Asymmetrical Information

Parenting in both the suburb and the city has changed, and not for the better, since we were kids. Before I was 10,in the summer, I used to roam the neighborhood for hours without my mother knowing my whereabouts. I'd walk a mile or two to a local store to buy a rubber band powered airplane (remember those?) or a comic book and then while a way the day with my friends. From breakfast to supper, my mom didn't know where I was and didn't care -- as long as I got my chores done. My wife had similar experiences -- riding her horse for hours on end in no particular direction.

Have we given our own kids similar freedoms? Not a chance! If they walked to a store, we walked along with them. If they wanted to ride a bike to a friend's house, we made sure the friend's parents were home -- and if our child did not call to say she arrived safely we went out looking for her. Would I allow my child to ride the subway to go to a museum with a group of friends? Sure, but she would have a cell phone and she'd have to call me when she got to the museum. Let her roam the city alone with no particular place to go? Not a chance.

None of this means the city is not a good place to raise kids. It just means things have changed and our experiance as kids is not a good predictor was to what we would do as parents.

Things may have changed, and they may have not, but I'm not sure all suburbs are created equal. I grew up next to a vacant lot in South Florida. Over the years that lot was a soccer field, a baseball diamond, a runway for launching kites, a place for building forts and treehouses, a motocross paradise, and a hundred other things whenever we wanted. Behind the lot was a canal, and countless were the adventures we had fishing, crabbing, paddling, and motoring on it. Down the street was another empty lot, without a seawall. We played in the trees down next to the bank, until we discovered that alligators sometimes came there as well, then we dared each other to go back. In my back yard we dug holes or built hideouts behind the woodpile, caught insects in jars, and hunted land crabs by night. Two banyan trees on our property provided a wealth of climbing opportunties, even after another kid on our block fell out and broke two wrists. (Luckily law suits were fewer in those days.) We shot BB guns everywhere, rollerskated our streets, rode motorbikes in nearby road construction sites, had swordfights with bamboo canes harvested down by the water.

Maybe the city has equal rewards. My father grew up in Queens and remembers it fondly. And I've moved to the City because for an adult, it can't be beat. But there are so many things you'll only do when you're a kid. Maybe such opportunities exist in the city as well, but unless I get convinced of that through tales of concrete experience, I'll try to raise my kids somewhere not too rural, not too urban _or_ suburban, kind of like where I grew up. They'll have plenty of time to shop and go to restaurants, museums, or wherever else when they get older.

The thing that scares me about cities, NYC and DC in particular, is that I'm fairly sure a North Korean / Iranian / Rogue Pakistani / Unaccounted-for USSR Nuke is going to wipe out a few square miles of one or a couple of the major cities.

I think a lot more depends on who your parents are than where you live--or, the match or mismatch between your parents (and what they like to do, and what they want you to do) and where you live.

I grew up all over. Half a year in a place so rural it was a 5 mile walk to the nearest store (and I helped the neighbor up the hill with feeding the barnyard animals), half a year each in various suburbs in different cities in different states, a year in an urban neighborhood, another half a year in a very urban ghetto. In each place there were different things we were allowed to do out of what was available. Mom always made whatever there was sound like fun, and taught us how to enjoy it--even the place where we never left the building without an adult because the neighborhood was too dangerous. (We played lots of vigorous inside games--she kept one bedroom as a playroom.)

Education was up to us, as much as we wanted. Public school was only part of what was available. There were always lots of books at home, and libraries almost everywhere.

I've raised my kids in an old trolley neighborhood. It's urban (2 miles from downtown), with street trees and sidewalks and parks and retail and light industrial and schools all mixed together. There are old apartment buildings from the 1920s and small to medium-sized houses from earlier and later, and some infill (mostly rowhouse townhomes). They've had the kind of freedom I had, for the most part: learning to ride the bus or bike all over, how to stay safe and how to respond to unsafe situations.

