Thursday
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4/9/05
Choices
It was at the very end of the nineteen fifties that a fresh-faced girl all of nineteen years old stepped off a Lockheed Constellation at LaGuardia airport and made her way into the city that never sleeps. It wasnt long before she met a young man with whom she shared a love of many of the things that the city had to offer; certainly for the two of them living in Manhattan was all about coffee houses, cocktail parties, Ranger games, museums and the theatre.
And once again she wasted no time making the next step: they were married in 1960 amongst friends in a simple ceremony at All Souls. Afterwards their busy social lives continued much as before until 1965 when she gave birth to a boy who would be her only son and was otherwise only remarkable for his striking resemblance to me.
In any case, I spent the next seven or eight years growing up in a modest apartment behind which there was a small expanse of pavement on which my cohorts and I were allowed run around, ride Big Wheels and chase each other as children will. There was actually a large park not too far away when we needed more than the pavement could offer us, and yet it was just far enough that getting there by myself wasnt an option.
In short, by the early seventies the days when I was an infant and then a toddler easily kept within the safety of arms reach were long gone; indeed, I had since grown into an age at which I simply needed more safe, clean space in which to run, chase and grow than the city would ever be able to provide. My parents had a decision to make.
It's actually been a long time since I thought much about my early childhood, but it all came rushing back after reading a recent MetroDad post which notes that a growing number of blogging parents are expressing qualms about raising children under similar urban pressures. Not only did reading about these issues strike a chord with me, but my guess is that the reservations expressed by this first generation of blogging parents will only increase in frequency and intensity as their infants and toddlers grow into older children who need ever more autonomy and independence just as I did.
Now to be fair, it must be much easier to raise a child in the city today than when I was that age. After all, anyone my age or older can tell you that the decaying New York of the early seventies seemed as if it was collapsing into ungovernable chaos. Whole neighborhoods were crumbling and the sidewalks were simultaneously home to mountains of garbage abandoned by the city and to the homeless who had been abandoned by society after the mass de-institutionalizations of the Sixties. Moreover, the once noble dream of public housing was turning into a nightmare of drug-fueled anarchy, and entire blocks of the South Bronx were simply allowed to burn to the ground.
Oh, cheer up, Evan. As MetroDad points out there are a great many advantages to hanging your familial hat in the heart of the greatest city in the world these days; there is certainly nowhere else with the same energy, density and diversity of people, restaurants, clubs, theatre, and museums. Heck, New York is the greatest comeback kid in history.
But still... as I watch my boys running free with their friends through the back yards in our little corner of suburbia I am reminded that I owe my parents great debt of gratitude for making that same choice for me.
.
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4/9/05
Choices
It was at the very end of the nineteen fifties that a fresh-faced girl all of nineteen years old stepped off a Lockheed Constellation at LaGuardia airport and made her way into the city that never sleeps. It wasnt long before she met a young man with whom she shared a love of many of the things that the city had to offer; certainly for the two of them living in Manhattan was all about coffee houses, cocktail parties, Ranger games, museums and the theatre.
And once again she wasted no time making the next step: they were married in 1960 amongst friends in a simple ceremony at All Souls. Afterwards their busy social lives continued much as before until 1965 when she gave birth to a boy who would be her only son and was otherwise only remarkable for his striking resemblance to me.
In any case, I spent the next seven or eight years growing up in a modest apartment behind which there was a small expanse of pavement on which my cohorts and I were allowed run around, ride Big Wheels and chase each other as children will. There was actually a large park not too far away when we needed more than the pavement could offer us, and yet it was just far enough that getting there by myself wasnt an option.
In short, by the early seventies the days when I was an infant and then a toddler easily kept within the safety of arms reach were long gone; indeed, I had since grown into an age at which I simply needed more safe, clean space in which to run, chase and grow than the city would ever be able to provide. My parents had a decision to make.
~ ~ ~
It's actually been a long time since I thought much about my early childhood, but it all came rushing back after reading a recent MetroDad post which notes that a growing number of blogging parents are expressing qualms about raising children under similar urban pressures. Not only did reading about these issues strike a chord with me, but my guess is that the reservations expressed by this first generation of blogging parents will only increase in frequency and intensity as their infants and toddlers grow into older children who need ever more autonomy and independence just as I did.
Now to be fair, it must be much easier to raise a child in the city today than when I was that age. After all, anyone my age or older can tell you that the decaying New York of the early seventies seemed as if it was collapsing into ungovernable chaos. Whole neighborhoods were crumbling and the sidewalks were simultaneously home to mountains of garbage abandoned by the city and to the homeless who had been abandoned by society after the mass de-institutionalizations of the Sixties. Moreover, the once noble dream of public housing was turning into a nightmare of drug-fueled anarchy, and entire blocks of the South Bronx were simply allowed to burn to the ground.
Oh, cheer up, Evan. As MetroDad points out there are a great many advantages to hanging your familial hat in the heart of the greatest city in the world these days; there is certainly nowhere else with the same energy, density and diversity of people, restaurants, clubs, theatre, and museums. Heck, New York is the greatest comeback kid in history.
But still... as I watch my boys running free with their friends through the back yards in our little corner of suburbia I am reminded that I owe my parents great debt of gratitude for making that same choice for me.
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