Ah, New York parenting. You can hail a cab, while folding up your stroller with one hand and carrying your toddler in the other. You can recite a list of the 10 cleanest bathrooms below 14th Street. And, you can divulge exactly what train car to ride in that will leave you off right by the escalators at your stop. Read on to discover the 21 signs you’re a New York City parent and then let us know in the comment section below which signs you identify with most!
1. You spent nearly $1,000 on your baby’s set of wheels and zero on your own.
Image: Ed Yourdon via Flickr
2. Your backyard can be measured in acres – 778 acres of Central Park, 535 acres of Prospect Park and 898 acres of Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
3. Your baby group is 50 plus moms strong, and that only includes babies born in the same month, in the same neighborhood.
Image: Joe Shalbotnik via Flickr
4. You’ve figured out how to fit a week’s worth of groceries, plus a bottle of wine, in your stroller’s basket.
Image: Tyger_Lyllie via Flickr
5. You record sounds of sirens so you can get your kids to sleep when you’re on vacation.
Image: Tony Fischer Photography via Flickr
6. You’ve never met your kid’s best friend because he only sees her on play dates with the nanny.
Image: Colored Chalk via Flickr
7. You can weave your double jogger through a crowd of tourists with a surgeon’s precision.
Image: Ed Yourdon via Flickr
8. Your child’s social calendar is busier than yours.
Image: tom@hk via Flickr
9. Your kid is on a year-long wait list … for music class … at 6 months old.
Image: Salim Virji via Flickr
10. You dread riding the subway with your toddler because she always waves happily at the strangest characters on the train.
Image: David 23 via Flickr
11. Not only have you taken your daughter to get her hair done, but you’ve also taken her doll for an up do.
Image: Jeff Sandquist via Flickr
12. There’s more than one Atticus (or Wolfgang or Sebastian) or Pearl (or Matilda or Olive) in your child’s class.
Image: USAG-Humphreys via Flickr
13. Your two year old is a regular theater-goer.
Image: The Secret Theater
14. You bring your baby to bars and you might even nurse her while you enjoy a beer.
Image: Eoghan O Lionnain via Flickr
15. Your kid learned his ABC’s and 1, 2, 3’s by riding the subway.
Image: Mike Knell via Flickr
16. You don’t blink when you see your three year old’s “school” tuition, which could’ve put you through a semester, or year, of college.
Image: Celebration Harts via Flickr
17. Your nanny sees your kids more than you do during the week, and she even comes to their birthday parties.
Image: Ed Yourdon via Flickr
18. Picking up used toys and books off the street is a total “do.” (As long as you sanitize them before you hand them over to your kid that is.)
Image: Makelessnoise via Flickr
19. You’ve convinced your kids a ride on the bus is an actual tour of the city, just so you can keep cool during the summer.
Image: faungg via Flickr
20. You order diapers online to be delivered to your apartment.
Image: Tomas Fano via Flickr
21. Your toddler interviewed for preschools before he could say, “mama.”
Image: Juhansonin via Flickr
What did we miss? Share your “only in NYC” mom-isms in the comments below.
–Julie Seguss
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