One Mom’s Battle Against the Wack Jobs of Brooklyn Heights

Mr. Crusty,
Amen!

@WillowStNeighbor

When a place has nothing else to recommend it, I suppose safety must do.

reading all of these comments stresses me out.

we live in a very crowded city and it just so happens that people lucky enough to live in brooklyn heights do tend to get protective of their territory. fair enough.

i experience many frustrating incidents almost daily (as does everyone)- as a mom, as a non-mom, as a subway rider, as a biker, as a pedestrian, as a worker, etc etc.

the best way i have learned to deal with all of it is to relax and smile right back. it throws them off every time. perpetuating the bad vibes on either side of this argument is the reason this argument is happening in the first place.

break the cycle and smile so we can ALL enjoy this beautiful city!

@bagel boy

“No gives a crap about your kid or you. Stop being so self absorbed and doting. Look at all the hipsters in brooklyn from the midwest. That’s what your kid is going to be. A loser with a participation trophy.”

That’s being a little harsh…or maybe not.

@carol

“Another pet peeve I have is when a group of three to four people stop to talk and block a street corner or a sidewalk. If I say excuse me to get by, the reaction is usually annoyance – rarely a sorry.”

Exactly, some people don’t realize (or more likely don’t care) that a narrow sidewalk is not a good location for a group meeting.

@David

C’mon down to Atlanta. Plenty of space. Nice people. Less crowded. Much, much, much (much) less expensive.

A lot of nice people down there would rather come up here, especially those in their 20s and 30s.

@Mr. Crusty

“I raised three children and I would NEVER allow them to run around and interfere with adults, get in their way, or to scream for an extended time in a restaurant. I’m sorry, that is just plum inconsiderate. I make no apology for saying so.”

Well said.

Now, is it too late to make popcorn?

ABC,
A few years ago I was riding the subway and hanging onto the pole for dear life. I have a bad leg and would have loved a seat.
There was a guy sitting not too far from me with hardware in his nose, ears, eyebrows, etc. etc. etc. He looked my way and said YO! He sounded like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky! I looked around wondering who he was signaling to. He looked at me and said “YO” again. He waved me over and being the polite person that I am, I followed. He scooted over and made room for me to sit.
He was a white guy. He was a guy that I would have been afraid of if I met him in a dark alley (remember, I am a senior citizen).
He was a gentleman. I have never forgotten his kindness.

this is partially a branding problem and partially a factor of city life

if you’re going to drive 55mph, you can’t be in the fast lane and not expect other cars to ride your bumper, flash their lights, honk and be mad, regardless of the posted speed limit

there are millions of people with places to go and most people dont have time to (or just aren’t willing to) slow down while you stroll with your kid on the sidewalk and take up too much space

if you’re not moving at the speed of the city – speed up or move out

if this city slowed down for every slow-poke, we wouldn’t be NYC, we’d be Atlanta… it may be time to move out: your skin isn’t thick enough and you’re not built for this life

As far as branding: when people see double-wide strollers or tourists walking 5-abreast, they know there’s no good way to get through, except to be a pushy NY’er and make some room for yourself

When moms taking up too much space on the sidewalk start to keep right (or speed up) or get a stacked stroller instead of a 2-wide model, then maybe you’ll catch some more breaks

But maybe you expect so much because in every other situation your fellow NY’ers Are doing more for you – giving you their seat on the train, holding doors and elevators, making room for you most of the time, etc. etc.

Now, you expect it and when you’re too self-absorbed, you don’t like the reaction – too bad

I was at 59th St heading down the long, long stairs at rush hour to get the 4-train… this enormous woman was blocking up the whole staircase with giant shopping bags while hundreds of people were backed up behind her

As people pushed by, she got mad – but there were hundreds backed up because she was slow and carrying enormous bags – her own fault –

Move or get out of the way – there are too many people here with too limited resources

Crusty Comment Count: 12 comments on this thread!!

12 out of 76. Less than 16%. Your point?

The sense of entitlement the author veritably oozes when describing these incidents tells me all I need to know about her attitude and whether some of the reactions were overboard. The worst part is that she probably actually believes she is not as bad as others.

“hold doors for us…help us down subway…” so, the world revolves around you and we are all focused on what you need? Has it ever occurred to you to say, oh I don’t know, “sorry to bother you, but would you mind…?” instead of EXPECTING everyone to help you.

David werent you the one complaining about ad hominem comments a while back? Lol

So you’ve waited until your late thirties or forties to have kids, and that means you probably had to work very hard and spend serious money to conceive. People have been having kids forever, without demanding special treatment. Just because it’s your personal miracle to be a middle-aged mom don’t expect the rest of us to fall to our knees and worship your little clan.
Do you really believe that people *want* to plow through your street-blocking tribe if there’s room to pass? Mama dosen’t need a glass of wine, she needs a slice of humble pie and a hefty dose of reality.

