I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and attended a catholic grade school from kindergarten to eighth grade. When I mention this to people, I often get negative reactions. This is (most likely) not due to them having anything against Catholics, but rather the negative connotations and stereotypes that go along with one having gone to a Catholic grade school or high school. While some may resent their parents for having forced them to wear a uniform every day, learn about their religion during the school day, and go to weekly masses, I am not one of those people.

Yeah, I'm not going to say that I absolutely loved everything about going to a private Catholic school, there were some aspects of it that were certainly irritating. These would include not being able to wear makeup, which was not so much a big deal in kindergarten through 6th grade, but when my face decided to become the hottest spot for acne to hang out, I wasn't thrilled about having to display it.

Another factor would be not being able to paint out nails, and I, being a somewhat skilled amateur nail painter, was not allowed to discover this ability of mine until high school because nail polish was reserved for summer break. However, I will recall a certain instance in eighth grade where we (girls only) were allowed to have our nails painted at school the Friday before our cotillion dance. Cotillion was not something we were required to take, but it was strongly, strongly, encouraged so you can bet that most all of the 100 of us took cotillion and hated every second of it. Well, except for when I got to awkwardly dance with my crush of that time. That wasn't too bad.

Something else that I despised was the uniform. Well, certain aspects of the uniform would be more accurate. One aspect would be the socks. Yes. Starting in sixth grade, we had to wear white, ankle high socks with the name of our school embroidered onto them. Not even I could pull those ugly suckers off, and trust me, I managed to make our Irish Dance costumes look cute (more on that later). Another part of the uniform that I was not a fan of was the skirts we had to start wearing in sixth grade (if you can catch the common theme, the girls' uniforms started to be irritating in sixth grade. Boys' uniforms, on the other hand, did not change from navy blue pants and a button-up, short-sleeve white shirt from kindergarten through eighth grade). The biggest problem with the skirts is that they weren't skirts at all. I wouldn't even call them skorts. They were basically just green plaid, gigantic shorts that fooled us into thinking they were skirts. And it wasn't like they didn't sell the pattern we wore in a real skirt, they did, it just wasn't the kind they wanted us to have.

Okay, so stepping away from the things I did not like, let's go to why I appreciate being sent to a Catholic grade school. For one, it gave me experiences that I would never have been able to have otherwise. As an example, at my school, once we hit fifth grade, the girls were strongly encouraged to participate in Irish Dance while the boys were strongly encouraged to participate in McNamara's band (basically, lip syncing to Irish songs and prancing around the stage playing invisible instruments). This is something I would never have learned how to do if I didn't go to an Irish Catholic school. While we all felt like huge losers while doing these dances, I can say now that I am happy to be an amateur Irish dancer.

Something else that was nice was not ever having to pick out an outfit in the morning, except for those rare instances where we got to wear a shirt over our uniforms or actually, magically, wear regular clothes. While in high school, I did enjoy having a choice in my outfits, I realized I really didn't appreciate the time it shaved off my getting ready in the morning.

Something else I am thankful for because of my Catholic school is the people I was forced to spend every day with. In eighth grade, my class graduated with exactly 100 people and those 100 hundred people were kind of great. For some peculiar reason, we were nice to each other. Bullying was something that was a rarity, and don't get me wrong, the people in my grade were certainly not angelic goody two shoes, it's just as a class, we must have seen being unnecessarily mean to each other often as a pointless activity.

While I am not thankful for the individual pieces of the uniform, or the lack of makeup and nail polish I was allowed, I am grateful for the experience. The school definitely helped develop who I am today even if it may not be the whole me. The school gave me stories to tell and experiences to remember. While not all catholic grade schools may be as wonderful as mine was, if you're Catholic or just want to send your child to a Catholic school, don't let negative stereotypes ruin your perspective of a great thing.