I took my daughter down to Saturday Market today for the very first time. We waited for the bus in the pouring rain, transferred to MAX, and got out under the Burnside Bridge to a world that’s much different on weekends than it is during the week.

I took my son with me to work this week, and our commute also took us through a transfer at the Skidmore Fountain MAX stop. But this view of Burnside was a much more raw view – the festival aura was gone, not to mention the hordes of people who look a lot like we do. In its place? Those who live a different existence – people who also live in our city of choice, yet are often out of our own personal radar.

I want my children to see both views of Skidmore Fountain. Living in an urban environment is all about expanding one’s world view – warts and all. This means homeless people, for example, aren’t an abstraction, but a very real part of our landscape. Dealing with this landscape becomes part of our responsibility as citizens of this city – not to mention part of my job as a parent to teach my children empathy and understanding for those who are outwardly different than they are. And it brings us innumerable riches in return.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately in the wake of the NYTimes article Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children. BlueOregon started a great open discussion thread: Portland’s Missing Kids: Part II, and our own TK commented below about his experiences looking at a housing search through newly family-friendly eyes in Missing Children in the Pearl. And Jack Bog’’s urging PDC to emphasize child-friendly housing in Going Sterile.

But there are plenty of us still here. I deliberately chose to live in ‘the inner city (as the woman who sold us her house referred to our neighborhood as she fled to the ‘burbs), and it’s a choice I’ll stick to, no matter what dire predictions people make about PDX, PPS, or the state in general. In my opinion, living in a city is one of the best ways to give children a decent start on life, through lessons learned both in and out of any school environment. And hearing my kids talk afterwards about their insights after serving dinner at Transition Projects, for example, or watching their observations as we travel via bus or light rail only further validates that choice for me.

I grew up in the suburbs, among people who were just like me. I’m sure I received an excellent education on paper, but I discovered just how uneducated I really was when I moved to New York City in my 20’s. I married and started a family in my 30’s, and (save for a brief, mistaken flight to the burbs, done for all the wrong reasons) we made the commitment to stay urban – a commitment we kept when we moved to Portland in the mid-90’s, and one I’m sticking to as a single parent now.

I wanted sidewalks, you see, and the option to walk to local shops. Neighbors, and neighborhood kids, even if it meant we lived on top of each other at times. Mass transit. Public schools. Diversity that started at my local school and expanded outward.

Yeah, we’ve had our share of warts. Despite living in NYC for seven years, we were robbed for the first (and then second) time ever – in Portland. (One car break-in, one house break-in, both done for easily fenced items.) We re-tightened the security measures we’d let relax a bit instead of wringing our hands about it. Could have happened anywhere.

And despite my apprehension about the school funding erosion, for example, I’m not going to wring my hands about that, either, or use it as a reason to abandon public education or PPS. Instead? It’s yet another reason to engage, to advocate both for my own kids (when necessary) and kids in general.

My daughter’s first Saturday Market experience? It was a resounding success, despite the cold, windy, rainy day (she’s already developed her webbed feet as the only one of us actually born here.) We bought soap from my friend Claire Luna, she scarfed down shrimp on a stick, tried Himalayan tea and loved it, and nabbed even more sparkly, girly jewelry made by local folks. In her own words? “It was the number one very best thing I’ve ever been to before!”

So, from one urban parent & her kids (with apologies for bastardizing a rallying cry used elsewhere):
We’re here. We have no fear. And we’re not going anywhere else.