My sister, Arabella A. R. Carlos, was born on July 10, 2006, in Shady Grove, Maryland.  She was born in a time period where my family became more financially stable.  For example, we parents had already bought a house and a second car by the time she was born.  Because of this newfound financial stability, she enjoyed more middle class luxuries of childhood than I did.

For example, initially, after we moved into our house in Maryland, my mother did not drive me to school.  After some talking to the administration at my D.C. public elementary school, I continued going to school in D.C., despite our living outside of not only the neighborhood, but out of state.  After the move, my mother and I would take public transportation (which included at least an hour affair on, first, a bus, then the metro, then another bus) from a Maryland suburb into the city, regardless of the weather.  When my sister started going to school, however, she began in the private school system, from the beginning.  By this time, my mother had already started driving me to school, so my sister had never had to take public transportation to travel between home and school.  

My sister has been in three different private schools now.  She was in a small Catholic school from Pre-K to second grade before that school closed.  She attended a different small Catholic school for her third grade year.  After that, she transferred to the independent prep school that I attended (from 7th to 12th grade), but she started in fourth grade.  Her starting in fourth grade at the National Cathedral School almost ensures her graduation from the institution, one of the most prestigious independent schools in the greater D.C. area.

Because of being more financially stable, her childhood was much more one of concerted cultivation.  When I began in the private school system in 7th grade, my parents were concerned that any outside activities would take away from my academic focus/concentration, so the extracurriculars (outside of school-related ones), which were really started with a recreational purpose, promptly stopped.  My middle and high school experience were entirely academic-based.  Quite differently, my parents have allowed my sister, from a young age, to engage in various rigorous activities including figure skating and swimming.  Much of my time when back home for breaks includes me driving her to either the rink or the pool, multiple times a week.  Perhaps this will change when she gets to middle or high school, because she is in the academic-intensive school that I attended.  However, my sister seems fairly serious about skating, even at age 10, which may impact my parents’ view about mixing school and sport.