My children were born in New York but now live in Texas. I sometimes wish we had never moved.

insider.com ^ | September 25, 2022 | Isobella Jade

[lowbridge]

My children were born in New York City. As toddlers, they played in the American Museum of Natural History, joined baby-music classes on the Upper East Side, gnawed on street pretzels, and threw leaves in the air in Central Park.

I had originally expected to be a Manhattan mom, but over the years I've come to accept they are now southern kids living in Houston, Texas. 

They wear shorts year-round, wear sunshine on their skin, crave Whataburger, have never made a snowman, and get pumped for Go Texan Day, dressed in boots, vests, and hats — it's like Halloween twice a year in my eyes. 

It wasn't my idea to move from a comfortable life in Manhattan to Houston, my ex's home city. I thought it was supposed to be temporary, but I was wrong.

Texas showed me BBQ festivals, square dancing, bluebonnets, and the flaws of my marriage. Now with a Texas divorce decree and the kids settled in school with friends and activities, it seems like I'm stuck here for good, or at least until my kids grow up.

-snip

There are also experiences that remind me I'm in Texas, like a dead snake's skin being tangled in my daughter's scooter wheels, a "beware of alligators" sign at a playground, armadillo sightings, a lack of road shoulders, and guns-and-ammo signs next to a pet store.

I worry about my kids' safety wherever they go while living in a state with historically loose gun laws. I worry about what women's health will be like for my daughter's generation. I debate on how young of an age I will tell her about contraceptives because of the war on women's access to care and treatment in this state.

[minnesota_bound]

I understand why her husband divorced her.

[Bikkuri]

"Houston: one of several Texas cities that have been polluted by the Trash moving in from the North and bringing their voting habits with them ..."

Don't forget the Katrina 'evacuees'...