There's a fine line between stating your opinion and outright insulting someone.

Announcing that Sullivan County isn't a very good place for kids to grow up crosses that line, at least when you're talking to a parent currently raising a child in Sullivan County.

The insult only rankles all the more when you're a parent who was once a child raised in Sullivan County.

I tried to keep my mouth shut. After all, the conversation between a New York City transplant and a ‘local' was going on near me, and I wasn't technically a party to it.

But this was personal. I was born here. I chose to come back here. I chose to raise my child here.

I'm intimately familiar with what happens when you grow up in a small town. This person, by their own admission, was not.

They were born and raised in New York City, which to them seems to have been an idyllic existence.

I'll take their word for it. Despite having lived in the city for a time, I wasn't brought up there. I'm not an expert on child rearing in an urban area.

But then, they're no expert on child rearing in the middle of nowhere. Those of us who were raised here and raising kids here? We are.

We know that our kids may not have a corner store to walk to on their own, but they have no qualms about hopping on a bike and pedaling 5 miles one way to the grocery store.

We know that our kids may not have a museum a subway ride away, but we have cars and the ability to drive them there. What's more, we do it.

We know that our kids may not know an A-train from the 7. But they can identify poison ivy and poison sumac from 10 paces and know that when there are leaves of three, they should let it be.

Are our kids better?

No.

They're different.

Their childhoods are what we make of them: trips to the creek or trips to the city, both offering distinctly different experiences that are helping to shape them as human beings.

Their childhoods are not any simpler. Country kids still grapple with cyberbullying, fear of climate change, fear of school shootings, and good old-fashioned hormones.

Their childhoods are not any smaller either. Country kids can and do travel, go on adventures, pick up diverse hobbies from archery to special effects makeup.

They are different from city kids. But you don't need to insult them.