I grew up in the middle of Manhattan, so I can attest that being 15 and being able to just jump on a bus to go visit a friend was fantastic.

Apparently Baby Einstein just makes your kids dumber, although that's no more surprising than Teddy Ruxpin being a poor substitute for actually having a parent read to you.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/07/science/sci-babyeinstein7

I don't think suburbs are really about the kids, it's about the parents. Parents get to a certain stage in life where they want a garage, a space for a workshop, a big backyard where they can have gatherings of their friends for a BBQ, or enjoy some privacy and quiet at the end of the work day, etc.

Meanwhile, parents already have the broad social network they've acquired over a lifetime and can contact at work or visit with their own cars.

This isn't to say that suburbs have advantages for children: better schools and less chance of being victimized by crime are huge issues for everyone. However, for parents, the rewards of adulthood are supposed to include the trappings of suburban life, and the drawbacks of that life don't affect them as much as it would affect us or their children.

I grew up in a very rural area, so I can attest that being 15 and being able to just jump on a bicycle to go visit a friend was fantastic.

Other than that, it sucked being a teenager in a small town.

I've lived in country, city, and suburbs, and there's nothing better for me than the suburbs - older neighborhoods, not the McMansion tracts that took over in the '80s. I would live in the middle of the desert before I'd live in an apartment again. Some of us just can't be healthy in that setting.

The country (or outer suburbia) is great for children, but really not so hot for adolescents. I pretty much hit the city the minute I turned 18. The city is fine when you're a young adult. For me, it got old after a few years. Some people thrive on urban living, some don't.

All three settings have crime problems, at least here in California.

I think you just have to make the best life wherever you are. I don't agree with the recent promotion of urban living as the cure-all for environmental problems.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere MA, which was a-w-e-s-o-m-e, for all the obvious, idealized small-town life reasons (the freedom and adventures for even a very little kid cannot be oversold). But now I live in the big, bad city, Brooklyn, and I can totally see the appeal of rasing my children here, too. The experience of being a kid in Brooklyn vs small town New England could not be more different, but I honestly cannot see how one is *better* than the other. I don't know why the city automatically gets a bad rap in this way, either. It's really a coin toss for me which of the two seems more ideal for raising a kid. There's so much to do, so much to learn, so much experience in both.

The suburbs, though... eh. Someone would have to explain the appeal of that as it goes for bringing up children. I guess it's nice to have a yard (vs not, in the city), and if a well performing school is important to you, then I guess they're better than some urban neighborhoods. But, really, how are they so absolutely better than the city; why do we collectively assume that?

There's a huge difference between midtown Manhattan and two-to-four story building density. Here in Seattle our medium density neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Fremont feel more like walkable small towns than the big city, even though they are in fact big city neighborhoods. I think that's the sweet spot of city life.

I grew up in the Northern Virginia suburbs -- in a house literally on a cul-de-sac.

I think that childhood in outer suburbs are a mixed bag. From age 7 through 12, it was great. Touch football and basketball in our mostly car free street. Building forts and going on expeditions in the woods.

But when you outgrow those activities, you quickly find out that there's nothing to do. You need a car to do anything. Age 12-16 -- before you get a car -- is mind crushingly dull.

Adding, in light of Lorri's comment:

Older suburbs (like you tend to find on the east coast and maybe midwest) have a lot going for them, it's true. At this point, though, let's face it, when most people talk about suburbs in this context, they are speaking about the sprawl. That is the lifestyle I least can comprehend but is what many americans think is just The Best Way for raising families.

Of course, DC's schools will never improve so long as the kids in them primarily come from marginalized families who can't force the kind of policy changes needed to force a system to improve. But yeah, families with kids won't send their schools that already suck if they have a choice. It's a huge chicken and egg problem.

I think that's one of the most disenheartening effects of suburbs -- taking all the people who have the social capital and time to care about their larger community and airlifting them out of the cities.

I think the suburban model is also just kind of running out of steam. It made a great deal of sense in the 1950s, with cheap cars, lots of space, and (all too often) intense ethnic homogeneity. And grouping all the fairly well-off kids with hyper-involved parents into a geographic area certainly produced some awesome stats for well-funded suburban schools.

