You can't judge a book...

Ok, so E has a ballet class every Saturday morning at the Y. While the kids are dancing, the parents wait out in the hallway in folding chairs. I bring a magazine or book, but usually end up chatting with one mother or another. Two weeks ago a new little girl showed up with her parents. My first assessment of them was that they are rednecks. The mom spoke with a southern (as in WV) accent, they looked a little unkept, the dad's hair was long, bushy moustache, etc. Well, this week the mom and an older (16 yr old) sister came with the little girl, and the mom sat next to me. I turned to her and asked the usual question when you see a pregnant woman, "When are you due?" She told me that the baby is due in mid November, but she'll probably be induced early because her other 4 kids were big. So I asked about the other kids' ages, and they were 18 down to her 3 year old daughter. All of this further reinforced my earlier assumptions (large family, young pregnancies), in addition to the fact that she was wearing shoes with holes in the toes, dirty jeans, and an old t-shirt. She then went on to say that her daughter would be 4 this week, and she hoped it would stop raining because she had an outdoor birthday party planned- a woodland fairy theme, and they couldn't go indoors because they were renovating the house. That got my attention, and then I realized how off-base my first impression was when she started to describe the how they have prepared for this party, how her "tree man" got logs for her to make into moss covered stools for the girls, they have tulle tents to hang from the trees, a decorated gazebo, and rented a pony. A pony?!! This woman was not fitting into the image I had created in my mind. She went on to tell me about the work they are doing on their 23 room house (located in a neighborhood with 2-3million dollar houses), and how she homeschools, and is a Christian. I couldn't believe how wrong I had been, how much I had assumed about this woman and what she would be like, based on just her appearance.