I grew up in an inner-ring suburb that was still new enough (dating mayself) to have huge swaths of undeveloped woodlands, which we would disappear into for hours on end, when we were as young as six or seven years old. The biggest change in childhood today, for many kids, no matter the setting, is the disappearance of completely unstructured, completely unsupervised, play. I'm not smart enough to know what the impact of this change is, but it is a shift in patterns.

Then we will all go together when we go...

Still, I think NYC is a great place to bring up kids. My first is still but a baby, but we still take her right out our front door to walk around the little yard in front (I'm in a co-op in Queens), and we get to talk to our neighbors all the time, unlike when I lived on a 1-acre lot in Raleigh. I've got a free pass to the Natural History Museum through work, and there's 2 playgrounds within walking distance.

As for schooling, we plan on homeschooling, but there's also a pretty good elementary school nearby as well as a Catholic school. I suppose I understand the "MY KIDS HAVE GOT TO GET INTO THE IVIES!!!" freaks, but I went to a state school, everyone I work with went to a state school, and we're all fine. People need to chill. You can get a decent education in this city. There's cultural resources galore, and lots of stuff is actually free (during the summer). Free opera in Central Park, free movies in Bryant Park -- I think it's great!

Then of course, I've never seen anyplace as multicultural as Queens. Great place to learn all sorts of languages. Anyway, I love NYC. If other people move out, maybe I could afford a house. That would be nice.

A trust fund solves quite a few problems. Though I suspect if you asked Paris Hilton's parents they might admit that it can cause a few.

Isn't this just the market at work? In some ways, the suburbs are better for kids. By and large, the schools are better. Big yards are a benefit in some ways to some kids - I think my son is better off playing on a playset in his own yard that I paid for and I maintain than he would be in a government-owned playground that the state maintains erratically, if at all. A bigger house has some advantages, too. We have some toys and do some activities at home that we simply couldn't do in an apartment. Street crime is almost nonexistent in my suburb. Of course, in some ways, the city is better. It has cultural advantages, like museums, that presumably are easier to access than my 30 minute drive downtown. You have interaction with neighbors that you don't have in the suburbs (whether that is a blessing or a curse is up to you). You have access to public boondoggles like mass transit systems. It's all in how you weigh these alternatives, and it's equally dumb to say "the suburbs are better for kids" as "the city is best for kids." There's good and bad in both. I won't accuse you of child abuse for raising your kids in the city if you won't accuse me of placing my desires above those of my kids.

Having grown up in New York City, this kind of talk always pisses me off. . . . I didn't grow up doing any of that stuff, and I think I turned out fine.

Coming from Yglesias, this is too easy.

Since I grew up with Meg...I have to agree with her. I think it is harder when you're little in the city. We had the advantage of a family-friendly building with indoor play spaces in the winter, I know most kids in NYC didn't have that.

But when I became a teenager the amazing amount of freedom I enjoyed could not be compaired to my peers in the suburbs. And when I got to college I was constantly amazed at how sheltered and how unaware my suburban counterparts were of the world around them.

I have never, for a moment, regretted growing up in the center of the Universe. I look forward to raising my own children here.

Kate made an interesting comment about the indoor play areas being especially nice in the winter. City vs. suburb is one debate. Warm climate year round vs. winter climate is another. I grew up mostly in the SF Bay Area, which was a good compromise for cold winters in my book. I've since moved to SoCal and really appreciate the warmer winters! Visiting cold places, like for skiing or playing in the snow is fun, but it would really stink to wake up in the cold for several months at a time! I hold out hope that Baja will be our 51st state when I have kids and they are groing up! Haha.

"I also grew up in the city, and also have some treasured memories that my suburban friends don't have . . . like being able to go more than two feet from my house without finding someone to drive me."

There is a third option you did not consider. I leave it to you as a mental exercise to figure out what it is.

When I was a kid we lived in the 'burbs and I too could roam hither, thither and yon without my mom knowing anything about my whereabouts or my doings and it was GREAT! After having spend most of the past 20 years living in cities (10 of those in Manhattan) and now living in one of the most suburban places I can think of (suburbs of Albuquerque, NM) I have to say the world has changed DRASTICALLY for kids. This would be the perfect place for a kid to live the life I had when I was young, but it is not the case. Yes a few kids play in their yards from time to time, but for the most part their lives are organized around "play-dates", soccer and other extra-curricular activities all of which are supervised. YUK!

