religion, race, or way of thinking, there will always be those who are more extreme than others - that's just plain ol' human nature. The point is - I don't care where you go in this country, you will always find something in the culture of a place that dominates. Anyone who would disagree with that is just plain ignorant.
My husband (who is not LDS, but from an LDS family) and I both grew up in Southern California, and first moved to Utah County where his parents had moved in 1999. The change of culture definitely took some getting used to for me, but being a person who is very tolerant of others beliefs, it wasn't too hard. Our kids were allowed to play with their LDS classmates - that was never an issue. By the time we moved to St. George for work reasons 2 years later, we had come to find the value in raising our 3 kids in a place that put their families and their children first. We found St. George to be less LDS dominated than Utah County (duh) and our non-LDS kids thrived there, making lots of new friends who all seemed to be LDS. All of our LDS neighbors were extremely friendly to us - really nice, down to earth, regular people who just happened to have a religious faith that was not the same as mine.
We left St. George at the height of the real-estate boom in 2007 for no reason other than we just wanted a change of scenery. We did a LOT of research on about 5 places in a few different Western states and chose Bend, OR. While we love many things about Bend, we quickly came to realize that the culture here is far too liberal for us. Our 2 oldest children started Middle School here and my daughter came home from school in tears almost every day with reports of lunch table talk of sex, drugs and alcohol, as if they were discussing the weather outside. We have found that there is much less parental supervision here (speaking mostly of pre-teens and teens) and we've had kids come over to our house on several occasions without nary a call from a parent wanting to know more about us and what goes on in our home. You just won't find that to be the case in St. George. With one child now in high school here, he knows of many kids who use drugs regularly, pot being most common. While I know that you will find teen drug use everywhere you go, it is without a doubt far more prevalent and accepted here. YES, we knew before we moved here that it was going to be more liberal than St. George. What we didn't realize until we actually lived here was the importance (for us) of raising our kids in a more family-oriented, conservative city such as St. George. While we have every intention of moving from Bend as soon as the economy allows (and St. George is where we will probably return to), I would never bash the many more-liberal-than-I people that live here. I may not share the same values, but since it's a far more liberal culture here, it's my obligation to leave graciously if it's not for me - same as those who find St. George, it's people and conservative culture doesn't work for them!
CBolton | Bend, OR