NYC: Seeking advice from stay-at-home pre-K parents!

March 30, 2018 5:07 PM

My wife and I are moving to Manhattan in the fall with our three-year-old. We're Canadians; she's been accepted to a 10-month master's program at Columbia, and as a not-allowed-to-work-dependent, I'm weighing doing stay-at-home-care with our little guy vs. putting him daycare. I feel like one year in New York offers opportunities for a fun, exciting year — but I have no idea where to start. What's the stay-at-home parent lifestyle like in Manhattan?

Initially, I thought: "Fun party adventures for me and the kiddo in New York City! We'll explore and have adventures every day! No daycare!", and then, once it became a real option: Oh no, I have no idea what we would *actually* do every day.

My wife and I don't have any expectation of staying in the U.S. after this year, so I'm seeing this as my and my son's chance to bond and fully experience NYC. In my initial searches I've found kids programs all over the city — I've envisioned museum days, library programs, stay-at-home-dad beer meet-ups, etc — but admit I have a probably romanticized view of what it'd be like for us.

I know there are stay-at-home-parents everywhere, but I feel like New York's size and opportunities make it different. (Again, probably romanticizing).

So, what's it like to be a stay-at-home parent with a 3-year-old? I wouldn't even know where to start — would I create a curriculum? Wing it?

Additional notes:

• I'm coming as a dependent on my wife's visa; so while I'm not legally allowed to work in the U.S., I'm hoping to continue to do some freelance work (ssshh) for Canadian clients so my skills don't go south.
• We're a two-working-parent household, and he's been in daycare since he was 11 months old. This would be new for both of us.
• FWIW, money isn't a consideration in daycare vs. not daycare.

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (19 answers total)

Fun! There’s tons to do.
Join the UWS Mommas FB group. Lots of activities, classes, playgroups, neighborhood meet ups, birthday party suggestions, etc. kind of overwhelming resource actually but you’ll get everything you need there. Assuming you’ll live up by Columbia there is a strong Morningside Heights contingent.
posted by sestaaak at 5:27 PM on March 30, 2018

I can't speak to stay-at-home parenting, but your experience of New York, as well as accessibility to kid-friendly spaces, will be heavily dependent on where you live. New York City is far more segregated than anywhere else I've lived in the US, and that includes the South.

If your wife's program is at the Morningside (main) campus of Columbia, I'd recommend the Upper West Side or Morningside Heights. The Morningside branch of the NYPL has a pretty good children's section. You'd also be close to Central Park which has FANTASTIC boulders (imported, natch).

If your wife's program is at the medical campus on 168th St, I'd still recommend the Upper West Side or Morningside Heights. Washington Heights, while improving, was still not great during the years I lived there. Random muggings and drive-by shootings were very much a thing. That was years ago, though, and things were changing fast; someone with more recent knowledge may be able to chime in.
posted by basalganglia at 5:34 PM on March 30, 2018

Not sure how feasible this is in NYC, but it might be good if your kid can go to a preschool for a couple of days a week, especially if you want to do some freelance work. I can only imagine that the workload on a 10-month master's is going to be pretty intense, so you may end up feeling like you never get a break from being the primary parent.

Even if you don't do that, I would think about developing a routine rather than a curriculum.
posted by jeoc at 5:47 PM on March 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

You should also be aware that NYC offers free pre-K for all. If you want your child to have a real NYC experience, going to public school is definitely a way to do it.
posted by praemunire at 5:48 PM on March 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

Maybe ask the mods to anonymize this question, because it certainly looks like you are planning to commit some sort of visa fraud?

IANYL, etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:49 PM on March 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

Yeah, not that people here are judgey, but lord knows this isn't the climate to be putting anything about immigration rules-bending on the internet.
posted by corb at 6:04 PM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

SaltySalticid, I don't think there's any visa fraud--the wife is going to have a student visa, and he'll be allowed to come to the US as her spouse but not to work. Fairly standard operating procedure.

OP, my husband was a stay-at-home dad to our two small kids when we lived in Harlem and they never lacked for things to do. There are some good parks up in Morningside Heights (my favorite is the one at 123rd St and and Morning-side) and so many things to do. Museums, parks, the zoos, the botanical gardens....of course you can't go to museums every day, though. Lots of different libraries, which will all have their own schedule of free children's events.

The daily routine for my kiddos was something like "get up, run errands or go for a walk, lunch, nap, library/park/grocery store, read books, bath, bed".
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 6:13 PM on March 30, 2018

You are very late in the cycle for both Nursury and Pre-K. Pre-K (assuming 4 by 1/1/19) they'll find you a spot but it'll be in a Pre-K center which can be variable. You will need to hunt for a Nursury school with an open seat and a willingness to take you for a year only.

But mostly it's "go to kids events, look for another SAHD and strike up a conversation and hope the kids like one another" however I don't see many stay at home dad's at least where we are. But there are tons of play spaces, programs,etc.