I think the media attention on the relatively few nasty things that happen to kids someplace across the country had poisoned all of us to be over-protective. It no longer makes much of a diff if a kid lives in the city or the suburbs anymore. Either way they spend much more time indoors, much more time in front of a screen of some sort, and much less time free.

I am raising 2 boys (3.5 yrs. and an infant) on the Upper West Side. The playgrounds in Riverside Park are awesome. The older one got into a great pre-school on 114th st. (in a school that goes to 8th grade) with no problem and no fretting. He is so used to being with other kids and has been since a very early age. The nanny can take the kids anywhere (tons of great programs for kids in NYC!) without needing a drivers' license and I can be home for them in 15 minutes if need be. I grew up in Darien, CT. Not only could I nor most hard-working non-investment bankers not afford that these days, but judging from the tedious life my friends who are still there are living, wouldn't want to. Now if I could only win the lottery and wipe out the terrorist threat, we'd be all set...

I was raised in the Boston burbs (Newton), had my two kids on the Upper West Side and now live in a Fairfield County, so I think I have a pretty good perspective on this.

Judy is absolutely right about raising little kids on the Upper West Side. It's easy, it's fun, it's a blast. The only problem is you need an income in the high six figures to send a couple of kids to a decent private school, and carry the mortgage on a reasonably large apartment.

Jane is also right about the freedom that young teenagers have in NYC. My kids (12 and 14) need to be driven everywhere because there are no sidewalks in my town. But that's not the case in all suburbs. In the town in which I grew up (Newton, Mass.), I was able to get myself all around the neighborhood to visit friends or to play ball at the local school or go splash in the local creek from a very young age (6), and by the time I was 12, I could walk or ride my bike the 3 miles to the T and take the train to the Boston Public Library or the Boston Science Museum. That is not an option for young teenagers out here in Fairfield County where sidewalks are scarce, the roads are narrow and twisty with crazy drivers, and the houses are far apart.

I grew up in Montclair NJ in the 60' and 70's. I thought it was heaven. Great tree lined streets, playgrounds, football rivalries (us on Willowdale Court against them on Franklin Street). Easy access to NYC via Decamp buses. Cost was relatively low to live there (then) and the schools were pretty good. I can only talk from my perspective and I loved my childhood. I was outside until I was exhausted from playing.

I recall my childhood like many other posts: suburban, where all the kids were free to roam the streets, play in the nearby creek catching snakes or turtles, play basketball in neighbor's driveways, and play all day until one was too tired. I've grown up in an atmosphere where there was space, calm, and freedom from the public. To add to that was the fact that suburbs are not always as 'white bread' as we tend to imagine them. I lived for six years in a predominantly black neighborhood (I'm white)yet it was nice since they were all middle class families or higher. Now I live in downtown Chicago, but the initial romance of city life has worn itself thin and I'm ready to go back to a suburban lifestyle. Maybe it's because I yearn to be left alone as I was as a kid...

"City"--that is code for New York City apparently. Are the amentities and transportation as good in other cities? I work in Cleveland though I live in a suburb. Cleveland has a decent light rail system going to a few select suburbs. It has a few musuems which are mainly in one are with liiile housin around it.

Good point regarding what "the city" really means. So far it has been referred to as very old and established cities like New York, Boston, and San Francisco. However, I've lived in Dallas, Austin, Houston and Denver and most people there within city limits or minutes from downtown live in 'suburban' like environments. In these newer sun-belt cities, urban lifestyles tends to refer to new lofts and high-rises, designed for households without children. Yet the residents of these new lofts are not really any better off in enjoying the amenities of the city as suburbanites. The whole New York lifestyle is almost completely alien to me.

