NYC Moms

A Sail Around the World

Seconds after my daughter was born I held her in my arms and made promises to her.  I would always love her, and protect her and look out for her and foster her dreams so that she could have a full life, guided by her passions.  It may have been the anesthesia talking.  I know that I will encourage her dreams, foster her spirit and support her aspirations only if they do not include solo trips around the world in a boat.  Because the hours last Thursday that Abby Sunderland was missing, the time that the news media was reporting that she was not in contact with anyone and presumed in trouble, I came close to developing an ulcer.

Alone on the Subway

A few years ago, a mom let her nine year old son ride the NYC subway alone.  She was praised and criticized.  I was in the critical camp, with a heavy helping of "no-way-would-I-ever-let-my-kid-do-that-but-who-am-I-to-judge-your-choices?"  Because although I ride the NYC subways every day myself, they're sort of terrifying. 

Even leaving aside all the fears that parents harbor about their children, the subways are scary.  Commuters press up against you. Some because they are sardined and others because they are perverts.  The chances that someone actively insane will be in your subway car are high. There are service outages, delays and trains are rerouted.  It takes seasoning to ride them with confidence.  And it should not be undertaken by anyone who would need a guardian to see a PG-13 movie.

A Rose Bought By Another Mom Smells Just as Sweet

For me, Mother's Day is a non-event. I'm not big on cards, or hugs and kisses that are calendar-driven.  I don't need chocolate and I get pedicures and massages throughout the year.  But today, my son came home from an early morning baseball game with a rose for me and it touched me.  Because one of the other players' mother bought roses for the children to give to their mothers.  And in the age where mothers are busy tearing down each other's choices, whether it's breastfeeding vs. formula, stay at home vs. working out of the home, or whatever the rage du jour is, this was awesome.  

Thinking the Unthinkable

I try not to think about it and most days I succeed.  I was in NYC on 9/11.  I watched from my bedroom window the Twin Towers fall.  I remember the minutiae of that day, I remember the silence and the sounds and most of all the smell.  I remember the empty streets and the crowded subways and I remember thinking that I want to leave New York City and rear my children elsewhere.

Because I know that living in NYC is a risk.  We all know it, and we talk about it sometimes at dinner parties, prompted by liquid courage.  What option do we have, we ask?  Hey, it's only terrorism, we joke, when someone suggests moving out of the city.  We hope a lot and we try not to think about it. Because thinking about the unthinkable is paralyzing.  And who needs that?

On Saturday, May 1st, on one of the first night that felt like summer in NYC, police evacuated a portion of Times Square because of a suspected car bomb left in a Pathfinder.  The evacuation lasted hours, while the police investigated and found explosive materials--gunpowder, gasoline and a clock attached to wires.  The local media reported from the scene, my Twitter stream lit up with retweets of the news and non-NYC friends wishing us safety and I was left, once again, thinking about the unthinkable.

St. Vincent's Hospital: A Love Story

St. Vincent's Hospital in NYC's Greenwich Village is closing.  It's bad for New York City and the loss of jobs is devastating, but I feel a personal connection to St. Vincent's that spans my life in NYC.  Although I live a few blocks away from the hospital now, in the late 1980s I lived a few miles away on the Upper East Side.  It was then that I became involved with a rape crisis center that was run out of St. Vincent's.  Staffed by volunteers, we took turns being on call every evening.  If a rape victim was brought in, a nurse would call us and we'd meet the woman (it was always a woman) in the hospital.

Our job was to be there for her. To answer questions, to get water, to be supportive, whatever was asked of us and we could reasonably deliver.  I'd spent many nights at St. Vincent's before I bailed.  I'm ashamed to admit that it was just too exhausting, that the toll it took on my was too great, that to this day, over two decades later, I still think about some of the women that I met. Besides, I was in my early 20s in New York City.  There was only so many good deeds I could commit to before I answered the call of the City.

Thou Shall Play Sports!

There are things that I will not negotiate with my kids about.  They have to do their chores.  They have to be polite and they must, absolutely must participate in two sports each season.  They get to choose which sports, but fortunately, they have steered clear of golf and polo.

At 11 and 8 years old, it is so ingrained in them, that they don't even think of it as my requirement, any more than they consider brushing their teeth to be a rule unique to our family, they just do it.  Nike would be proud.

Right now, in early spring, both kids are involved in tennis and karate and baseball.  My son also plays soccer.  They don't protest it, they don't question it.  Some of my friends do, though.

Why, they ask, why have I singled out sports to be more important than others laudatory commitments? Like learning a foreign language or taking an art class or being involved in volunteer work?

Oh, Sandy

I've had it with all the Oscar-curse talk.  A woman wins the most coveted award for Best Actress and her marriage falls apart.  The implication of the curse is that there is a connection between the two, perhaps even a causal relationship. The victims of this curse so far are  Halle Berry, Gwynneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Kate Winslet and Sandra Bullock.  Hillary Swank, too, although apparently it took two Oscars for the curse to rear its head.  I am also unclear why Jennifer Anniston isn't using Oscars as paperweights at this point.  It's enough to make me glad that I'm not talented.

Have a Dog? Feeling Lazy? Win-Win!

When my parents' dog died last year, they mourned him.  My mother told me about the hole that she felt in her life, the void.  She missed everything about him, and she missed the routine that they'd established of taking long walks in the park.

"It was my exercise," she told me.  She felt sluggish without it.

This weekend, I headed out to Central Park for a power walk with a friend.  The winter pounds had settled on me and it was time to go our separate ways.  There were people walking their dogs by the Great Lawn in Central Park.  After college, I lived on the Upper East Side, and every morning I took my dog to the Great Lawn.  She ran around and I talked to the other dog owners, without knowing most of their names or where they went after we parted at 7:30 a.m.

Not in My Backyard

Now that it has been determined that the terror trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will not be held in NYC, I've been asking myself if I'm relieved or disturbed.

Let me explain.  I live in New York City, one express subway stop away from where the trial had been scheduled to take place.  I took the news that the trial would be scheduled there in stride.  Other terrorists have been tried and convicted in that Courthouse. There has always been tremendous police presence in the area, escalated, of course, after September 11th.

To Tip or Not?

 The other morning, a holiday card accompanied my home delivered New York Times.  "Happy Holidays!" it read.  The envelope that it came in was pre-addressed, but not to me.  No, it was pre-addressed to the person that I can only assume  delivers the newspaper to us every morning.  For a holiday tip.  Come on, everyone's doing it.

I'd never actually seen this person, so I was surprised that the envelope bore a woman's name.  I assumed that it was a man.  Every once in a while, I will wake in the middle of the night, stumble into the living room at 4, pet the cat, check my email and look out the window.  I've lived in New York City for over thirty years and yet I am still surprised that I see people strolling down the street in the middle of the night.  And while I am in this no man's zone, I will sometimes hear the elevator door open on our floor and then the newspaper thudding right outside our  door.