The New York Times
Friday, March 23rd, 2007
pg A19
The Story
The Summary: What was once thought to be a place only suitable for people with out children, Manhattan is becoming quite the family place, mostly because of rich white people.
Manhattan, which once epitomized the glamorous and largely childless locale for “Sex and the City,” has begun to look more like the set for a decidedly upscale and even more vanilla version of 1960s suburbia in “The Wonder Years.”
Since 2000, according to census figures released last year, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan mushroomed by more than 32 percent. And though their ranks have been growing for several years, a new analysis for The New York Times makes clear for the first time who has been driving that growth: wealthy white families.
We have to face it, it's become fashionable to have children again. Everyone in Hollywood is doing it. A baby was once a killer for a career, now, it's just another person to love and accessorize. A combination of all the modern conveniences and the societal embrace of the working mother has made it more than acceptable for rich people to keep their lifestyles and have children.
Fashion has embraced children as well. A mother can buy a $750 diaper bag that's just as stylish as her purse (and matches quite well). Her son can wear the same pants as her husband (in his sizem, of course).
What those findings imply, demographers say, is not only that the socioeconomic gap between Manhattan and the other boroughs is widening, but also that the population of Manhattan, in some ways, is beginning to look more like the suburbs — or what they used to look like — than like the rest of the city.
This scares me. I grew up in the country, fantasizing about Manhattan. When I finally get there, I don't want it to be over run by toddlers in trendy overalls. I want the city from Sex and the City, I don't want day-care and playdates to out run bars and hot hook-ups.
Compared with those in the rest of the city, the youngest children in Manhattan are more likely to be raised by married couples who are well off, more highly educated, in their 30s and native born.
“This differs from the rest of New York City and the suburbs, where small kids are present among a more diverse array of economic and demographic groups — single-parent families, renters, those in their early 20s with low to middle income,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.
Educated, career-driven people wait to have children. There's nothing surprising about that. There are people who are content to get married and have children and make that their life. Then there are people who want a good life, and wait to bring children into that life. I don't quite understand the people who choose the first option.
But Fred Siegel, a history professor at Cooper Union, said a growing population of upper-middle-class residents was an asset. “How different it makes Manhattan from other cities,” Mr. Siegel said.
Kenneth T. Jackson, a Columbia University historian, said: “Imagine the reverse — that nobody with money wants to live here, and then you have Detroit. I don’t see how anybody benefits in that circumstance.”
Professor Siegel said that until now, at least the cost of private school and the demand for space prompted many parents to move when their children got older.
Sub-urban life was supposed to be better, wasn't it?
Urban children grew up to be in gangs or druggies or something, didn't they?
Aparently, urban children in the largest city in the country go to private schools and drink $5 coffees with their parents on their way to school.
Mr. Osborne, 44, an expert on the Russian economy for a firm of financial advisors said: “If both parents are working, it actually becomes logistically difficult to live in the suburbs. If you’re 90 minutes away, we just don’t like that feeling.
“Even if we were disposed to — for the usual space, quality of life reasons — to go to suburbs, we would have to consider the practical difficulty.”
This is a wonderful example of how people are giving up less to have children, and said children are benefiting. Their parents have a 20 minute walk to work in the morning, rather than an hour and a half train ride. They get to experience the city. I love "the city" any city... growing up on a farm in the middle of no where, nothing was in walking distance, we had to drive everywhere. There was nothing to see except for fields and other houses for miles.
I'm not saying one is better or worse, but I have a feeling I missed out on something with that lifestyle, that I'm never going to have what I could have if I lived somewhere bigger.
While the number of children of all races between ages 5 to 9 in Manhattan has declined slightly since 2000, the number of white children of that age grew by nearly 40 percent.
David Bernard, 42, and Joanna Bers, 38, run a management and marketing consulting business and live with their 17-month-old twin sons on Fifth Avenue. Both grew up in suburbia.
“I like the idea of raising them in the city because they’re prepared for pretty much anything,” Mr. Bernard said. “The city challenges you; it prepares you for life.”
This whole article reminds me of an particular episode of Sex and the City that, among other things, sums up a lot of my feelings about love, marriage, and children. It's titled "A Woman's Right to Shoes." Carrie attends a baby shower, and is forced to remove her $485 brand-new Manolo Blahniks because her friends don't want stuff tracked into their apartment. When she returns to her shoes, she finds them missing. Her friend sends her home with a pair of ratty tennis shoes, saying she's sure Carrie's shoes will turn up. When Carrie returns the forementioned tennis shoes and confronts her friend about the shoes, the friend offers to pay for them, but refuses to give Carrie the full amount, saying that she "has a real life" and shouldn't have to pay for Carrie's "extravegant lifestyle."
Apparently, being single and have fabulous shoes (among other things) isn't a real life. This story means that there are less Carries, and more mommies. I'd rather be a Carrie.
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