"And unlike when Matt and I were in school, the process of even getting into one of those schools has gotten ludicrous: the parents I know are scrambling to get their kids into a few preschools that are roughly as competitive as the Ivy League, which in turn are feeders for good prep schools, which are good feeders for the Ivy League . . . a friend of a friend was asked at the interview for one such school, in re her two year old, "What are her aspirations?"

No frigging kidding. Our kid was a week out of the NICU when our realtor called us to advise that we should get his name down for XYZ preschool, which feeds into ZYX kintergarten..etc.

Pardon? The kid was still in minus numbers by gestation age: we were still figuring out how to breastfeed the little dude.

Plus, we can't afford private tuition even if we could get in. So we'll take that lovely home equity in our San Francisco house and cash it into finding a house in the SF East Bay in a decent school district. Or maybe I'll send him back to Ireland be educated in a Catholic school like I was. That'll serve him right.

This topic has really stuck in my craw for the last 24 hours. I feel like I need to add something. I feel that Meg and I had the ideal situation. We grew up in a tiny town in the middle of Manhattan.

I keep reading about kids having open spaces to play in, or being whooshed outside to play at the neighbors. We had that. There was (is) a roof garden, there was (is) a large playroom. We used to run races in the lobby or shoot water guns outside the building in the summer, while being overseen by the doorman.

We'd go to Meg's apartment for lunch and fool around in her kitchen, then go next door to someone elses apartment and play with their stuff. Then we'd all go over to my apartment and play there for a while. Trick or Treating was a joy...we never had to put on a coat.

The building had (has) an annual Holiday party and an annual roof-garden party. We'd walk neighbor's dogs when we were younger and baby-sit for the new people when we became teenages (I easily cleared $50-$75 a weekend when I was a teenager...ah 1980s style yuppies....).

The kids you went to school with were all in the neighborhood...and when I say that I mean within 4 blocks of where you lived. There was a large park (not Central) two blocks away and it had playgrounds in it...one four blocks away and one three. By the time I was 8 I went there myself. My Brother had explored Manhattan tip to tail by himself by the time he was 12.

What's interesting is people say, "Oh, but you didn't know it when it was scuzy!" Are you kidding? When we moved in, there were postitutes on the corner and people selling drugs. I remember when I, at the age of six, would walk to school with my eight year-old brother, alone, we literally had to step over homeless people. They were part of the scenery, part of the color.

My parents bought their three bedroom apartment for a song, and partly stayed in the city because it was significantly cheaper then buying a house in the 'burbs.

My point is (and I'm pretty sure I have one...) while I understand the benefits of a suburban lifestyle, I don't think anyone in any suburban town had a better place to grow up then we did. I only hope my kids are as lucky.

If you can't raise your kids in a Southern California suburban beach town - they have been seriously deprived. Many kids that grow up in the city become neurotic or manic-depressive.

It would certainly help if you could go back in time and raise them in California sometime prior to 1990. The window of opportunity has pretty much evaporated. There really aren't too many beachtowns left that haven't been ruined by excessive development. Fewer still would qualify as suburban.

SoCal Beachfront home (circa 1964) $30,000
OP Beachwear, Waves, Thongs, etc. $100 per year
Surfboard (optional)
Coppertone Tanning lotion $10 per year
Ray-Ban sunglasses $5-$25
Going to school and smelling the salty sea air every day...Priceless

;-)

I grew up in (and am raising my kids in) Houston, which is a city that is basically all suburb. (I am sometimes annoyed at how New York is "the City" given how different other cities are.) I had to drive places, but I didn't mind. I had neighbors down the street, too, and a store down another street that I could walk to or ride my bike to. We had one park (big one with lots of old pine trees) within walking distance.

Personally, I'd love to live in the country but I'm not willing to give up the amenities that come with living in a "city". We'll figure out where to send our kids to school (moving to either reduce our house payments or get into a better public school if we need to).

Personally, I'm happy that my kids will grow up without having prostitutes hanging out their street or having to walk over homeless people to get to school. I'm not sure how those can be considered good things...

Bolie IV

Kids always need to know that they are safe--little kids anyway.