But with gas prices exploding, inner city neighborhoods FAR more liveable than they were 20 years ago, and the suburbs a fairly unpleasant memory for lots of 20-somethings today, I wouldn't be surprised if more people who could potentially move to the burbs choose to work to improve their cities instead.

"Of course, there are also disadvantages. Crime, for instance."

Not everywhere. The suburbs of many, many American cities have higher crime rates than New York City. In 1999, those suburban rings included Dallas-Ft. Worth, Seattle, Atlanta, Phoenix, Denver, Orlanda, Sacramento, San Antonio, Miami, and for cry eye Salt Lake City.

Of course, another suburban downside connected to the automobile, is the increased risk of being injured in a car accident. In many cases that's a bigger risk than being the victim of violent crime in the city. There are cites to studies about this in Suburban Nation, and there's some analysis of the subject in this 1991 (!) NYT article:

Those with the economic means to leave the city say that if their children died in an act of violence, they would feel that they could have averted it. But if their children died in a car accident in the suburbs, they would feel that it was just that, an accident; they would not feel that they should not have moved to the suburbs.

IMHO, "moving to the suburbs now that we have kids" has not so much to do with suburbs being a better environment in which to raise kids but rather that it is simply more difficult to deal with all the "stuff" involved in raising a kid (especially a baby) when you live in the city.

It's one thing to live in the suburbs, drive to a big box store, get all the food/diapers/etc. you need for the week, drive to your garage or driveway or right in front of your flat, and easily unload everything into your residence.

It's another thing (even if you have a car) to do this in a city where you still have to walk between your car and flat (with too much stuff in tow, if not a kid, presuming you have babysitting for the kid or a partner living with you).

In general, because you don't have door-to-car-to-door-to-car-to-door service between your house/work place and wherever you need to go in the way of errands, everything takes a lot longer in the city (add to that negotiating through crowds) than in the 'burbs ... even if you get stuck in some traffic whilst traipsing through the 'burbs.

When you are young and child-free, time is usually something which you have in some degree of surpluss. But kids themselves take a lot of time ... and then add the time (and hassle) it takes to be in the city?

That's too much for some people ...

I grew up in Brooklyn, back when crime was far worse in NYC than it is today, and I loved every minute of it. My friends and I started taking the GG train to Mets games at Shea, by ourselves, when I was 11. We'd ride the bus to Staten Island on Saturdays just for kicks. And we actually went to museums by choice, on our own, not dragged there by parents or field trips.

But the schools are the lynchpin. I had the good fortune to have parents who sent me to private schools. Had I had to attend the public schools, things might have been different.

Work has had me living in Michigan and Tennessee, but not with the wherewithal to afford the private schooling I had, so I have raised five children in the suburbs and exurbs, with all the compromises that entails. My kids may not have had the opportunity to jump on a bus or subway to see the Mets, or The Met, or even Staten Island. But they have had junior football, travel softball and horseback riding classes at the stables down the road when they wanted it -- all things that were either unavailable to me in the city, or at the very least, harder to obtain -- and we had the good fortune of owning a lake-access home so we could keep a boat for swimming and water skiing. Again, things unavailable in Brooklyn.

But those are all amenities that I would have given up in a heartbeat to raise my kids in the city if only the public schools were good enough or the private schools were affordable enough. We refused to compromise on schools, something you understand with far greater clarity when you have kids of your own, instead of thinking of it in the abstract. My wife and I chose where we lived by seeing what was the best school district we could afford to buy a home in.

But now that the youngest is 13, we have our Five Year Plan to get back to city living . . .

i raised my older son in new york city...he played baseball under the con edison smokestacks near fourteenth street and bought strudel near the metropolitan museum. we lived across the street from the largest methadone clinic in the country and walked past it everyday on the way to school. on sunday afternoon, we ate crackerjacks by the carousel in central park.
he thrived on the energy and learned about compassion, appreciation for humanity and high culture at an early age.
but this is beside the point.
children need love. they need attention. they need to be listened to. they need stimulation, in any environment and they need to be kept safe.
clearly, a situation where their health, well-being and safety is severely compromised can happen anywhere, and all children deserve to be kept safe and in healthful environments,
but...
it matters less about WHERE children are raised, and more about HOW they are raised.
and one more time, it matters less about WHERE they are raised, and more about HOW they are raised.
it is about love and nurturing and developing a useful, CONNECTED and creative life:-)

"Child development, we're told, require garages, yards, parking lots, strip malls, and economic homogeneity, just as surely as it requires Baby Einstein videos and Omega 3 fats."

