Tom Leonard writes in the Telegraph about, what he calls, "A tribe that strikes fear and loathing in the hearts of normal parents."
I
don’t know if there is an exact British equivalent of Park Slope
Parents (PSPs), but in terms of the horror and dismay they engender
among other New Yorkers, they would be somewhere between Black Death
victims and Burke and Hare.Known to other New
Yorkers by such affectionate nicknames as the "Stroller Mafia" and the
"People’s Republic of Park Slope", they have much in common with
middle-class, liberal-leaning, multiple-baby-breeding North Londoners.Here, it’s taken to extremes. After all, does
Islington have a supermarket that insists that if you want to shop
there, you have to work there, too? Park Slope does – on any one day,
the food co-op is full of off-duty mums and dads putting in their
statutory two and a half hours a month, cluelessly stacking organic
beans in the non-organic condiments section.So,
when a typed notice went up on lampposts in this leafy, affluent,
child-infested Brooklyn neighbourhood headed "Infant Burned", there was
little sympathy with the PSPs who had posted it. The infant’s parents,
Cori and Stu, needed help: "Our infant was burned by his nanny at
Starbucks… she spilled a hot cup of tea on him and he suffered 2nd
and 3rd degree burns on his face, neck and shoulder. If anyone
witnessed this incident please contact…" When the notice found its
way to Gawker, the New York gossip website, readers piled in with abuse
and ridicule. Perhaps correctly, everyone assumed mom and pop were
preparing to sue the pants off their nanny.People
tend to assume the worst about the parents of this enclave. "Why does
everyone hate Park Slope?" asks NY Time Out this week. Park Slopers say
that it’s because they’re jealous, especially arrogant Manhattanites.
Critics say that it’s because they are parent fascists. In a city of
the smug, Park Slopers are reviled as the smuggest.PSPs keep in touch via the message boards of ParkSlopeParents.com,
many of whose 5,155 members can punch out 1,200 words on the hormonal
damage caused by plastics or the pros and cons of "Ferberizing" at the
drop of a hat.Perhaps best not to mention hats,
given the agonised debate that followed an innocent "found: boy’s hat"
email, with accompanying picture, that was posted on the site. "What
makes this a boy’s hat?", one mother asked, bristling at the gender
categorisation. Another said that the finder’s speculation that it
belonged to an "older child" showed a lack of consideration towards
"younger children who happen to have larger heads".Other
Park Slope controversies that have prompted weeks of online
soul-searching included a mother who wanted help in finding the
delivery man she suspected had defecated or been sick – she wasn’t
quite sure which – in her building’s hallway. She wanted a scalp. "Has
anyone else ever experienced such a thing? Over the last week?" she
wrote. "If so, maybe we can put our heads together about where we
ordered from…"Another mother’s diatribe, about
being criticised by an unknown nanny for breast-feeding a somewhat old
child in the playground, turned into a debate on lactation and,
inevitably, into a hunt for the nanny. A Park Slope dad complained
about his own nanny – she’d lost two toy pushchairs (belonging to his
son) and he wanted to know if other PSPs thought he should charge her.An
English PSP friend raves about the area – reeling off the celebrities
who live there (the list is probably slipped under your front door when
you move in) but admits he often feels that his parenting is being
scrutinised. Our neighbour, a former PSP, said that what most annoyed
her were people stopping her in the street when she was with her son
and saying things such as: "Now, you will breastfeed until he’s four,
won’t you."Inevitably, it is with some
trepidation, mixed with the curiosity of a visit to the zoo, that we
venture through Park Slope whenever we need to get to the big park on
the other side. For us less hands-on parents, this is enemy territory.The
Leonard wagon train draws in closer, the safety catches are clicked off
our parenting skills. The children mustn’t get too far ahead of us or
too far behind, or the natives will close in for the kill. We try not
to stop for anything. As Marika says: "We wouldn’t last a minute there."
I live in Park Slope and happily, I’ve successfully raised a soon to be 21 year old daughter and don’t have first hand knowledge of what the current parenting experience is in Park Slope. However, reading about current parenting experiences via the NY Times I shudder to think how I would manage. I do get flumoxed when I hear crying babies and whining children when I’m out to dinner. And I shudder to think that I may be accousted by that sound while I’m enjoying some adult entertainment as having a drink in a bar with other adult friends. Please PS parents, don’t be so self-centered. There are plenty other opportunities for you to socialize with the public at large without burdening everyone with your present day situation. I’m sure when your kids have grown you’ll feel the same way.
Rather than referring to the recent backlash against Park Slope simply as “smears” or the product of “jealousy,” wisdom would dictate a little self-reflection, no? Yes, the bashing has become a bit of a gleefully sadistic free-for-all for some, but still, what brought this about in the first place is a valid question. Perhaps it is the contradictions of Park Slope that get some people riled up. Many good things are offered in the Slope that could make urban living a pleasure. When a place that has great potential ends up not delivering and becomes pretentious and self-righteous in th eprocess, people get pissed off. Tom Leonard criticizes the notorious “forced” labor at PS Food Coop, for example, and this is indeed a good example. A very dear friend of mine was head of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture (You don’t get more farmer/coop friendly than that!), and she said that even in her liberal professional circles, the PS Food Coopers were known as the “Coop Nazis.” So, here you have a place to buy wonderful organic produce and support local small farmers, but if you are busy and can only provide that support with money, you’re excluded. Likewise, the Slope boasts a number of lovely coffee bars, cafes and bookstores to go along with its high per capita ratio of writers living here, yet if you dare hope for the serene – and yes, childless – atmosphere that one would expect to find in those adult settings typically, you are assaulted as “child hating.” Schools? Well, let’s see… Berkeley Carroll, at over $23,000 per year for first grade, barely offers a mediocre education to go along with its ostentatious olympic-sized swimming pool, and likewise, the exalted P.S. 321, a school for which some parents have actually rented apartments they don’t live in just to be in the 321 district, is standard fare education at best, albeit with a nice principal. So, come on Slopers, how about a little self-reflection instead of self-righteousness? Park Slope is a great place to live that could be better. Receive the criticism with humility instead of indignation. We’ll all appreciate it.
At first some of the PS smear pieces were kind of on the mark, but now they’re getting weirdly exaggerated. I have a kid and I haven’t met anyone like the people the Telegraph author describes….most are normal and boring.
This is one of the funniest things I have read so far about Park Slope. Certainly, the author took some artistic license, but then again, not much…