Tough Choices

What choices are tough?

All choices are tough.  Inherently. To choose is to risk an error, while at the same time taking responsibility.  Very unpleasant business.

This post is a short addendum to an older one - Price of Freedom, which was a bit theoretical.  Now I can add a few more recent insights and experiences, to make the idea more real.

A few months ago my wife and I decided to look for a better school and a better kindergarten. Not for the theoretical pupil which is to become the theoretical graduate, but for our own very real children. Big difference.

We knew that our decisions are going to have a significant impact on our kids' well-being.  These decisions will affect their distant future, for example, what type of schools they graduate.  The decisions will affect their more immediate future, for example, their sense of belonging to one community or another, their contact with their friends.  Even the very preliminary decision to consider  change had an immediate impact on the children's present - they were worried about the coming changes, about the coming unknown, about moving away from the familiar.  These were the difficulties inherent in any contemplated change involving our kids.

To this distress we had the added factor of the schooling market being far from a perfect market:  We didn't know enough about what schools are available - either in our area or farther away.  Of those schools we did know existed, we didn't know enough about their qualities.  And then of course, even if a school is good for some kids, it may not be good for others.  And we have two very different children to take care of.

Until now in this text I have been using the plural "we" when talking about decisions, but the married reader is probably aware that there is never a "we" in such unclear situations.  There are two separate "I"s.  Each with its own anxieties and fears.  Trying to make a joint decision about a complex system (kids, parents, jobs, studies, accommodation, social contacts) without knowing what would be good for the kids (because it's not knowable), without having all the information about the market, without knowing the future.

Putting it more formally, school choice is done with high stakes - our kids well-being.  It is done with no internal clarity about what's right for the kids.  It is done with no external clarity about what the options are.  It is done (if we are lucky) jointly by two different people, about very different kids.  And there is no relief from the responsibility - it is ours. If anything goes wrong - it's our fault.

So, that wasn't easy at all. And it was probably much easier for us than for most people, since we are involved in education, and we have the economic privilege of being able to move.  Also, we are in the habit of making choices about our lives. There are many people who aren't used to making choices.  They think they have no choice.

We ended up moving to a place where we actually have a choice between two different schools.  We went for the democratic school.  We will know if that was a good decision in 10 years.  Maybe.