We just left the UWS for Bergen County--a small, old town with huge trees and sidewalks and great schools. My kids, 4 and 3, would ask me if there are bad guys in the City, and of course I had to tell them there were a few but I would protect them and they were not to worry about it.

Now I can tell them that and really feel like I'm not telling them more Tooth Fairy tales. Whatever happens here in the City is very unlikely to affect my children. They are out there, safe, and I am doing my job keeping them that way.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Bolie,

I did not mean to imply that they were good things. I meant to say that Meg and Matt Y. and I all think we had pretty great childhoods. Someone responded that the only reason we thought that was because we didn't remember NYC when it was scuzy. My response was just that we thought our lives were pretty idealic despite the scuziness, which was in full flourish in our little corner of Manhattan until the mid-1980s.

At the time I didn't know that the prostitutes were, in fact, prostitutes. They were just ladies who spent an awful lot of time hanging out on the corner flirting with guys. As for homeless people, I think it's generally a good thing that kids know homelessness exists. I had some cousins visiting me in NYC. They're from suburban Washington, D.C. (by the way, Mom was a Trade Commissioner under Reagan and Bush...So see Meg, there is the active conservative branch of my family). We passed by some homeless people bedding down for the night (in mid-town) and the kids asked me why they were "allowed" to sleep there. As their mother is very conservative and I didn't want to piss her off by spouting liberal doctrine at her kids we instead got into a really interesting discussion on the U.S. constitution and the right to congrigate freely.

The kids had never thought about it before. They never had to. They lived in the 'burbs where they never have to think about icky things like homelessness. I don't want to shelter my kids, I want the to have a firm grasp of the world so they can realisticly deal with it. That's a good thing. I know all of my NYC friends have a very firm grasp of reality. I also know that many of my friends who grew up in the 'burbs get very frustrated about the way things "should" be. I have never heard a child of NYC every say, "I SHOULD be able to walk down a dark alley late at night whereing a short skirt without being attacked...therefore I will do it." The NYC child knows, that it would be nice if they could, and they certainly should, but reality dictates that they stay on a brightly lit busy street and maybe choose a skirt a little longer then the latest fashion says it should be. The child from the 'burbs often doesn't have this level of common sense. They've never been trained to have it.

I think a dose of reality is good for kids in the long-run.

"I think a dose of reality is good for kids in the long-run."

Perhaps so. For my part, my idealistic side believes the most important things to experience during childhood, wherever it takes place, are joy and freedom. But is getting ONLY those good if you are condemned to borderline depression for the rest of your life because you can't adjust to the constraints of reality? No doubt some other experiences need to come into the picture.

Of course, there are many aspects to reality and how you adjust to it. It's interesting to note that, out of the category of people who live places that they want to live (rather than following a job or a spouse) some people end up living close to where they grew up ("nesters") while others move to places very different ("migrators"). Migrators tend to be adamant that they could never stay where they started and feel much happier being someplace different, but they don't necessarily point to unpleasant childhoods as the reason. For many, the move is an act of seeking towards the positive rather than escape from the negative, though probably both factors are at least subconsciously at work. One might wonder - and I don't have an answer to this - whether this correlates to other aspects of personality, for example whether liberals (or, rather, non-conservatives) are found in greater proportions amongst migrants than nesters...

One of my kids is hitting golf balls in the back yard (he's 4) and the older one is shooting baskets in the driveway. They will ride their bikes to the neighborhood pool this summer (opens this weekend). They play in the creek in a neighbor's back yard and build tree forts.

The suburbs are better for kids on just about every issue: quality public schools, crime, pollution, congestion, peace and quiet, proximity to nature, and outdoor activities.

Do city kids sleep out in city parks at night? Can they hit golf balls in the park? Build tree forts? Ride bikes without parental supervision?

Pardon me for doubting, but the idea that kids are better off in a city apartment because the trip to a museum is shorter seems a little far-fetched. How many times a year does the average four year old living in Manhattan go to a museum?

