As someone who was born and raised in Brooklyn and now raises his two children in Manhattan, I’m sure I’m especially sensitive to the patronizing inflections that so often seem to accompany questions about what it’s like to raise children in the city. But over the years, I’ve fine-tuned an answer that for me cuts to the heart of it without returning some obnoxious intimations of my own. It comes down to this: We like it. If we didn’t, we’d move. But all in, we do. A lot.
I do wonder though if my children would vote for a city childhood. At age 9, my son is all about sports and video games; I imagine he’d be ecstatic about a suburban basement with a boy cave to call his own. Meanwhile, my 13-year-old daughter longs for a bedroom that she doesn’t have to share with her younger brother. To compensate, she basically avoids their room when he’s in there. Even at the end of the night she minimizes her time with him in their bedroom by waiting until he’s asleep before returning to go to bed herself.
It’s the primal hope of all parents that their children like their lives. When I think about the state of my clan, I’d have to say that my son has some grumpy tendencies worth heeding as we head into the New Year, while my daughter seems okay. No, actually, she seems more than okay. On a recent Saturday, sunny but cold, she and I were walking along First Avenue, amid the usual scrum of weekend people, when she turned to me and said: “I just can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to live in the city.”
Oh, I could think of a few reasons, especially for kids who haven’t had the good fortune to grow up in a neighborhood of safe streets and good schools. But in the moment, relishing how she has bought into the family plan, all I could manage was an exuberant: “Exactly!”
Have a Happy January!
Eric Messinger
Editor, [email protected]
