New Yorker magazine alert thread

There's a hole in the wall where the boys can see it all. A kid told me.

Actually, not that I can vouch 100% for its accuracy, but I like to tell other parents about a Times article I read once about doing Paris with kids. I recall thinking, really, Paris, with kids? So I read this article, and one after the other it's like "there's this great museum, but it's not good for kids, but there is a park across the street ..." or "this restaurant is awesome, though not really kid friendly, but if you go for a snack right at 5pm ..."

Parenting is rife with these grass-is-greener scenarios. For example, they toilet train much fast in China. Why? Well, mainly because diapers are so expensive and, given the population, particularly wasteful there, so kids go without. Fine, except that means that little kids are literally shitting all over the place there. When a toddler has to go in China, they just drop le trou.

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/11/16/129029044300308878.jpg

that means "they just drop the hole"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication

Some of my friends practise this btw. But I have not hung around their kids enough to comment on its efficacy.

mommy wars come to the new yorker thread * sheds tear*

ha my sister just tried that with her kid and they gave up after one day of the kid pissing and shitting all over the house

S1ocki, le pedant

okay i lied i'll say a few things that the article didn't. let's just take the new yorker demo and leave the rest of the peasants out of this. first, people have kids when they are way older now than they did 20 years ago. older educated people do things differently than 20 year old parents, educated or not. they also, usually, work. a lot. they don't leave things to chance as much and the micromanaging of children is usally functional. when i was a kid i never saw my parents because my dad travelled and my mom worked. but i had an older brother and sister who could watch me and there were moms at home all day in our neighborhood. people, in general, had more kids and the age ranges were wider. that isn't true now. people, new yorker people, have one or two kids and if they have two kids they are close in age.

but i think the older parent thing is the key. parents, when they aren't working or the kids aren't in daycare/school, tend to spend more time with their kids and they ARE more paranoid and risk-adverse and they usually plan things out well in advance because of this, but also because they have to. people don't have time to mess around. people work too much to mess around. which is one reason why they don't leave things up to their kids or let them learn the joys of cleaning at an early age. so, there is good and bad with this. there is a closeness that maybe wasn't there in the past. maybe a too closeness. i go to birthday parties now and there are ten parents there drinking wine and talking. my parents never would have done this. they would have dropped me off and run. kids are watched much more closely. they are second-guessed constantly. parents i know speak for their kids constantly. i will ask a kid a question and the parent is right there to answer before the kid can get a word out. then there are the home-schooling people i know...

anyway, things are different! plus, we didn't have sex offender lists when i was a kid (older parents scare easier). but that's enough for now.

even without the new yorker demo, things are very different. in general, women are older when they have kids. and they are in general better educated. they work. less apt to be married. etc. you have to factor in all kinds of societal changes when you talk about a country's kids.

uh that was off the top of my head. so some of it might not make sense. plus i had to stop to sell some comic books.

even comic books have changed. they cost four dollars and they aren't for kids.

a lot of New Yorker audience is urban too, and you'd have to be crazy to let your 5-year-old walk to school alone in NYC

plus, when people were younger and had 4 or 5 kids, they could afford to mess a few of them up. people don't have that luxury now. they are really serious about getting it right even if they get it really wrong.

"get it really wrong" aka "kids these days" aka nothing to worry about really

Scott otm. But Mordy,, slightly less so. That's the free range kids theory, that we worry too much about predators that don't really factor, statistically. However, I do worry about cars running over my kids, which is why we walk together or one takes the bus.

But yeah, Scott otm.

one thing i've learned, kids can survive a LOT. if there are kids who can survive terrible horrible neglectful parents then they can survive over-attentive micro-moms. white people problems in a way. they have too much stuff! they are spoiled! their parents tie their shoes for them! these kids will obviously grow up to be serial killers.

i'm really paranoid about cars. and my kids. i can't help it. i hate cars. too many fucking yahoos around here going 60 in a 30. idiots. i don't trust anyone driving a car, basically.

the movie they keep describing him trying to make sounds sooooo bad, like "Bruce Almighty 2" or something.

Ha ha, yes exactly. I loved the Stiller profile though. It was a great portrait of a certain mindset: the hugely wealthy and successful funnyman who desperately wants to be taken seriously and drives everyone nuts. Even his wife was making fun of his intensity. I'm fascinated by people who seem to have everything and yet are incapable of being satisfied and believe (wrongly) that happiness is just one more movie away.

