I came across this piece by Molly Jong-Fast
this morning, which is running in this month's issue of Scooter magazine. It's a refreshing take on competitive parenting in Manhattan, and how we all need to take it down a notch.Jong-Fast grew up in what I consider real Manhattan, the island of the 1970s and 1980s when the city's problems actually were life-threatening: violence, crime, AIDS, etc. Now that the city has cleaned itself up, parents don't have anything real to worry about, and so they compete over schools, vacations, etc.
We all know those parents who use schools as status symbols or who act as if they are continuing some great family dynasty, but if you follow them home for the holidays you will find them in a boring, Midwesterm suburb, not a Connecticut mansion. It's refreshing to read a piece that calls parents out on their nonsense, and puts things into perspective.
