Hot "Child" in the City

This city is competitive. It moves fast. Bars are open until four. Restaurants serve $14 martinis that could double as hot tubs. Hundred of clubs, trendy wine bars, and strip clubs dot the streets. It’s almost as though the city has a large “Adults Only” sign at its entrance. In reality, however, that’s not the case. Kids live here too!

I was reminded of this on Friday night at the Armory, a monstrous structure that looms over midtown east. The armory is so expansive it’s almost overwhelming in a city that constantly forces you to shrink, squeeze and hunch to fit into smaller and smaller spaces. It’s so large in fact, they installed an entire carnival there over the weekend. The carnival had a large slide, rotating swings, food booths, a tiny magician tent and an enormous, flashing Ferris Wheel that loomed over the activities in the center of the room.

Usually, Friday activities for me involve standing around in a crowded room with fellow 25-42-year-old professionals dressed in black and sipping alcoholic beverages out of sparkling, over-sized glassware. This Friday evening involved very few people taller than my waist. To be fair though, I was wearing heels.

These little “whipper-snappers” screamed, squealed and ran around the expansive room with abandon. They flew down the slide, watched the magician with wide-eyed wonder, and periodically stood still just long enough for their parents (or nannies) to snap their picture. Admission to the carnival was only $5 – so it felt like every kid from Manhattan and the Bronx was there. It was an abrupt reminder that kids share this city too.

When I started to take note however, I noticed kids everywhere. A handful of kids take the subway to school in the morning with their parents. I’m not sure where they go and I don’t see them every day (some mornings I’m running a little later than others), but they always get off on 79th street. Their over-sized backpacks and lunch boxes stand out in the mass of briefcases and power ties. I started to notice other evidence of children in Manhattan as well.

Nearly every weekend you’ll see a frazzled, exhausted mothers on the train with a sleeping toddler in a stroller. Manhattan generally is not built for strollers. The sidewalks are narrow and packed with people, and the subways only have elevators at express stops, so bringing strollers into and out of the subway almost always takes two people. Doors are narrow and heavy and have you ever tried to take a stroller through a rotating door? Me neither, but it sounds like a bitch. Even if you’re willing to take on the challenge of a stroller in Manhattan, some places just won’t allow you. The pizza place next to my building has the largest dining area in the five boroughs (I’m convinced). Even they have a sign on the front door that specifically prohibits strollers. Trying to navigate a stroller in a typical Manhattan restaurant is impossible so a sign is unnecessary. It would be easier to bring an unruly St. Bernard with you to dinner.

A colleague of mine just had a daughter last week. I was shocked to learn yesterday that he lives my neighborhood. “The upper west side,” I asked, when he told me. “But you just had a child!” He apparently is ready to take the stroller challenge head on.

I have a good friend who was born and grew up mere blocks from my current residence. In the past few weeks, I’ve met some of his elementary, middle and high school classmates. So I know these native Manhattanites exist, it just took a random Friday carnival for me to put the reality of their childhood in context. They didn’t ride a yellow school bus, they rode the nine train. While I took 8th grade Social Science, they enjoyed classes in philosophy, origami, and current events (where the required reading included the New York Times. In eighth. grade.). They didn’t have a backyard to throw the ball around, but they did have access to a 90 acre park. They didn’t get a drivers license when they turned 16 (many of them still don’t know how to drive) because they’ve been hailing cabs since they could hold out their hand. Instead of Cheerios, they enjoyed bagels for breakfast. Their building blocks likely created Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. Instead of movies, they went to the theater. I saw a little boy at Gatz last weekend who liked he was about 8 years old. The 2:00 PM show let out about 9:00 PM. If I was 8, it would be torture to sit in a dark theatre for seven hours. Heck, as an adult I was dubious and I dropped some serious cash to do it! So native New Yorkers are out there. They grow up in a forrest of concrete. Their parents tackled the challenge of strollers, private schools, and precocious dispositions to successfully raise children in Manhattan.

As I grow older myself, it’s encouragig that this opportunity exists. I was in a marketing training this week and the instructor presented a case study of baby formula. He showed a series of pbaby pictures and talked about the psychographic segmentation of women with children. The instructor, raising his voice over the ticking of my biological clock, revealed that every woman in his example lived in New York City. I smiled to myself. Yes, it would be a huge pain in the ass, but having a family in the city was possible. I had a case study, my friend, the subway school kids and a midtown carnival to prove it.

Footnotes: I wrote this blog yesterday and when I got home last night, I had the movie "Babies" waiting for me in the mail from Netflix. Ha ha, Universe, you're hilarious.