Our laundry list of why we chose to raise our kiddos on PEI
This week on IG, I shared a list of 4 reasons why PEI is an awesome place to live. These reasons included:
At its widest, PEI is only 64km wide. This means that you are never more than 32 km away from the ocean. My own studies show that breathing the fresh, ocean breeze is awesome.
15% of the electricity comes from wind. As we make the move towards being more green and efficient, I like knowing that PEI has a plan in place to generate more and more green energy. While the remainder of our energy is imported from the main land, we are seeing more initiatives to create more green energy through both solar and wind.
There are over 90 beaches. Take your pick. Whether you want the red sand of the south shore with sandbars that stretch for miles, the white sand of the north shore, bordered by tall sand dunes, or the singing sands of the eastern shore, there is a beach for you to enjoy! Also, side note - there is a shhhh nude beach as well. I haven’t been but I have been told where to find it.
There are 2 “cities” and 7 incorporated towns. While many of your from the actual big city would scoff at our classification of the city, we have quite a number of resources available for such a small population. So whether you want the services of the big city of Charlottetown, the familiarity of a small town like Souris or O’Leary, or the privacy of living rural, there are options. Unless you want Costco - then you have to go to Moncton or Halifax (which are only 2 and 4 hours away from Ch’town respectively).
Loving that red-dirt life.
But what about when it comes to raising my kiddos??
For those of you that don’t know, currently, my little gremlins are 6, almost 5 and 3. We were almost part of the 3 under 3 club (missed it by 3 months). And when we decided where we wanted to live, it was a no brainer for us. My husband was born and raised in Charlottetown, I had been coming to visit PEI since before I was born and made the move here myself for my Education degree at UPEI. We left Charlottetown in 2018 for employment reasons and in August 2021, we made the decision to move back!
Despite the easy answer of this is where our family is, there are other reasons why we wanted to raise our kids in Charlottetown.
I don’t worry about them
When I was first becoming a mother, pregnant with our first, I read a lot of forums and blogs about the worries that other mom’s had. It seemed that there was a lot of concern about abducting, you child getting lost, etc. Here, I don’t have those concerns. Our kiddos frequently play in the front yard and ride their bikes around the street and the cul-de-sac across the road from us. And yes - we teach them to be aware of the cars on the road, but I don’t worry that something is going to happen to them. Charlottetown is for the most part a very safe place to grow up.
Late French Immersion program
This will be a head scratcher for many of you Come From Awayers - but PEI has a late French immersion program. You can choose to start your kiddos in French immersion in Kindergarten. But you can also wait until grade 7 for it too. This means that they get a strong start on learning to read in English for grades K-6 and in grade 7 they start French Immersion. I like this model because learning everything in French and English from the get-go can be overwhelming for many kids. When they are in grade 7 - you can be more confident (in my opinion) that they will succeed and that they are motivated to learn the French.
Advanced School options -
While we are still several years away from this, and it may change by then, there are great options for advanced school programs when they get to high school. Whether you are wanting your kids to take the IB (International Baccalaureate program), advanced courses, or even if they excel at athletics, there are options in Charlottetown. The Mount Academy is a newer private school in Charlottetown. We also have several other private schools.
It won’t be a surprise to anyone who knows me that I consider myself a nerd. Academics are something that is very important to myself and my husband so I am glad knowing that there are many advanced option for my also (hopefully) nerdy kiddos.
Okay, so in addition to being nerdy, I am also a bit naive. I know that there are drugs and other issues for teens growing up in today’s world. But I think it is better on PEI. I just don’t think that our kids here are exposed to the same level of things as in other cities across Canada or the world. It’s been several years since I have worked in the school system here on PEI, but I don’t think things have changed that much in the past 10 years. But I would love to hear if you think it is the same?
This is only 4 reasons why I chose PEI as the place to raise my kiddos. And this is in addition to the long list of family that we have nearby to provide support and help and love as we are raising our kiddos.
I would love to hear if you have any other reasons why you think PEI is the best place to raise your family!