I readily admit that city kids do things my kids don't. City kids get to see prostitutes and get to watch crazy people in drug or alcohol stupors urinate on the sidewalk. They get to see all the filth, garbage, and urban decay which give cities their "character".

I think we'll keep our home. It's less than two miles to the lake (do city kids water ski and boat after school?) and has a view of the mountains (half hour drive).

Just how much do those city kids love those trips to the museum?

I don't know about Meg Stan, but I would say we went to the Museum of Natural History about four to six times a year. The Metropolitan Museum of Art probably at least twice a year, My family had a subscription to the Ballet so I went there about six times a year. My Dad love musicals and Gilbert and Sullivan (which my mom does not) so I became his willing partner in crime. I went to the opera with him too (the story goes I begged to go to the opera when I was three and watched Madam Butterfly on PBS all the way through). I would guess I had some sort of New York Theater Experience once every few weeks. We would get the cheap seats at the New York State Theater (which was about the same price as a movie ticket). How often do your kids go to the ballet stan? Often enough to know how many fuertes there are in Act 3 of Swan Lake? (by the way, if I spelled that wrong I'm sorry. I didn't take French in High School).

I'm not saying there aren't some benefits to living in the 'burbs (or country), but I find it interesting that you refuse to acknowledge that there might be some benefits in growning up in the city. I played outside and climbed trees in Riverside Park and we had perhaps the best sleding hill I have ever seen anywhere.

You're right, I never slept in a tent in the backyard or went wallowing in a creek near my hosue, but I don't see my friends who live in places with land and trees letting their kids do that stuff alone anyway. To many fears about Polly Klaus and similar stories that happen to too many children. And I did go to summer camp with a whole bunch of kids from the 'burbs and we got to wallow in mud and sleep in tents there.

I'm sure your kids are very happy in the 'burbs, and I'm happy for you. But I think that's a choice you made and you give things up.

Crime? New York City is 147th most dangerous cities in the United States. Quality public schools? I want to some of the top public schools in the United States. Pollution? Due to wind patterns New York has less pollution then most suburbs. Congestion? Have you ever seen the traffic on suburban streets? Peace and quiet? I call it dull and unexciting. Proximity to nature, and outdoor activities? Between Central Park, Riverside Park, Morningside Park, Van Cortland Park, Prospect Park and all the other parks in between I had a bountiful amount of nature and could run around whenever I needed to. We went to the park every day, even in the winter. We had (and they're still there) the adventure playground and arts and craft playgrounds and the just regular playgrounds. We never had an excuse to be board.

So I'm glad your kids are happy playing golf in the backyard stan. I can think of nothing I would have liked less. And I would like to point out that there are an ample number of regulation sized basketball courts all around, just waiting for pick-up games among friends and neighbors. There are four across from the apartment I live in now. I can watch the games from my window. I think, as a place to raise your kids and to be raised as a kid, New York City beats just about everything else. I feel sorry that you and your kids will never know that. But you're happy and that's the important thing.

I had an almost idealic childhood, and the thought of raising my children in the suburbs makes me think of a slow, painful miserable death over 1,000 years. Have a great time in the 'burbs stan. I'm staying here.

"When we moved in, there were postitutes on the corner and people selling drugs. I remember when I, at the age of six, would walk to school with my eight year-old brother, alone, we literally had to step over homeless people....
I don't think anyone in any suburban town had a better place to grow up then we did. I only hope my kids are as lucky."

Jesus H. Christ... and you want your children to live in that kind of environment. My God.

Please David, have you been to NYC in the past, say, 15 years? That's what it was like in 1978. When I was 7. You know a long-long-time-ago. I dare you to find a prostitute in Manhattan. They can't afford the real estate.

Crime? New York City is (the) 147th most dangerous cit(y) in the United States.

Umm...source?

Well, there is this:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/28/ny.crime.stats/

Although that doesn't give the actual ranking.

And then there is this:

http://www.morganquitno.com/cit04pop.htm

But it doesn't have the actual rankings either.

And then there is this:

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/safest_cities/

San Jose beats us out.