Two points.

First, we should be careful to avoid stereotyping suburbs as McMansion-filled wastelands, just as we should avoid stereotyping all urban environments as downtown Manhattan. There are a lot of suburbs that are diverse, reasonably concentrated, interesting (from an architectural, commercial and culinary point of view), and pretty livable, even for an urbanite. I'm thinking of Oak Park or Evanston in Chicago, Pasadena in Los Angeles, and Wheat Ridge or Louisville in Denver (to use cities that I'm more familiar with).

Second, other than schools and crime (though as noted above, the distribution of crime between the city and its suburbs tends to vary by area) you tend to minimize the advantages of the suburbs. As someone who has raised a kid in both the city and a suburb-ish environment (technically in the city, but a neighborhood with a very suburban feel), let me tell you -- parking lots are nice. Taking a child and all of her accoutrement somewhere is a pain under any circumstance, but especially so where you can't just shove it all in the trunk and pull it out steps from where you're going. Yards are nice. You can plop a kid down in the backyard, kick back and enjoy a tasty beverage while she plays. So much easier than packing up all of the necessary crap and walking the four blocks to the neighborhood park. Garages are really convenient. When you have a kid and a family's worth of grocery shopping in the car, it's so much easier to park in your garage steps from your kitchen than finding street parking and schlepping everything half a block while trying to contain a whirling dervish of a two year-old.

All of these things make life much easier for parents. It's not some irrational desire -- there are reasons that they are popular with families.

It's a lot easier for teenage girls in big cities to find older men with whom to have sex.

I think that's a big part of it, in many people's minds.

Being 15 in an urban center with a subway sure seems like it would beat being 15 in the suburbs when you have to rely on your parents for rides.

From a parent's point of view, the extra control that the suburbs give you over your kids' location and interactions is a feature, not a bug. In the suburbs, you know your kid's not in a heroin shooting gallery because he's upstairs in his room (IM-ing with a child predator).

I had the best of both worlds, taking a bus and subway into a city, from a suburb, to go to high school every day.

The day I figured out the same 35 cents that took me home could also get me to Harvard Square changed my life.

Something that's been rattling around in my brain for the last few years is the concern about daycare. Not the quality of, necessarily, but the near ubiquity of it in modern life.

I understand the need of the single parent to work and also raise the kids, but I've known many families wherein both parents work full-time and the preschool kids are raised by daycare and babysitters. These are married couples in their thirties, and one would assume that as least some of these pregnancies were planned. As readily available as birth control is, I don't understand the decision to procreate when you're only financially stable enough to take six weeks off and jump right back into your career.

I don't care which parent stays home, but I think one should at least until all the kids are in first grade. If you can't afford to do that, then maybe parenthood isn't a good move.

Personally, I've never wanted children, and I've been self-aware enough to know that not everyone (myself included) is equipped, financially, emotionally, etc.

That said, I don't think it's necessary to go too far the other way and stay at home with them indefinitely. I was homeschooled, and it took me until recently (I'm 30) to really be able to interact with my peers in a productive way. I do think kids need interaction with their peers, but I think the parent(s) should be involved at least until school takes the reins part of the time.

So... my long and rambly point is that I agree with those who have said that it's more how kids are raised than where that is the issue. And I have to bite my tongue every time I hear a parent whine about the lack of parenting the daycare/teenage sitter provides.

Dude, they're your responsibility. You raise them!

"I don't care which parent stays home, but I think one should at least until all the kids are in first grade. If you can't afford to do that, then maybe parenthood isn't a good move."

Some families have two working parents because, well, the parents like what they do, and neither one wants to tell the other one that they have to give it up in order to have children. It has nothing to do with money.

As for daycare/preschool, like everything, it depends on the quality. Our two year-old goes to a Waldorf school that she loves (she stays home with her professor mother on Fridays in the summer, and she was crying this morning because she wouldn't get to see her teacher and friends). It's expensive, but (1) we can afford it and (2) she was speaking in full sentences at about 18 months, almost certainly attributable to the education she was getting. I fail to see how her development would have been improved by staying home with me or her mother for the extra six or seven waking hours a day.

