Enough

Lately, I feel like my demographic has been getting it in the teeth.  First, there's the general unease about mommy bloggers, that we're somehow whoring out our families if we write about them publicly and (God forbid) make money from that writing. 

Second, there's the latest and greatest attack on my neighborhood, which apparently everybody hates  (the neighborhood is so hateful that the demand for apartments outstrips supply, but hey, let's not quibble over details).  As the author of this article acknowledges, "[n]o consideration of Park Slope is complete without a discussion of stroller semiotics, of the stroller as synecdoche for the perceived evils of the neighborhood and indulgent urban child rearing in general."*  She goes further to say "[t]hat’s why our feelings about Park Slope are linked to our feelings about our entire city: our overpriced, chain-store city run by bankers, socialites and, it seems, mommies."  And that's when I had to laugh out loud because, yes of course, it's the mommies who are running the city. Of course we are. 

It seems to me that the criticisms lobbed at mommy bloggers and stroller-piloting Slopers are just  plain old   sexism dressed up to look like something else.  Mommies, apparently, are still supposed to pack up our broods and disappear into the suburbs, where we only communicate with one another in furtive whisperings at school drop-offs or the playground (and, then of course, we catch shit for our disconnectedness from the Real World).

People get mad at mommies because we're a paradox.  We have hard and often thankless jobs--whether we stay at home, work at home, or work out of the home--and we do them anyway.  We complain about the beasties (we call them beasties!) when they aren't sleeping or eating or refraining from hitting their little sisters, but we love them anyway.   It's not glamorous, it's not sexy, it's not what we went to graduate school for, but we do it. 

Now, I need to get back to running the city. This afternoon I'm going to see what I can do to make the subway even less stroller accessible.

*Because I had to look it up: synecdoche is a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (as fifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (as society for high society), the species for the genus (as cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (as boards for stage) 

Comments

[Sarah]

What about quality without a qualifer? Is that a synecdoche? That one drives me nuts. I feel ya. My hometown is also a cliche, one that hasn't been true for decades.

[Liz Miller]

As a mommy blogger who was raised in Park Slope, and now lives in a suburb, I gotta say I'd much rather be in Park Slope. What a great neighborhood to raise a kid in! The park right up the hill, the playgrounds all over the place, the great little shops, the total lack of need for a car.

Sigh.

[caramama]

I am in total agreement. Thank you for saying it. It's just another form of sexism, one that is getting really old really quick.

[Abby]

I was so surprised to see the uproar about mommy blogging. It's such a broad term, too. I mean how do you define it? If you're a mom and you write about your life - even if you work outside the home, too - you're a mommy blogger.

Like most things, sexism included in my opinion, it boils down to jealousy. My mantra, as with all things in life, is ignore it. Ignore all the blubbering! We have too much to do to worry about it, anyway.

[Brooklyn Mama]

Sigh. I have really mixed feelings about Park Slope, having worked and/or lived there for fifteen years now. It HAS changed in the last five years - a LOT. It seems now to be a hub for both parents (increasingly really really wealthy parents) and also self absorbed really really wealthy single people (let's call them pre-parents!) who are down on the parents. Oh, I don't know. I like aspects of Park Slope very much, but I haven't been able to afford to live there for years now. And now that I'm out of there, I sort of see what the detractors are saying. But yes, I agree with you, it's not the mommies. Blaming moms is sort of missing the point.

[kathleen999]

Hear hear! As a mom of twins who moved from Queens (with NO elevators for the subway system) to Washington Heights (several elevators in our neighborhood) I can sympathize. I was trapped in my neighborhood for the first 3 years of my boys' lives. Taking them into the city meant I had to rely on the LIRR or my husband had to drag the stroller up and down the stairs. It was too heavy for me.