And then there is this:

http://www.nyc.gov/portal/index.jsp?epi_menuItemID=c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0&epi_menuID=13ecbf46556241d3daf2f1c701c789a0&epi_baseMenuID=27579af732d48f86a62fa24601c789a0&pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2003b%2Fpr359-03.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1

(sorry about the link)

But it says we're 194 out of 210 cities, so obviously I got the number wrong.

There's crime everywhere. In New York, when you are being raped and stabbed, everyone just stands around gawking and masturbating, because, no offense, you are all fucking sociopaths. The upside: the kids end up with a high tolerance for the stench of urine.

The city is fine if you like that sort of thing. Knowing that NYC or LA will be the first to go in the first smuggled nuke just lowers property values for those thinking long-term.

I don't like snow. I'm not really into crowds. Operas, museums and such grow old and one needs much more to life to make it interesting. Living in a very rich (or very poor) neighborhoods can be stifling, making you somewhat of a prisoner. Seeing Lamborghini owners fight over parking spots with Rolls-Royces and having neighbors who make the yearly pilgrimmage to the Mercedes or Porsche dealership grows tiresome as well.

Houses and apartments furnished spartanly by designers to make small seem larger and miniscule seem small is not my cup of tea either.

It's an entirely different mindset. I think there are far more collectivists and liberals in the cities because they have already put themselves in a cage and live somewhat in a collectivist manner. Big SUV's become evil to someone who uses taxis, trains and subways for transportation and doesn't own a garage or have a place to park. Wide open spaces like the suburbs become vast wastelands and agoraphobia can set in for someone who has lived in a box. I find the city mindset micromanages their lives - just like they must micromanage their apartments and lofts to extract every ounce of space. One is surrounded by people - yet often this leads to a new type of "crowded loneliness" - a loneliness that is completely unfamiliar to suburb dwellers. In the city one must keep a persona of indifference as protection. Greeting everyone you meet would be unthinkable. Wearing a happy smile down the street would make you some sort of a freak. As a result one becomes closed off and only opens up to a select few.

Such regimentation often leads to neurosis. I am uncomfortable imposing such upon children. A child does not know what they are missing and they adapt to city life - and then the cycle repeats itself because children naturally emulate their parents (for better or for worse).

Europeans mostly live in cities and one sees the high level of European neurotics. It may be the water of course, but I tend to think it is part and parcel of the controlled living which imparts control-freak tendencies, an internal gripe factor and mandatory social climbing in the heart of the rat race. These built-in levels of stress often make for unhappy relationships and further stress-out kids.

I understand the draw, mind you, it's just as I get older the city becomes a ball and chain. Open spaces, beautiful sunsets and the beauty of nature seem to coincide better with my state of mind these days.

On the plus side, if one's lived among gangs and prostitutes, it can help to see that they are just as human as everyone else. Seeing hardship helps too. Find a family that live seven to two rooms and yet still manage to keep silent and you'll discover the discipline and heartache of the city. Being held at gunpoint can be exciting, and can be a fun story to tell your friends, but it's not something one wants to make a habit of. It helps if you check your preconceptions at the door - both in the city and the suburbs.

The bottom line? LOVE your kids! Spend time with them one on one. Don't hire nannies and proxy parents. LOVE is the most important ingredient to a happy childhood. Do this and it will be much harder for the city or the suburbs to mess them up or leave them wanting.

;-)

SDAI-Tech1

Kate,

So nice to see you take credit for Rudy Guliani's Republican approach to crime.

The fact that you think city parks qualify as being close to nature may indicate that you didn't see much nature growing up.

I notice that you didn't address my question about how often most city kids go to museums. You know full well that your interest in museums and theater as a child wasn't even close to typical -- not just for kids in the US, but for kids in NYC.

We are all thrilled that you were such an arts enthusiast. I'm sure both of you growing up in NY loved it. The rest of the millions of kids who hated opera missed out.

"Please David, have you been to NYC in the past, say, 15 years? That's what it was like in 1978. When I was 7."