"I don't care which parent stays home, but I think one should at least until all the kids are in first grade. If you can't afford to do that, then maybe parenthood isn't a good move."

If this was the case, then only the rich and upper middle class would have kids.

It's actually a pretty shitty conundrum- most American working and middle class people have to deal with student loans, barely affordable healthcare, ridiculously overpriced housing, and saving for their own retirement. Daycare can often be the biggest expense after your mortgage. Saying one parent should 'just stay home' is easy to say, but often impossible to actually pull off.

This country really doesn't give a shit about families. As long as the proles pop out enough kids to keep a steady supply of worker drones, the ownership class doesn't care how they manage.

"If this was the case, then only the rich and upper middle class would have kids."

It's worse than that -- only the rich and upper class families where one spouse was willing to give up his or her career would have kids. Which is rarer than you imagine -- a lot of the upper middle class is made up of doctors, lawyers, academics, etc., and they tend to marry similarly educated professionals.

Yeah, our decision to leave Brooklyn after my son was born was cemented the day I noticed a four-year old girl wandering into traffic and had to stop her; there was no place else for her to play, but two more steps and she'd have been roadkill. Her mom of course, didn't even know she'd left the house, because she'd moved so fast. Sidewalks suck as playspaces, and NY traffic is insanely dangerous to play next to. Cities and kids only work if you have a safe greenspace in walking distance, and can watch them every minute.

My point is that I don't think everyone should feel obligated to have children. I don't understand the point of having children and then not raising them yourself.

I do give a shit about families- I just think that the kids should be raised by their parents, and I don't think that's too much to ask.

With overpopulation the way it is, I don't think there's any danger of us running out of people if those who can't afford to care for their children stop having them.

I've never been solvent enough to even consider having children, and I feel inundated with "family, family, family" in this country.

If I did have the urge to have children, I wouldn't want to do it unless I could afford to do it in what I think is the right way. I don't think it helps the kids to be raised by "the village" and not by the parents.

Yes, there are undoubtedly great daycares out there, but they're expensive, as has been pointed out, and I've known more than one family that would have actually saved money by having one person stay home vs. daycare.

It isn't an easy choice- career or kids. But I do think that it is the choice that has to be made. It isn't as though having children is mandatory, and how is it good parenting to bond with your offspring for the first six weeks and then pass them around to the community to raise? Again, if you want kids, raise them yourself.

I think we all have something to say. I'm not calling anyone here a bad parent, so please don't take my point of view personally.

This is an opinion. It is only an opinion. It was posted here because the commenter was under the impression that this is where you can put opinions.

Rabbit, actually, the place for you to post random opinions that pop into your head is on your own weblog or in the comments of an "open thread." This place is where you post comments about the topic of the blog post.

Yes, there are undoubtedly great daycares out there, but they're expensive, as has been pointed out, and I've known more than one family that would have actually saved money by having one person stay home vs. daycare.

As I said before, for a lot of people it's not about the money. It's about neither spouse being willing to (1) abandon their own careers or (2) tell the other spouse that they need to abandon their career.

It isn't an easy choice- career or kids. But I do think that it is the choice that has to be made.

No you don't. You think that one spouse needs to make that choice. The other one can have both.

It isn't as though having children is mandatory,

It is a fundamental natural instinct -- and one that generally should be encouraged in the low-birth-rate developed world.

and how is it good parenting to bond with your offspring for the first six weeks and then pass them around to the community to raise?

It's not. But then again, most children aren't raised like this.

Again, if you want kids, raise them yourself.

Here's what I don't get. At my daughter's age, she's awake maybe eleven hours a day. About half that time is spent at preschool (maybe a little more), and half is spent at home (maybe a little less). This doesn't take into account that she is only at preschool maybe four days a week on average (taking into account the summer when she does go four days a week, vacations, holidays, sick days, etc.). So during her 77 waking hours a week, maybe 24 are at preschool and 53 are at home. How is that possibly a situation where I'm not raising my own kid? I'm with her for most of her waking hours over a week.

