>Guest Post: Mom 101

>When Lucinda asked me to guest post while she hits the slopes somewhere fabulous, I accepted without giving it another thought. What an honor to be blogging in the stead of the great Lucinda! Hell, she knows Busy Mom.

Besides, if I can take just one iota of credit for one blogger’s future knee replacement, I know I’ll have done a great public service for the needy orthopedists of the world.

My initial idea was to lend an urban counterpoint to the notion of suburban turmoil. So I scribbled a few notes about coat closets as a commodity, the Upper East Side Bugaboo brigades, and the distinctive smell of urine boiling in the subways that heralds the coming of summer.

I thought about the toothless A-train panhandlers with Vietnam flak jackets and stumps for legs who just break your heart no matter how many times you see them. I considered the drivers who, once within city limits, lose their ability to perceive the dotted lines that divide the lanes. I examined the cost of living here, which is code for, “hm, should I garage my car or feed my family for a month?” And I touched a bit on the agonizing preschool acceptance process which is on par with the lesser known co-op acceptance process—imagine submitting your last ten tax returns and fourteen letters of recommendation, going on three separate interviews, shelling out monthly fees almost equal to your mortgage payments, and still ending up with neighbors whose dogs crap in the hallways.

But just as my urban turmoil list was getting somewhere interesting, I received a surprise visit from the fiercely proud New Yorker within, that alter ego who comes bearing a counterpoint to my own counterpoint. Also some rugelach from that little bakery on Second.

The truth? I love living in the city. Lllllove it. Five L’s worth.

New York moms wear their manic lifestyles like a badge of honor and I’m no exception. The energy, the chaos the cacophony–it fuels and inspires me and I’m hard-pressed to give it up.

Lest you think I’m selfish depriving my daughter of, I don’t know, a lawn–that’s what grandma’s house is for. Here in the city, my daughter is going to grow up experiencing something entirely new every day: a new plant at the green market, a new mural on a gas station wall, a new crazy person with a flowerpot on his head doing a hula dance for quarters.

She is going to take for granted that there are fifty things to do on a rainy Sunday besides go to the mall. She is going to consider it odd that some towns have people with faces all the same color. She is never going to think twice about children who have two mommies or older mommies or mommies who never had a partner at all.

And most importantly, she will dress impeccably.

Am I justifying? No! (yes) Not at all! (a little) Let’s face it, there’s no perfect answer as to where our children should be raised. Every place is right and every place is wrong. But given my choice between the plastic people and the crazy people, I’ll take the crazy people.

For now.

I reserve the right to go plastic any time. There’s a lot to be said for lawns.

To read more from Mom 101, check out her blog here.