The kid is off from school today. A teacher in-service or something. She’s getting old enough now that I don’t have to keep an eye on her all the time, nor do I need to keep her entertained endlessly. But I don’t want her sitting around the apartment all day either.
So, I made her run errands with me. Errands that took us out of the neighborhood. Errands that meant we were going to ride the subway together.
New York City is not the best place for kids, I admit it. Kids see and hear things maybe they shouldn’t, and it can cause them to grow up a little too soon. But, when that happens, me and the kid have a conversation about what she saw and heard. I mean, that’s the job of being a parent sometimes; talking about uncomfortable stuff. And yes, the subway has lead to a great many conversations.
And the subway is how the kid will primarily get around in this town. I feel it is my duty as a parent and a transplanted New Yorker, the teacher my child who is a natural born New Yorker, how to use this world famous example of mass transit.
We started with learning the difference between local and express, followed by what uptown and downtown means. Then we talked about the difference between letter and number local and express trains. Now, we are trying to memorize the stops; 125, 116, 110, 103, 96, 86, 81, 72 and 59. Sure, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the MTA, but from the kid’s perspective, that’s her world when running around New York.
I know for her, the City is vast, and these stops really don’t register as distances in relation to being away from home. It’s a little like magic for her. You go underground, get in a train, and come up in a different world, with different places and people. in that sense, NYC can be a pretty wonderful experience for a kid as well.
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