Results tagged “parents”

There’s one thing you don’t mess with while on the grounds of school that’s struggling financially: a parent and their homemade brownies and cookies. But it seems as though the city Department of Education doesn’t know the deal. Parents in School District 21 in Brooklyn are heated over the DOE’s new regulation that allows only one bake sale a month and desserts to be sold after 6 p.m. on weekdays.

Amy Sohn's tome on Park Slope parents, titled Prospect Park West, is officially out there causing a stir. Recently her "neighbor" and local blogger Louise Crawford trashed Sohn for fueling the cliches of the Bugaboo culture that thrives there, or maybe because she was jealous she didn't write the book... one of those. Now the NY Times takes a closer look at life in Sohn's portrayal of the neighborhood; any outbursts about that portrayal seems to be grounded in the paradox that Sohn says is “Every mother know[ing] what a Park Slope Mother is, but no one think[ing] she is one." (In fact, Susan Fox, the founder of Park Slope Parents, tells the Gray Lady she's “non-frumpy, non-cargo-wearing mom who actually has a good marriage, unlike PPW would have us believe”).

Hey, pretend it's the '50s and you're reading this article in a newspaper titled "Who’s That With Baby at the Y? Why, It’s Daddy." Wait, shouldn't daddy be at the office with his briefcase while mommy is with the baby at the Y, or preferably in the kitchen making dinner and starching shirts?

Ugh, with the financial crisis totally shredding mommy and daddy's investment portfolio, many young adults in Hipsterland are being forced to find jobs. Times reporter Christine Haughney talked to some landlords and people in the real estate industry, who confirm the tragic trend: parents are cutting back on their contributions to rent and apartment down payments, in some cases eliminating their support entirely. Landlord Ernie DiGiacomo says that instead of getting checks from his tenants' parents, some of them are moving back in with their parents!

While aggravated Brooklyn residents near McCarren Park have launched an organized campaign against the insipid jingles incessantly blaring from parked ice cream trucks, parents in other parts of the borough are taking aim at Mister Softee not for how he sounds but for what he sells to their children. Well, two parents anyway; a Bensonhurst mom tells the Daily News she takes her 7-year-old daugher to Seth Low Park for exercise, but an ice cream truck parked there is tearing her family apart: "I’ve had fights with my daughter in the past about it. You kind of feel like it’s pushed on you. It’s one thing if they’re just in the neighborhood, but to be here by contract [with the city], they might as well be selling drugs." (They've been known to do that too!)

Mayor Bloomberg sought to calm worried parental units at a City Hall press conference yesterday, telling the press that most of the people going to the hospital with swine flu symptoms aren't sick, just scared: "While there are an abnormal number of people going to the hospital who are worried, virtually none, a very tiny percentage of them, have any symptoms whatsoever." But the mayor's downplaying of the outbreak comes as the city closes an additional three schools (bringing the current total to 25), and mourners bid farewell to Queens assistant principal Mitchell Wiener, swine flu's first city victim.

In one corner, there's Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Klein. In the other, middle-class parents who have been told their children have been placed on wait lists for kindergarten placement. The NY Times describes it as a "mounting...middle-class vitriol against the school system." One parent shared a letter to the Dept. of Education—"You have unleashed the fury of parents throughout this city with your complete lack of preparedness"—while another recounted, "I got a call from Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign about yadda yadda yadda was I going to vote for him. As a parent who has a child with no place to go next year, no indication of where he’s going to go next year as a result of the mayor taking control of education, I said absolutely not... You would think that Bloomberg, who is a businessman, knows how to manage inventory like this. My kid isn’t just a bottle of vodka, but this is about inventory.” The Dept. of Education believes their approach to wait lists is fair and "will ensure that children have a placement offer by the end of June."

The father of one of the two FIT students busted for dealing cocaine says that she's getting a bum rap. Mickenzie Dippenworth's father Charles tells the Post, "OK, yes, she did something wrong. Does that merit what has taken place? That's what my taxpayer dollars are going to? I really don't understand. There's a hell of a lot more problems." Dippenworth stands by his daughter who "has sworn to him ten times" that she only dealt to the undercover cop who led to her arrest and not to anyone else. His daughter had previously been on probation after police in her Maryland hometown responded to the fourth noise complaint made by neighbors and discovered a party with around 50 juveniles and young adults drinking while Dippenworth's parents were upstairs sleeping.

Generation Green is growing up fast and keeping a watchful eye on the polluting parents of the world. The NY Times reports that the eco-kids have different wishlists from those who came before them; they want their household equipped with reusable shopping bags, energy-saving lightbulbs, solar panels and a hybrid car. Their eco, and sometimes expensive, demands are a product of everything from their education to pop culture--and they're spouting out phrases like, "Every day is Earth Day" whenever they hear the car idling for too long (good thing Santa runs on reindeer power!). One parent thinks his son "takes it too far," as he's even foregone using his precious night lights! Will these miniature eco-troops grow out of their militant standards, or will they keep going until they save the world, one parent at a time?

Parents paying $20,000 or more a year to send their kids to St. Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights aren't too thrilled about the Federal probation office that's opened up 100 feet down the street. Earlier this week, just ten minutes before school let out, a parolee who had served 12 years in jail on drug-related charges bolted from the building as officers tried to arrest him for assault. Karen Fischer was about to pick up her son Sebastian when she saw officers chasing the man; she tells Channel 9 one of the officers reached for his gun but thought better of it. St. Ann's dean Larry Weiss says, "This is exactly what we were told was not going to happen." Weiss was also promised there wouldn't be sex offenders coming into the office; turns out 53 sex offenders—including 6 convicted pedophiles—have swung by since they opened. At least the good news for Sebastian is that his mom will definitely picking him up on time this year. [Brownstoner]

In upholding the city's controversial ban on cell phones in public school, a Manhattan appeals court suggested adults are partially to blame. The opinion included, "If adults cannot be fully trusted to practice proper cell phone etiquette, then neither can children."

Students were confined to classrooms until the end of the school day yesterday afternoon after a student was badly injured in a stabbing just after noon. Police swarmed through Paul Robeson High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, looking for a student suspected in the stabbing of 18-year-old Kyle Owens, who was wounded in the neck and the chest with an unidentified weapon. Teacher and basketball coach Todd Myles helped save Owens' life by coming to his immediate aid.

The Observer, keeping with their trend-watching, is reporting that 20-somethings are moving back in with their parents after college...that is, if the parents own prime New York real estate (aka: Brownstone Boomers). Didn't we all see this coming with The Royal Tenenbaums?

The NY Post spoke to two Park Slope residents before declaring the new Babeland sex toy shop would be giving off some bad vibes to the locals when it moved into their 'hood. But NYMag points out the Park Slope parents, if the Brooklynian message board is any indication, are rather delighted by their future neighbor.

News came this past week that surely rocked the cradles of many Park Slope babies: Union Hall is no longer stroller-friendly! Will this be the beginning of a trend where Park Slope parents get booted from their home turf bars?