Born to Wait
Soni Sangha
February 22, 2013
(Left) Sanders, Dave "Parents in line to register their children for Carmelo the Science
Fellow’s camp in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn." The
New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Feb. 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
The first parent lined up at 4 a.m. on a Sunday, when the only other
people around were out just long enough to stumble from warm taxis through
sobering 19-degree air into their homes.
Twenty minutes later, other parents
showed up and a line began to form down Atlantic Avenue in
Brooklyn. One father kept a list so that anyone
searching for a thawing hot coffee could do so without losing a place in the
line. He abandoned that project as more and more people trickled in and the end
of the line was no longer visible from the front.
Some parents stood, shimmying and hopping to keep warm. A few line
veterans brought chairs and buried themselves under blankets. It was too dark to
read, so they chatted about things like schools or children, and they poked fun
at one another for being there. Every few minutes, someone would check his watch
and express the hope that Carmelo the Science Fellow
would open his doors early for his annual summer camp registration.
If waiting in line in the predawn of a January morning for science
camp registration sounds crazy, you do not have a New York City child born after 2004. For those
children and their parents, especially in the neighborhoods of brownstone
Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan and the Upper West Side, not getting into activities,
classes, sports teams — and even local schools —has become a way of life. If
every generation must have its own designation, call theirs Generation Waiting
List.
Looking for a spot in a public prekindergarten program in Lower Manhattan? Put your name on the waiting list.
Ballet for 3-year-olds at the Mark Morris Dance Group in
Fort Greene,Brooklyn? The
class is full, but they do have a waiting list.
Parks department swim classes? Full. But maybe you can get on a
waiting list.
At first blush, the waiting lists are a little surprising, given that
in the city there were 7 percent fewer children 9 and younger in 2011 than there
were in 2000, according to census findings. Indeed, every borough has seen a
decrease in children in that age range.
But the distribution of children is highly uneven, and some
neighborhoods, especially those deemed “family friendly,” have seen population
explosions that outpace the general population growth, according to an analysis
of census data by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College.
In Battery Park City-Lower Manhattan, the 9 and younger population has
grown by 129 percent over the last decade; uptown, the Lincoln Square
neighborhood has seen a 56 percent growth.
In Brooklyn, Park Slope had a 2
percent increase, and its more affordable neighbor, Windsor Terrace, grew by 11
percent. The mostly Hasidic Borough Park neighborhood saw a 25 percent increase.
“The people having kids these days, they are a lot more well off,”
Professor Beveridge said, “so those parents are much more likely to have kids
who are clients” — of summer camps, music schools and the like.
On Laura Congleton’s first day of motherhood, she waited for a
delivery room at what is now NYU LangoneMedical Center. So many mothers were giving birth,
they were kept in waiting areas until delivery rooms became available, she
recalled. Five years later, she is still waiting — this time for kindergarten.
In her Brooklyn
Heightsneighborhood and
adjoining Cobble Hill, the number of children under age 9 has jumped 31 percent
since 2000, leaving her son on the waiting list at local private schools.
“There are too many kids,” Ms. Congleton said, and too few spaces for
them. “I just wish there was more room.”
In some cases, the growth in the numbers of children clamoring to get
into the same activities outpaces even the demographic change. Nationally,
enrollment in the American Youth Soccer
Organization has dropped 8 percent over the last five years. But
in the Brooklyn region that encompassesDitmas Park,
Kensington and Park Slope, and draws players from BrooklynHeights and Carroll
Gardensas well, the number
of children under 8 who play has jumped 43 percent in the past seven years, to
600 children from 420, said Ainslie Binder, the region’s director.
Except for Brooklyn Heightsand Windsor Terrace, the under-9
population from many of the neighborhoods feeding the league grew by only a few
percentage points. Registration for the fall season is open for a month, from
June 1 to July 1, but “it’s like anything in the city; if you don’t jump on it,
you won’t get in,” said Elizabeth Kenney, a Brooklyn mother whose 9-year-old son was relegated to the
waiting list last year and had to sit out the season.
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Relation to the Novel:
The following article, is shown where parents wait under any circumstances to provide that education for their children. Included in the article, is a picture of parents waiting in the freezing cold just to ensure their education. They also realize that their children may not be able to get into the program. These parents want their children to learn so they may be "successful in their field of study". In order to accompplish this task they must study hard and put forth effort like Victor Frankenstein wanting to study the human body against his fathers advice.