There is something to be said about each style of living, and I think I lucked out; I grew up in suburban MA, with a lot of friends who had more rural homes, and it was great. Lots of running around, I was near a park, there were woods, firecrackers, BB guns (and one friend's dad would supervise us shooting at targets w/a real hunting rifle), etc.

When I was in 8th grade I moved to San Francisco; visiting my old friends a couple of years later, they indicated that basically there was nothing for them to do but drink or go to the mall; with my personality I would've gone crazy in that environment. And while I just lauded - and will laud - the virtues of raising a young child in a more open environment, there's surely a lot to be said for being a ten year old in the city, just as for the right people there are undoubtedly charms to being sixteen or seventeen when the city is 90 minutes away.

Why so many people (not in this thread) automatically presume that their personal life choices are somehow under attack is beyond me.

Note the ratio of non-parent commenters to parent commenters, and their comments.

As a new dad. I can tell you I had NO IDEA of much of what's involved in parenting--and I suspect that's true for most of the commenters, which is why so mant if the comments, including Ezra's, read as praise for cool places to be if you're 15 years old.

I think the major pitfall is that the best place to raise a child actually varies for each child. I was at my best in an urban setting, but my sister did best in suburban settings... only so much my mom could have done in that instance. (I was more adaptable, and my sister had more needs, so we went in a more suburban area.)

Maybe the suburbs will be best for my children when I actually have some. But I'm going to wait to see how these future children are before making any decisions about where they should be raised.

I moved to SF with a 3 year old two years ago, and I *love* our neighborhood for raising kids. It's way better than the Seattle suburb where we were living. Loads of close by shops and restaurants (you shop more frequently, and don't use a car but a cart to get to the store and home). I also like being able to shop from local stores...in many suburbs, all you can find are chains for clothing, hardware, or gifts.
We know our neighbors much better, because we all go hang out at the park with our kids together. My son has lots of neighborhood friends. There are loads of activities too - museums, street fairs, parks, lessons. And it's so nice to spend the time to and from school reading together and talking and *looking* at each other instead of having to focus on driving while my child is trying to talk to me and show me things.
Preschool/daycare was difficult though, because there just don't seem to be *enough* in the city for all of the kids. It wasn't the "be on a waiting list since you were pregnant" problem, but it is expensive. There are fantastic Head Start programs, and a tuition rebate through a city "Preschool for All" program which helps.
Other drawbacks are: less space in our house (although it was so refreshing to get rid of a bunch of unnecessary stuff!), higher prices (we save money by not having to have a car, though), running errands takes more time, having to walk the dog rather than just put her out in the yard, having to make a day trip out of going to Target or Home Depot, more litter...But overall, I like it quite a bit with a young child. I can see how pre-teens could get out of control with so much freedom of movement and so many things to do (not all of them as enriching as the Academy of Sciences), but with a young child, San Francisco is great.
I think a vital "small town" type town would also be nice. Where you can walk or bike to local businesses & parks, and there are many activites for kids and families of all ages. But I haven't seen many of those lately...so I'm all for the quiet nabes of urban centers.

As others have commented, it's not quite to categorize everything as city/suburb. I live in a neighborhood in Minneapolis which kind of "urban" (close to light rail, part of urban public school system) and kind of "suburban" (houses with yards, not within walking distance of much shopping). Nonetheless, a few of my wife's friends find it bizarre that we're raising my son in -- gasp -- THE CITY. My friends not so much as we all grew up here. I'm constantly running into friends of mine who have just had kids and bought houses within a mile of me. I've never really considered living in the suburbs here. The only ones with vastly better school systems are ones we couldn't afford to live in anyway...

As a new dad. I can tell you I had NO IDEA of much of what's involved in parenting

You still don't, if your kid hasn't hit two yet! (Kidding, of course. I'm sure parents of adolescents would tell me the same thing.)

As for childrearing in cities: I guess it all depends on which city you're living in. I'd imagine Brooklyn's pretty rough to raise a baby/toddler, but here in DC, I can't imagine a better place to raise a child that age.

I'm 3 blocks from a large, clean urban park, and a short bike ride (on residential streets, no less) from the National Mall. (12 west blocks down East Capitol).

