Hard Decisions

Parents are constantly faced with difficult decisions. Some of them need to be decided in a split second (who and how to punish kids after when they’re fighting), while others can be analyzed for days or even months. Today, Juliette is starting her first day at a new school. We've left the public school in favor of a Catholic school. This is one of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make. The difficulty lies in the fact that the primary reason for leaving the public school is that the population of the school is 99% Arabic. Does this mean that making this decision makes me a racist? Also, does sending Juliette to a school where 2 hours of religion are taught per week make me a hypocrite (considering my borderline atheist beliefs)? I would like to think the answer is no (but I'm a bit bias). So I'll write down the pros and cons as I see them and let them speak for themselves:

Public School Pros & Cons:
- (Pro) Considering our family is multicultural, the exposure Juliette would get in being surrounded by another culture would only make her a better person
- (Con) On the other hand, a population of 99% Arabic is more of immersion and not just exposure, which is excellent when your goal is to convert to the other culture not just learn enough to expand your horizons
- (Con) Making close friends with people who have had a very different upbringing than you can be difficult. I wouldn't have thought this wasn’t necessarily the case but I have two examples of this:
1- for the last couple of years Juliette attended a similar public school/daycare in another part of the city. While she was in daycare, there was an excellent mix of children from different cultures but as kids got old enough to attend school, all the non-Arab children began to leave the daycare/school for other schools in the area. During this period Juliette started losing all of her closest friends until at the end it was just Juliette and one other girl that played together constantly.
2-I know a neighbor who has worked at the public school as a principal. She has a 7-year-old child who is non-Arab that has been attending the school since she was 2 years old. This year the mother finally gave up and transferred her daughter to the Catholic school due to the consistent loss of her child’s friends year after year.
- (Pro) Juliette would not be exposed to any religious beliefs.

Catholic School Pros & Cons:
- (Pro) Juliette would be surrounded with children who have had a similar upbringing and therefore probably be able to quickly make close friends.
- (Con) Juliette's friends would not be very diverse which could stunt her growth in this area
- (Con) Juliette would be learning religion which might be confusing for a 5 year old.
- (Pro) Being exposed to religion is again another form of exposure to a different culture. Besides religion (for better or for worse) has shaped so much of the world as we know it today it could help as a bit of a history lesson.

At the end of the day only one thing matters and that is which system will do a better job at helping Juliette grow in confidence, knowledge (school & social) and ultimately help her succeed in her next stage in life. That's why we've decided to send her to the Catholic school.

I hope I don’t come to regret this decision, but there are no guarantees. At the end of the day Juliette is our Guinea Pig considering she's our first. If things don't go as planned we transfer her to another school and we can always try something else with Nicholas and Sophie.