But now I have to deal with the glares from subway riders as I get on an A train with my double stroller, often after waiting for several trains until one comes that I can FIT onto. Can you believe that people are actually angry that I am on a train? They don't seem to mind the single strollers, but I have some nerve, having twins! Apparently my children don't deserve to go anywhere. I am so looking forward to the day when I can ditch the stroller...but before I can do taht, my boys first have to stop running away from me in opposite directions.

And you know what I have noticed in this city? Moms and grandmas, dads and grandpas smile at us as we pass. Single people are pissed off that I am taking up part of the sidewalk, although I try my best to yield to anyone and everyone. People actually run to get in front of me, then stop dead in their tracks as though I can stop on a dime. Then they are angry that they get bumped by a stroller.

This is a very kid-unfriendly place. My friends who have lived here for 25 years or more tell me that you never used to see any children in Manhattan at all. That seems very strange to me...where did the young Manhattan dwellers come from if there were no children in the city?

The topper for me was when a single, over-childbearing-age co-worker told me that she finds that moms give her looks that she interprets as, "I have a child and YOU DON'T!" Somehow implying that they are better. Doesn't that sound a little far-fetched and neurotic to you? Like a mom has any time or emotional energy to feel superior to single people? Usually moms are just trying to function and not look like they are falling apart on the outside, even if they are on the inside.

Thanks for letting me vent. I also don't want to live in the suburbs but would love to live in Park Slope. But can't afford it.

[Sara]

haha! Loved this post . . . Park Slope sounds absolutely lovely.

[swissmiss]

I guess I really am lucky living here - there are special sections in the buses and trams for strollers, and on any given day a total stranger offers to help me get my stroller onto the bus. People hold my older one's hand and help him step off the bus while I deal with the younger one and the stroller.

I do have my diatribe ready for the first person to suggest my child shouldn't be taking up public space, however. Unfortunately it's in English and will probably fall on deaf Swiss ears. So far I haven't needed it.

And your neighborhood sounds great - there was a time when my husband was angling for a UN job and we probably would have landed in Park Slope, long commute notwithstanding.

[anon]

I was a (poor!) single person living in Park Slope in the 90's, as it was gentrifying, and I *loved* how family-friendly the neighborhood was. It was like - everything that was missing from Manhattan. I'm sad that it seems to be getting taken over by the ultra-rich and ultra-hip. I also agree that "mommies" in general have NOTHING to do with Park Slope's changes. MONEY has everything to do with that.

Swissmiss, I so wish I could live in Switzerland. My husband is Greek and we often connect through Zurich when we go to Greece, with a long layover. The Zurich airport is a freaking DREAM for traveling with small children. There is a beautiful, big playroom filled with wooden toys, with comfy chairs for the parents and equipment to prepare food, and a nap room with cribs off the side...free, just there to spend all day in. There are little mini-playgrounds near the gates. There is a large outdoor playground complete with trampoline center. If everyone were as "child-centered" as the Swiss apparently are, we'd be a better world.

[AmyinMotown]

I was wondering what you thought of that article. Because based on your blog at least, you seem like someone who would be awfully fun and normal to have around and not one of those wound too tight moneyed hipster parents.

(and I am awfully glad you also had too look up synedoche. I pride myself on my vocabulary and no idea whatsoever what it meant. Very show-offy on the part of the Times writer, methinks).

[Maureen]

I am sooo glad you wrote about that article. As a former sloper, who lived there in the early '90's before moving to the Terrace and finally out West...I found the Time's article awful snarky and sexist! I am sooooo tired of the same old same old Mommy Wars! Geez, couldn't she dredge up something new!?! And her show-off vocab?--my kid attends a hoity-toity Latin-learnin' school and even she would have to look it up! I miss the Slope--and would love to hang at at the playground with you, the boy, and the girl!

[michelle]

wow! where is all the mom hate coming from? i don't get it. i mean, come on people, it's freakin' nyc, why hate on moms with strollers??? what's indulgent about having kids and living in park slope? this all strikes me as so absurd...why should people care if moms/kids are in park slope, or any other nabe for that matter?! i am speechless.