I grew up in suburban Rockville, MD. After the age of 12, it was stultifying. And it didn't do my parents' mental health any good, either. I want to spare my daughter that fate if I can avoid it.

Cities differ, just as suburbs differ.

While I think losing the income of middle-class families to the suburbs is a bad thing for cities, many people move to cities to get away from the general blandness that is the suburbs. Having grown up in pure suburbia, it is mind-numbing once you hit a certain age. There's just nothing to do. The chain stores, the kids sing alongs at cafes, the suvs, strip malls. It's unifying in its lack of individuality.

But with the trend of families moving back or staying in the city, it's leading to conflict. Look at Boston's South End, once a ghetto, then a trendy gay area, now its former residents are battling lots of families with young kids. And these aren't necessarily the city kids and families I remember; the cool kids, the intellectual parents. From what I've seen, it's modern suburban attitudes hoisted into the city. Parents protest when cafes don't want strollers inside, owners get angry when parents and kids leave an utter path of destruction in the restaurants. It's a clash of lifestyles. Cities are exciting because they're challenging, creative places, not filled with Gymborees and bugaboos. But parents expectt everybody to accommodate their kids and activities. It's tough to go to a cafe to read or chat with friends when toddlers are running up and down, babies are screaming, people are tripping over strollers. It's not their right to ruin everybody else's day because they wanted to have kids and then still try to be the 'cool' urban parents. It seems the two are just incompatible. Maybe stay home and play some Pavement for your 3 year old and give the rest of us a break.

In a way, chain restaurants and stores are made for families, as the reactions and expectations of employees and patrons are probably on par, whereas often in the city, the don't match.

But parents expectt everybody to accommodate their kids and activities. It's tough to go to a cafe to read or chat with friends when toddlers are running up and down, babies are screaming, people are tripping over strollers. It's not their right to ruin everybody else's day because they wanted to have kids and then still try to be the 'cool' urban parents. It seems the two are just incompatible. Maybe stay home and play some Pavement for your 3 year old and give the rest of us a break.

Most likely the parents aren't trying to be 'cool' urban parents -- like most people, we just enjoy going to cafes or quirky stores or fun restaurants.

Unless it is a place that is clearly inappropriate for children (i.e., porn shop, biker bar, tattoo parlor, etc.), or at hours that are inappropriate, then parents and kids have every right to be there. If you don't want to expose yourself to that, you should stick to going places or at times where there won't be kids.

It's tough to go to a cafe to read or chat with friends when toddlers are running up and down, babies are screaming, people are tripping over strollers.

Welcome to crazy, mixed-up world of human society. Heh.

In a way, chain restaurants and stores are made for families, as the reactions and expectations of employees and patrons are probably on par

This confirms a somewhat controversial claim made earlier on this blog that grown adults who prefer to patronize chain restaurants like Applebees are basically overgrown children.

This confirms a somewhat controversial claim made earlier on this blog that grown adults who prefer to patronize chain restaurants like Applebees are basically overgrown children.

http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore_200304.html

I actually think having either a very young child or a teenager in the city is pretty ideal. I enjoyed being able to throw the kid in a stroller or snugly and walk places when we lived in Adams Morgan in DC. The age where it is more difficult is when they are in that age between say 8 and 12 and want to be somewhat independent but you are afraid that they'll get killed in traffic.

I don't think crime is that much of a problem for those of us fortunate enough to live in fairly affluent neighborhoods. I am pretty sure there is a lot less danger from crime for most upper middle class kids in the city than there is with driving out in the suburbs. Cars, and drunk driving, are the biggest danger to kids and they are a huge part of suburban teen life (says one who knows).

I like living where my kid can take the subway bus or a cab and be independent.

"From a parent's point of view, the extra control that the suburbs give you over your kids' location and interactions is a feature, not a bug. In the suburbs, you know your kid's not in a heroin shooting gallery because he's upstairs in his room (IM-ing with a child predator).

Posted by: A-ro | July 11, 2008 12:04 PM"

Whatever happened to raising non-stupid kids with common sense? If the difference between your kid being healthy or on heroin is a matter of living in the city vs. a suburb, maybe you aren't the best parent in the first place.