My kids social lives are pretty epic.
posted by JPD at 6:23 PM on March 30, 2018

Will your wife get housing in the Columbia neighborhood? If so, it is a WONDERFUL place to be a parent at home with a preschooler. I myself was a stay at home parent living in the Columbia neighborhood when my spouse was employed there (this was ten years ago, but it's even better now in many ways.) There are playgrounds every few blocks in Riverside Park which runs right alongside the river in that neighborhood and it's easy to meet other parents there. There are so many music, art, dance and other fun classes for preschoolers in Morningside Heights and the Upper West Side. It was a great experience for us. It's probably not going to be possible to get your child into a good preschool now, it is like applying to college anywhere else. (Just kidding... kind of.) Anyway, I loved being a parent of a toddler around Columbia!
posted by velveeta underground at 6:33 PM on March 30, 2018

I would do daycare and just keep your child home when you feel like it. You'll find that, when transitioning into new care, kids get sick a lot and so do you. And, if you don't have anyone else around to give you a hand, it gives you a safe place to care for your kids and have some time for yourself. You do not actually have to keep your child at the daycare all day, although a consistent routine of some sort helps most kids. As long as you're paying (if that even applies), you should be able to pick up when you want, within reason. That's what I did.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 6:41 PM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

if $ isn’t a deciding factor do the daycare and take kid out to go on fun trips whenever you want. No SAHP has adventures every day even in NYC and it will be nice for your kid to socialize w other kids too.
posted by sestaaak at 7:01 PM on March 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Does columbia have free/discounted admission to museums for spouses and kids?
posted by brujita at 9:01 PM on March 30, 2018

My friend in Brooklyn goes to a neighbourhood coffee shop with his toddler, and once a week in the afternoon, a woman comes in with a bunch of little musical instruments and does a music circle with the kidlets while all the parents hang out and drink lattes. She charges like $10 per kid. My friend says his kid loves it, and it's allowed him to make friends in the neighbourhood. This seems idyllic to me; perhaps wherever you live will have something similar!
posted by pseudostrabismus at 9:51 PM on March 30, 2018

Yes, please ask a mod to anonymize or if possible remove the remark about doing work (and our comments about it) and stop saying that on the internet....
posted by kalapierson at 5:38 AM on March 31, 2018

Washington Heights, while improving, was still not great during the years I lived there. Random muggings and drive-by shootings were very much a thing.

I live in Washington Heights. There are nicer bits and less nice bits, but I don't worry about getting jumped or shot, either intentionally or hit by a stray bullet. (Sod's law says someone was shot last night.) I would raise a kid here. If cost of daycare is not a concern, the OP can presumably afford the posh bit of Washington Heights, which is a lot of families with children. I suspect the UWS and Morningside Heights cater to children better--our libraries aren't as nice, for sure--but if the OP's wife needs to be up here at least some of the time it's a reasonable option.

(But, hey, at least someone admits that drive-bys can happen in NYC, which people denied when I made an AskMe looking for neighborhoods and told me I was a yokel who was scared of cities.)
posted by hoyland at 6:06 AM on March 31, 2018

I did this, but from a more central neighborhood. It can be great! We visited playgrounds all over the city, galleries, took day trips to Staten Island, Roosevelt Island, Governor's Island. It's good to keep a list of which libraries have story times on which days. At your child's age, most kids will be in daycare/preschool, so you might want to get in with the homeschooling crowd to meet other parents and find kids in your's age range. Otherwise, you'll mostly see 1-2 year olds and events will be geared to that age. We had a "forest playgroup" that met in Central Park and hiked around with the kids.

Mostly save museums for rain/snow. Winter can be hard! There's a lot to carry, between coats, scooters, lunch, whatever craft the child made that needs to be brought home. (If you don't bring lunch, it gets expensive, or you're limited to the shorter windows of time between meals, which means you stay closer to home.) When we moved to the suburbs I was shocked at how much easier things were with a car.

We had a membership to CMA (children's museum of the arts) and the Hall of Science in Queens and the zoo. It's also handy to have a membership to an indoor play space that's easy to get to.
posted by xo at 6:25 AM on March 31, 2018

There is nowhere in Manhattan that getting shot in a drive-by is a reasonable concern for anyone not actually involved in crime to take into account in choosing where to live or hang out. Not even Washington Heights. It would be like picking a neighborhood based on whether you might get hit by snow or ice falling from a high-rise. Washington Heights is fine, and also has the advantage of being more racially/culturally mixed than much of Manhattan. But, because NYC (roughly speaking) grows steeper as it goes north, many of the subway stations in Washington Heights are especially deep underground. I believe they are the only Manhattan stations with unavoidable elevators. I find them very unpleasant to navigate, and wouldn't enjoy taking a little kid through them daily.

If Morningside Heights, there's a branch of the NYPL right at Columbia on Broadway and another in "Bloomingdale" (historic name for the neighborhood, I don't think anyone uses it anymore, on 100th between Amsterdam and Columbus). They both have regular programs for the under-5 crowd that you could make part of your routine if the kid likes them.

If you use a stroller with the kid, in making plans you should give a hard eye to subway stations to make sure they're accessible. NYC subway accessibility generally is a disgrace. All the buses at least kneel.
posted by praemunire at 9:44 AM on March 31, 2018

The Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan will offer you plenty to do almost any day. My Mom used to bring me to galleries all over the place. I would definitely go to Chelsea and stroll in and out of all the galleries there. There are plenty of playgrounds all over the place.

I have not raised a kid in New York, but was a kid in New York. It was great for me. I think you ARE in for a great year.
posted by xammerboy at 11:39 AM on March 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

many of the subway stations in Washington Heights are especially deep underground. I believe they are the only Manhattan stations with unavoidable elevators.

The 1 train at 168th and 181st has unavoidable elevators. The A train at 181st and 190th and the 1 train at 191st have elevator-only entrances, but also have non-elevator access, depending on the direction from which you approach the station. (They're outside the fare gates and the ones on the A train are a boon to people pushing strollers because the alternative is a long flight of stairs or going quite far out of your way.) The A/C at 168th is the only Washington Heights station with elevator/step-free access to the platform.
posted by hoyland at 1:06 PM on March 31, 2018