Carmelite in Training

I catch a lot of flack about living in Carmel.  We moved here because it was very close to where Keith worked and we'd read and been told that it was safe and had good schools.  We came to see the town and thought it was beautiful!  In June, we'll celebrate our three year anniversary of living here.

I've heard all the jokes, I've been told all the cliches, and sometimes I even wonder about people who have never lived anywhere but Carmel...the rest of the world will eat them alive!  Carmel is a bit Utopian, but the people here work hard to maintain the city.  I've met very few people who actually brag about having/being the best and to be fair, I knew people like that in WV, LA, & KY too, there are some in every crowd!

There is even a facebook page about "you know you're from Carmel if..." and some people post real comments but more often that not the make digs at people from Carmel.  I don't know how okay this is, but I'm going to copy and paste a couple of comments from the page so you get the idea...

when the most profitable business in your town is lawn care because 98% of the population are too lazy to cut their own grass. (of course, the other two percent hire a neighborhood kid who is only doing it so he can buy the wii to play in his home theater, the xbox and ps3 he already has just isn't enough.)

when I was the only one in the neighborhood with an Obama sign and my neighbors would "politely" take it out of the ground at night and lean it against my trash can.  I want to live in this neighborhood, I would TOTALLY do this, but I would have stuck it IN the trash can!

You know you are from Carmel when half the people you meet are inconsiderate stuck up jerks who think that they own the world and feel as if they must be better than everyone else.

A 40'' T.V. just won't satisfy.

Your friends from Indy continuously make snob jokes.  some of you know you're guilty of this!  ha!

when you get dizzy going 5 miles away due to all the roundabouts
you are out of town, stuck in traffic, and think "this wouldn't of happened if they had just built a roundabout here"  this has happened to Keith and me more than once!

When ppl think the high school is a small community college! (our high school is HUGE!)

The students at the high school have better cars than the teachers.

I could go on and on...As you can see, some of them are funny, good hearted comments but others are really nasty and hurtful.  People who live outside of Carmel claim that it's because Carmel is so full of snobs, people who live in Carmel clam it's Carmel Envy. 

Honestly, some of the stuff is true but most of it's nonsense really.  However, tonight we were driving to get frozen yogurt and Hadley makes the comment, "Mom, did you know we have to leave Carmel to get to church?"

Keith and I both kind of raise our eyebrows and slowly say "yes..."
Then Keith asks "does this bother you Hadley"

"YES!" she responds.

Keith and I are both snickering for several reasons.  One reason is because we've heard all of these cliches and this is laughable, the other reason is because our church is only about a mile or two out of Carmel but I guess that's enough for a little Carmel kid!  haha!

Of course we did deeper and ask why this bothers her.

"Because I don't like to leave Carmel, I like Carmel."  Hadley says.

We then inform her that we also left Carmel for our frozen yogurt and she's appalled!  She wants to know where we are!
"We are in a part of town called Nora," we tell her.

Then out of nowhere Lydia chimes in, with shock in her voice, "people LIVE HERE?"

OH.  MY.  GOSH!  What have we done?!?  We really are raising little Carmelites!  ha! 

In all honesty, I do worry a little about raising our kids here because it's so vanilla.  Everything is cookie cutter and perfect.  I worry that they think everyone has as much money as the majority of the population in Carmel and I worry what will happen when they leave Carmel for the first time.  How will the rest of the world treat them?  Will it chew them up and spit them out?  The real world is a culture shock compared to Carmel!  I'm sure there will be worries no matter where we live, but those are some of my concerns about this place.

One complaint I've heard as an HOA board member in our neighborhood is that the water pressure isn't good.  When asked to elaborate, the homeowner explained that they can't take showers in all four bathrooms at once because the water pressure was weak.  I couldn't help but laugh because I grew up on a farm in a small rural KY town and we couldn't run the water hose and flush the toilet at the same time!  Forget about four showers, because honestly, I never knew anyone with more than 2.5 bathrooms and those were the "big" houses!

Overall though, I'd say we are blessed to live in Carmel and of course there are concerns but there will be concerns no matter where we live at least we know we're safe here and our kids are getting a good education.  With that said, I guess we'll keep raising our little Carmelites!