"Yeah, our decision to leave Brooklyn after my son was born was cemented the day I noticed a four-year old girl wandering into traffic and had to stop her; there was no place else for her to play, but two more steps and she'd have been roadkill. Her mom of course, didn't even know she'd left the house, because she'd moved so fast. Sidewalks suck as playspaces, and NY traffic is insanely dangerous to play next to. Cities and kids only work if you have a safe greenspace in walking distance, and can watch them every minute.

Posted by: emjaybee | July 11, 2008 1:47 PM"

When I was in second grade on my first trip to Cape Cod, I had to dive across a room to stop an infant from falling into a fireplace while her upper middle class suburban parents were too busy blabbering away about something to notice. If a parent isn't going to look after their child in the city, they aren't going to do so in the suburbs either.

"Most likely the parents aren't trying to be 'cool' urban parents -- like most people, we just enjoy going to cafes or quirky stores or fun restaurants.

Unless it is a place that is clearly inappropriate for children (i.e., porn shop, biker bar, tattoo parlor, etc.), or at hours that are inappropriate, then parents and kids have every right to be there. If you don't want to expose yourself to that, you should stick to going places or at times where there won't be kids.

Posted by: Joe | July 11, 2008 3:37 PM"

A lot of us don't mind kids in restaurants and cafes who can behave themselves. In fact, the laughing toddler who waves at everybody cheers everyone up. Some family friends have three children (IIRC aged 2, 6 and 9) who are enjoyable to eat with because they are polite and friendly. What us singles have a problem with is spoiled, undisciplined brats and parents who want the rest of us to accommodate their lack of interest in disciplining their kid. If a private business depends on people behaving themselves and not knocking things over, then bringing a brat there is just rude. Just as restaurants and bars have the right to have a dress code, not allow smoking (and I say that as a smoker), etc., they have the right to throw out any spoiled adults raising spoiled brats of the same maturity level.

Really, I'm in my early 20's and a social Northeastern liberal, yet it makes me sick how some people seem allergic to raising their kids to be responsible human beings respectful of others. My sister and I never got away with shit like that when we were young and we both ended up at top universities (and not as legacies, with our parents being a white middle class guy who went to a fourth-rate school and an immigrant mostly educated abroad). You're not there to be your kids best friend and never discipline them because they might hate you. You're there to be a parent and raise them. If you can't discipline your children, don't have them in the first place.

you can raise beautiful, curious, kind, creative children anywhere.
there are challenges in every environment to keep children safe, healthy and engaged.
tract houses, farms and apartment houses all have their advantages and drawbacks.
children need to feel connected and safe.
it doesnt matter if a child is sitting in a multi-million house by a pool in bel-air, or an apartment with too few bedrooms in a city.
if a child feels alone, unimportant or disengaged, it makes no difference.
if the child feels loved, healthy wanted,CONNECTED, safe and has real (not just escapist) things in his life that he deeply cares about, that is what matters most about his environment.
older people of the depression will tell you they grew up with little, often in tenements or rural areas, but felt so connected with friends, family, nature, neighborhoods, chores, work... that their lives were good.
children need loving connections and their own sense of purposefulness, no matter where they are.

Wow, it's not hard to guess who's a parent and who's not.

Rabbit, the reason my daughter is in preschool is because, unlike our home, there are other children there. I was an isolated only child and remember the horrifying shock that was kindergarten. By the time my little one is ready for school, she'll have the social skills I lacked. I also can't teach her songs in Hawaiian, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, and Swahili (choices made to reflect the beautiful rainbow of toddlers she spends her weekdays with). And I don't own a shaded playground with swings. I empathize with your perspective---I worked at home nights and weekends for two years in a state of craptacular exhaustion so that I wouldn't have to send her to daycare before I thought her ready. But she's ready now, and her time at daycare makes everyone happier.

Morgan, I won't argue that children out of control are a fun addition to your favorite hang-out. At the same time, I wouldn't want to patronize a business where strollers aren't allowed because I wouldn't want to give money to an owner who can't recognize the value of my limiting my toddler's mobility long enough for me to grab chow and inhale it. Let's face it: a business that can't accomodate a stroller probably can't accomodate a wheelchair either, and that's not OK. Coolness is not a function of how little space you occupy.