@kiki “‘Well, no one has 3 kids in the Heights’ along with the implied-idiot look!”

The response to that is “I suppose the Hickses, Pierreponts, Joralemons, Middaghs, and Huxtables were tourists here, too…?”

Sorry if this shows my age, but back in the day, it was a parent’s responsibility to actually be mindful both of their children but also of their neighbors. If they took their children out in a stroller, the stroller was light-weight, streamlined and foldable — that’s how they went to the store or to the pharmacy. They were not “locked in”. They would fold the stroller and leave it at the front of the store, and then either hold their child (yikes!) either by the hand or in their arms. Grocery stores actually had carts in which you could place your infant in the top as you shopped — I’m pretty sure this hasn’t changed, has it? A parent would never dream of allowing a child to run unattended up and down an aisle or in a restaurant/Starbucks causing a fuss. The parent would be mortified by the misbehavior and would inevitably lead to a scolding, a wrap on the hand or a quick exit from the store. They were teaching their child a lesson in civics — if you cannot behave properly among your neighbors, there is a consequence. What lesson is being taught when a mama bear mother growls at every stranger who points out their children’s or their own misbehavior? Now we EXPECT stores to widen their aisles to accommodate super-strollers? Nonsense. It is the parent that should feel wronged when two strollers side-by-side take up the width of a sidewalk and their neighbors comment on this act of selfishness? Bu!!-sh!t. Sorry if I sound like a schoolmarm, but I teach my students to have an awareness of the universe around you — you are only part of a greater whole. That’s a lesson that some who feel entitled have never learned.

The paucity of altruism
endemic
in a Me First
generation
appalls
the Soul

I am a stay at home parent of 2 young kids in the Heights, and so have thought about this issue a lot.

First, there will always be rude people, whether they are with strollers, loose kids, dogs, kindles, phones, or just alone. You cannot expect to never be inconvenienced. Sometimes, living in the city, you will experience discomfort due to someone else. Whether it’s because my stroller is “taking up” the aisle in Key Food, or bc I have to hear your drunk raucous excessively loud laughing in the restaurant, while my toddler is eating quietly, or bc you choose to have a BBQ in the street right outside my sleeping daughter’s window, etc etc., something or someone will always be annoying and inconvenient in the city and in life in general. If you don’t like narrow sidewalks and supermarket aisles and crowded restaurants, move to the suburbs, where you can see nothing but your roomy house, your roomy car, the roomy mall, and whatever other roomy bubbles you choose to drive to.

While I am always conscious of my space, of whether I am disturbing someone or am in someone’s way, it is not my obligation to make my life hard in order to accommodate other people. Of course, if I am using my cell phone on the side walk, I will move my stroller as far as possible out of the way. Of course, if I see you reaching for something in a display in front of which I’ve parked my stroller, I’ll say “sorry” and move it. However, i am NOT going to go to the supermarket with my large 10 month old in a carrier, as someone suggested. I am not a mule, and i don’t think I should have to carry all my groceries AND my 20 pounder JUST SO that someone is spared the inconvenience of walking around me or waiting a second. And the strollers are huge these days you know why? BC IT’S MORE CONVENIENT FOR PARENTS. Those strollers sell bc they make life easier. And believe me, they make life easier for you too. Imagine my tired 4 year old grabbing everything off the shelves in the supermarket instead of waiting quietly in the stroller. You will reply that I need to discipline her so she doesn’t do that. Well, we all know how discipline works 100% of the time and how in “the old days” all 4 year olds behaved well all the time in public places. Bottom line – having a 4 year old in a stroller in a supermarket is frequently better than the alternative.

I agree with ABC and the other poster who observed that hate of parents with kids is accepted. I also was NEVER offered a seat by a white person in either of my pregnancies. But plenty of people of other races have helped me with my stroller and have offered me a seat. I think the “stroller hate” is really an extension of yuppie hate. Bottom line – i am allowed to make my life as easy and convenient as I can, the sidewalk is mine as much as it is yours, and if you think I shouldn’t have kids at all bc i am rich, white, older, “entitled” (what does that even really mean?) whatever whatever you judge me to be, then I have nothing to say to you at all except that this is not China, and so far I am allowed to have as many kids as I want. I try to be polite and not to inconvenience anyone, but people hate me and my stroller anyway. Luckily – I don’t care.

Schoolmarm it would seem that Anonymouse was never one of your students.

@Anonymouse I think your last three words sums it up nicely. You don’t care. Trust me, I think we all got that without having to be told. Enjoy your double wide.