(My UK sub arrives later so I always seem to be one issue behind on this thread)

its funny too cuz i didn't feel that way living in a city for years. felt safer there as far as traffic. harder to get to 60 in city traffic.

the shit about how Stiller was going to make a Truly Great Original Groundbreaking Film This Time was hilarious, as though a person with no precedential display of that kind of talent could just will it to be true.

i go to birthday parties now and there are ten parents there drinking wine and talking. my parents never would have done this

This is key. There's sometimes more alcohol at kids birthday parties than at adult ones.

"a lot of New Yorker audience is urban too, and you'd have to be crazy to let your 5-year-old walk to school alone in NYC"

Really? That's sad.

Glad I'm not the only one who loved the Stiller profile. for exactly the same reasons as ^^.

(Stillsr also sounds like he would be a great studio head.)

if you don't think it would be crazy to let your 5-year-old walk to school alone in NYC i'm going to guess you probably don't have a lot of experience with large cities?

Pedestrian safety is enough of a reason not to let them do it, even assuming no other risks.

plus they end up spending all their lunch money on 3 card monte.

Www.freerangekids.com

do they deliver to canada

They have to find their own way there.

all parents and children are terrible

Was that Tolstoy?

Dr. Seuss

happy children are all alike; every unhappy child is unhappy in its own way

"if you don't think it would be crazy to let your 5-year-old walk to school alone in NYC i'm going to guess you probably don't have a lot of experience with large cities?"

I live in and grew up in a medium large city (let you guess) and I walked to school by myself everyday from 7 on certainly.

lagos?

I grew up in Legoland actually.

his main worries were playmobile pedos from the next town over

there must be studies on older parents. wonder if there is unconscious desire among older parents to keep their kids kids longer. the older you are the more you've been through.you have buried friends and family. parents. grandparents. so on some level you aren't in a hurry to let go of people. people complain about the older kids coming back and living at home after college or whatever, but the parents have kinda set their kids up to come back! kids are kinda like pets for a lot of people now. they like having them around and they don't really mind cleaning up the messes.

kids are kinda like pets for a lot of people now. they like having them around and they don't really mind cleaning up the messes.

^^^^^ truth bomb

Sometimes it seems like the older parents I know - ten years older than me, with kids the same age - can't wait to be empty nesters. They are so tired.

Also, older parents more likely to have multiples, or kids with medical issues, so that's more work.

i think i'm some weeks behind but ezra klein on the health-care mandate was fantastic

"if you don't think it would be crazy to let your 5-year-old walk to school alone in NYC i'm going to guess you probably don't have a lot of experience with large cities?"

I live in and grew up in a medium large city (let you guess) and I walked to school by myself everyday from 7 on certainly.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Friday, June 29, 2012 1:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just gonna state the obvious here and say 7 is not 5

7 or 8 seems abt right depending on the area, i dont actually posses any children, might feel different i suppose, tho I did used to be one but that was in a different era of parenting schemes

Sometimes it seems like the older parents I know - ten years older than me, with kids the same age - can't wait to be empty nesters

they'll have to keep waiting; empty nests are becoming rarer these days.

<3 john mcphee

what he said

"just gonna state the obvious here and say 7 is not 5"

True, but I still wouldn't say that it's categorically "crazy" even at 5. It depends on the kid, depends on the neighborhood, depends on the distance to the school, ya know.

When I was trying to break into pro writing a few years back I found there was a night school course dedicated entirely to getting your prose into the New Yorker. It was run upstate and staffed entirely by ex-New Yorker writers, the failed and the fired. I guess their job was to teach how they got in, but not how they got kicked out.

Well, I did badly want to be a New Yorker writer myself at the time. In fact that idea dominated pretty much all my waking hours. I'd be washing the dishes and find myself thinking: "I'd rather be writing a New Yorker article." Or I'd be walking the dog and wondering how I'd render his little sniffs and tics into New Yorker-esque prose: "Biffo paws desultorily at a pale piece of fossilized dogshit like a jaded gourmet forking shiitake."

Was that good? Would it get past the desk editor? That's what I needed to know. That's what made it worthwhile boarding the night bus and traveling to the little town of Sidney NY, where the course was happening. They have an airport up there, but I figured I wouldn't be able to afford the commute from LaGuardia until I was actually, you know, cashing those New Yorker paychecks. And by then, of course, I'd be halfway to teaching there myself.

It was a weird experience. Lessons didn't start until 2am. The journo-profs were a semi-phosphorescent caliphate, turbidly hardboiled, recognizably post-damascene. I won't reveal too much here; I'm working this up into a piece I think the New Yorker might really go for. Wish me luck!