It's a tricky balance between kids and New Yorkers.
The woman who lives above me often leaves her 12-year-old daughter without a babysitter when she goes on business trips. I know this because whenever she is gone, there are about 20 extra kids running around the lobby and blaring Akon from her apartment. (Unfortunately, she lives on the ground floor.) I’ve complained to the super, called the police, and the management company threatened to evict her. Still, when she went to Washington D.C. last weekend, her daughter and 10 of her friends were having a dance party in her living room, not to mention hanging, monkey-bars style, from the scaffolding in front of the building.
It’s a tricky balance between kids and New York City. Everyone has the right to procreate and raise their families how they want. On the other hand, New Yorkers pay a lot for their apartments, and when we’re there we want distractions kept to a minimum. Bugs we can deal with. Kids, not so much.
Babies aren’t the issue: it’s when the kids start talking and running around that New Yorkers begin their collective eye-rolling. Silent judgments about parenting skills are made when a kid mouths off on a subway. My building is close to two major hospitals, and so a lot of doctors and residents live there. If I were coming home after an 18-hour shift, the last thing I would want to hear is the collective rumblings of a pack of 12-year-olds. Given the noise coming out of that ground-floor apartment, I’m actually amazed that it hasn’t come to fisticuffs.
People start families in New York with the best intentions. The city offers great schools, culture, parks, and every kind of lesson you can think of. Some of these classes start while the kid is still in utero. A one-bedroom apartment can be converted into two. What could possibly go wrong? Eventually the kid grows, and then crawls and then walks. The apartment corridor no longer sates the kid’s curiosity of the world. Parents realize they are priced out of the classic six that would accommodate their growing family. Slowly and painfully, defeat is acknowledged and acquiesced. A move to the suburbs is planned shortly after.
Parents are aware of the line in the sand between those with kids and those without. Restaurants advertise being kid-friendly (as opposed to being kid-hostile?), and the weekly magazines in New York often have editions just for people with kids. So while the rest of us are going to the Metropolitan Opera on a Sunday afternoon, you and the rug rats can check out a face-painting event somewhere on the Upper West Side. Movie theaters have started offering Movies For Moms on weekday afternoons, where moms can bring their kids and the little tykes can wail through the film all they want.
Then again, sometimes even the most jaded New Yorker can tolerate kids, even for a minute. One weekday afternoon not long ago, I was tapping away on my laptop at a local Dunkin Donuts. My chest ached as about 15 middle school-aged kids came in and set up chairs, as if planning a birthday party. They bought a cake and had the clerk write “Jenna” across it. The kids settled in, and as Jenna walked in, they all sang "Happy Birthday" to her. Pretty soon a pizza appeared. These kids had scraped together their collective allowances and arranged a birthday party for their friend, on their school lunch break. It was pretty sweet.
Maybe they’re not all monsters. Maybe, with a little patience, kids and New Yorkers can get along. I’m willing to give it a shot. Just make sure you leave them with a babysitter.
Dispatches from NYC is a bi-weekly commentary on America's largest city and its impact on the wider world.