Reality Man, do you really remember what you did or didn't get away with when you were 18 months old? A person who hasn't mastered cause and effect or social conscience can be a challenge to discipline non-violently. A moment of your empathy today while a harried parent waits to pay and run may win you the same a decade from now when it's you or your loved one trying to contain a tempestuous toddler in a public setting.

"Reality Man, do you really remember what you did or didn't get away with when you were 18 months old? A person who hasn't mastered cause and effect or social conscience can be a challenge to discipline non-violently. A moment of your empathy today while a harried parent waits to pay and run may win you the same a decade from now when it's you or your loved one trying to contain a tempestuous toddler in a public setting.

Posted by: AZ Escapee | July 13, 2008 12:08 AM"

While I don't remember much at 18 months, I do remember how my little sister wasn't allowed to misbehave at 18 months. Considering how I was considered the model student most of my life by my teachers, I'm guessing there wasn't a huge change in my personality from 18 months to kindergarten compared to most kids.

It just seems to me a great deal of American parents simply don't know how to control their kids. I have empathy for parents who actively try to do something, but it seems more often than not they decide that coffee shops are the places to pretend their kid isn't screaming while they blabber away on their cell phones or whatever. People can do that at home without inconveniencing everyone else and making business harder for the business owner. The same goes for the parent who goes through the entire movie without showing any empathy towards their own child who has been crying the entire time.

Empathy shouldn't only pass from other people to parents, but also has to pass from parents to those around them and from parents to their children as well. It is not all of the other diners and movie goers job to deal with someone's screaming kid just because they feel stressed. While I do feel real empathy for obviously young parents who definitely didn't know what they were getting into (and even more for parents, especially women, who seem to have had their children as teenagers), for other parents, everyone around you isn't there to put up with your lack of parenting skills or inability to figure out that you should have waited even longer to have kids or had too many kids. If your kid is too damn noisy to eat in a restaurant meant for adults peacefully either 1) take them to a doctor to see if they are in chronic pain 2) take them to a loud chain family restaurant or 3) eat at home. Trying out the nice new sushi place is only for people, adults and children, who can behave themselves in public. It's called being courteous to the people around you. It's a matter of personal responsibility.

Yes, some parents do make the effort when their children start acting up and are unsuccessful, but that doesn't happen often enough. Hell, I'm a single guy in his early 20's and I'm pretty good at getting babies to go quickly from crying to laughing and smiling by singing to them and playing with them when family friends have asked me to do so. If I can do it, then the actual parents should be able to do so as well.

Reality Man, you're right that empathy is a two-way street. I have seen kids running amok in places they shouldn't, and in my past, childless life I felt put out by it. I don't anymore. My empathy circle has expanded to include the involuntary audience, the child, the parent: FSM bless us, everyone.

It sounds like you your training and temperment have both been condusive to good manners, which are admirable and much needed. I was a very well-mannered child myself, never raising a fuss even when a fuss was called for. Unfortunately, an adult in my home took terrible advantage of this. When I ask my daughter if she'd like a slice of apple and she bellows "NOOOOO," my job is to teach her that when she doesn't want something to eat, she should say "no, thank you," but in other situations she SHOULD bellow (and claw and bite and NOT behave herself). It's harder than it looks, preparing people for a world of joy and evil. We all need slack to survive it.

"hell, i'm a single guy in my early twenties and i'm pretty good at getting babies to go from crying to laughing"

you have a gift!!!!:-)

young, friendly, new faces are always entertaining to curious children.
....they will stop crying out of curiosity when there is a diversion.
new things can change their moods in an instant, like a passing butterfly.

unfortunately, many parents, at the end of the day, are exhausted and there is nothing left in their bag of tricks.
sometimes, when a child suddenly becomes tired or isnt feeling well, or has become bored, nothing is going to work, unless you rule your child with fear. (which is not a good thing.)
however, the young people i know who often make the biggest fuss, eventually have their own children, and get to experience their child ,lying face-down in the grocery screaming over the skittles..and they too, will have the experience of standing in the cashier's aisle, horrified and perplexed, with rising blood pressure, as all judgemental eyes are upon them!
and then another generation of young people walk by...and say, "wow, why cant they control their kids?"

it is the way of the world.
you'll see:-)