Kids only having to dodge four schizophrenics and crack hoes on their way to school instead of four dozen is a difference in degree, not a difference in kind. Wanting your kids to grow up steeped in the products of a degenerate social environment is something to be lamented, not applauded. And who says those prostitutes can't take the subway to work?

David and stan, I have to assume that the two of you are being intentionally obtuse. Of course I take credit for Rudy stan, as I have often mentioned on this board, I did vote for the man twice. I think his first term was a crowning success and I have nothing but admiration for the man.

I don't know how many times "most" city kids go to museums and operas. I don't have the research ability to take an empirical poll on the subject. I suspect it's kind of like comparing how many suburban kids play outside in creeks and in the mud as opposed to staying inside watching TV and playing video games. Depends on the kid, depends on the parents and depends on the opportunity. The important thing is you have the ability to take advantage of whatever is in your surroundings.

I'd like you to point to one person who grew up in New York City who hated it. I've never met one. They may not have chosen to stay, they may have disliked aspects of it. But no one I know every left New York City saying, "damn, I'm never going back there. What a horrible horrible place." The point is, you can have a happy childhood regardless of your surroundings. The important thing is that you have enough to do, places to run around, things to challenge you and people who love you. I'm not saying the suburbs is bad, I just wouldn't want to raise MY kids there. I'm sure you feel the same way about NYC. Fine stan, we don't want people here who don't want to be here, the prices of apartments are expensive enough.

As for David, well, I don't even need to dignify that with more of a response than this, do I? But I will say that I personally think a "degenerate social environment" would be exposing my poor, unsuspecting child on someone as ignorant as you.

"But I will say that I personally think a "degenerate social environment" would be exposing my poor, unsuspecting child on someone as ignorant as you."

Yep, happiness in slavery.

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Several of the early reponses on this topic extolled the virtues of older, inner-ring suburbs as childhood environments. I second that, having grown up in such a place in Cleveland.

Jane pointed out that the needs of "children" change dramatically once they get to be 8, 9, 10 or so. The younger ones are mostly content to play in yards and have boundaries of a few houses. Indeed, they crave the security. Beyond that age, such restrictions become extremely boring, and kids have both the need and capability to explore.

Your typical inner-ring suburb is a good compromise for both age groups, IMO. Streets are connected to each other and not just to a 45-mph highway, stores are in proximity, often public transit is available. One example--my brother and I started getting our own haircuts at the barber when we were about 10--either by bike or bus. And yeah, we did a lot of stuff we didn't necessarily have permission for, but looking back it seems like such a free childhood (for both us and our parents) than what I see and hear about now.

What confounds me is seeing many, many people--including my friends and my sister--head with their young families to the outer suburbs, which from my point of view are fine for the toddlers but poison for older kids. And they're doing this for the kids! It's hard for me to imagine a more boring environment than a closed subdivision with one entrance onto a highway, yet this is a typical suburban model, and I think it does a disservice to older kids, making them more dependent than they need to be.

Why do they go there, other than the nebulous "for the kids"? I think it's schools, square footage and because everyone else is doing it. I'm not going to put down any of those considerations, but I think it's a shame that places like the one I grew up in are slowly declining because they are no longer first-choice for families with kids, while the new first-choice places rob both the kids and the parents of some necessary independence.

I grew up in too many different places. It left me without roots. But it did provide me with some interesting perspectives. I lived in the inner ring burbs of Cleveland in my teens. In so many ways, I couldn't have been in a better place. I had access to shopping, things to do, things to see. I moved there from a much smaller town out in the Midwest, the sort of place where as a kid you could ride across town alone to get your hair cut and leave your bike unlocked in front of the barber shop.

My wife and I were discussing this last night. We look around at our friends and neighbors. We didn't choose the burbs because they are homogeneous. We moved where we did to get good schools, and easy access to some of the things we want to provide for our kids. We moved away from the micromanaging that has already turned many city schools systems into expensive failures. We moved to places where it isn't surprising that every school play and concert is standing room only because all of the parents show up. We moved the places where instead of watching the local government interfere with your family, you get a community that invites you to join in what their doing.

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