The women who taught me how to be an Upper East Side mother could be ruthless in their advocacy for their offspring—and themselves. Sure, they were loving mommies, but they were also entrepreneurial dynasts dead set on being successful and, therefore, having “successful” kids. None of them admitted to having prepped their three-year-olds for a standardized kindergarten exam called the ERB, for example, even to their best friends. But they all did it—finding the tutors through word of mouth and sometimes shelling out thousands of dollars for the lessons—out of equal parts love, fear, and dry-eyed ambition. Just as many scheduled their children’s playdates with the “alpha offspring” of the rich and influential, in a bid to move up the invisible but pervasive and powerful hierarchy that organizes life here, strategically avoiding the kids of “lower-tier” parents as they would a used Band-Aid. It struck me that, for some of the women I lived near and chatted with in the school halls, children were another way to “live high”—more like baubles than babies, someone for whom to buy the right things, lavish with the right kind of attention from the best experts, feed the best and healthiest foods, and help get into the most prestigious schools. I’ll admit it: sometimes my adventure made me cynical.
The flip side of these women’s ambition and aggression, I found, is extraordinary anxiety. The pressure to get it right, to be a perfect mother and a perfectly fit, perfectly dressed, perfectly sexy woman as well, and the time and energy devoted to it, seems to stress many to the breaking point. To remedy this they turn to alcohol; prescription drugs; “flyaway parties” with girlfriends to Vegas, St. Barths, and Paris on their private planes; compulsive exercise and self-care (Flywheel, bone broth, and raw, organic, cold-pressed juice fasts are big); jaw-dropping clothing and accessory purchases (among the women I know, “presale” is a verb, and dropping $10,000 at Bergdorf Goodman or Barneys in a day is not necessarily a huge deal); and lunch and a blowout or spa days with their oftentimes equally anxious girlfriends, and sometimes envious “frenemies.”
My goal, initially, was to assimilate while keeping a distance from the stress and madness and competitiveness of Upper East Side mommy culture. My background in social research and anthropology, I figured, would help me stay sane and grounded as I made a place for my children and myself in a world that sometimes felt inhospitable. But, like anthropologists the world over, I eventually found myself “going native.” This is the term for what happens when the field scientist slips from objectivity into identification with the people she is studying, crossing the line from understanding to essentially “becoming” them. My connections to my friends downtown fraying as I applied myself to work and motherhood and cultivating mommy friendships uptown, I slowly but surely, without even realizing it, began to dress and act and think more like the women around me, and to care about what they cared about. Their world was equal parts alien, alluring, and alienating to me, but the imperative I felt to find a place among them was surprisingly strong.
Thankfully, I eventually made friends among the tribe of rarefied Upper East Side women with children I met. Deep, nurturing friendship is no easy thing in a rigidly hierarchical social environment where jockeying, competition, and pervasive insecurity and stress are the rule. Their rituals, the rules and practices of their tribe, were mostly strange to me, and frequently off-putting. So was the attitude of superiority and indifference I encountered initially. These things set these women apart. But they had, I learned, much in common with women with children all over the city, and all over the world. In times of hardship they frequently bond with and look out for others in ways that are unexpected and extraordinary. The worldwide, eons-old evolutionary imperative of our species and of so many primates to cooperate and care runs through and informs and defines female friendship and motherhood everywhere. Even on the glossy, well-toned, hypercompetitive, and megamoneyed Upper East Side.
What I noticed—what I still notice—as most unusual among these particular friends was their generosity and eagerness to translate for me the world they understood better than I did, their enthusiasm for sharing insights about their universe, their sense of irony about the lives they themselves and others around them led. And their sense of humor. “Anybody who doesn’t get how ridiculous and over-the-top our lives are, and how funny and nuts it is, isn’t anybody I want to be friends with anyway,” one mother told me when I only half-jokingly expressed concern that, once word of my project got out, she might get in trouble for being seen with me. I was afraid to write this book. But she and others put me at ease by showing me that even in the strangest, most off-putting contexts and oddest-seeming worlds, there is a fair amount of normalcy to be found, and reminding me that even in apparently inhospitable, unfriendly climates, there is real warmth and kindness to be celebrated.
In my years of studying and living among them as a social researcher and mommy, I learned that women with children on the Upper East Side want what mothers everywhere want for their children—for them to be healthy and happy, to feel loved, to thrive, and, one day, to make something of themselves. But the similarities end there. Unless you were raised in Manhattan, and perhaps even if you were, nothing about Upper East Side childhood seems natural. And, by extension, unless you were raised by an Upper East Side mommy yourself, nothing about motherhood here feels logical or straightforward or commonsensical. Upper East Side mothers are not born when their babies are, I learned the hard way. They are made. This is the story of how I was made, and remade, and how it often felt like my undoing. It is a consideration of one narrow sliver of motherhood on one tiny island, and a meditation on what it might mean for everyone else.
CHAPTER ONE
Comme Il Faut
Fieldnotes
Environment and ecology
The island is a geographically, culturally, and politically isolated landmass roughly seven times longer than it is wide. The climate is temperate, with relatively harsh winters and extremely hot and humid summers that, in recent years, approximate tropical conditions due in part to two centuries of intensive land clearing and industrial practices. The island’s longitude is 40°43'42" N, and its latitude is 73°59'39" W.
Island dwellers live in a state of ecological release—resources such as food and water are abundant and easily procured; disease is minimal; there is no predation. Living in a niche characterized by literally unprecedented abundance, untethered from hardship, the wealthiest islanders are able to invest heavily in each and every offspring and to invent elaborate and complex social codes and rites, the observance of which are time-, labor-, and resource-intensive.
In spite of the extraordinary abundance of food, water, and other resources island-wide, there is persistent and marked poverty in some areas. The isolation, extreme population density, and vast discrepancies in wealth, as well as traditionally gender-scripted roles and behaviors around child rearing and work, may inform and in part account for many of the strange-seeming behaviors of the wealthiest island dwellers, discussed in the following pages.
Island dwellings
The island’s inhabitants are primarily vertical dwellers, making their homes directly on top of one another in structures of finely ground stone. Living in these “vertical villages” allows inhabitants to maximize physical space, a precious commodity in short supply on their tiny and remarkably densely populated island. In some locations, particularly where the wealthiest islanders reside, these vertical villages are notably restrictive, with a secretive “council of elders” presiding over who will and will not be allowed to live there. Scouting out a dwelling is one of the most labor-intensive practices of the female members of the tribe I studied—most often the task is undertaken by primaparas. Almost without exception, “dwelling shamans” guide these women in their quests for homes—which are also quests for identity. The shamans offer specialized knowledge, counsel, and emotional support throughout this costly, protracted, and painstaking initiation process.
Geographical origins of islanders
Island
dwellers have heterogeneous geographical origins. Many dispersed at sexual maturity from their natal groups in distant, smaller, and even rural villages, immigrating to the island for enhanced professional, sexual, and marital prospects. Other island dwellers are indigenous; their status is higher than that of the nonautochthonous residents, particularly if they were raised in certain corners of the island or attended particular “learning huts” while growing up there.
Beliefs of and about islanders
Whether they are autochthonous or émigrés, island dwellers are believed by outsiders, many visitors, and their countrymen to harbor haughty attitudes about themselves and their island. They are known throughout the land for their brusqueness; intellectual gifts; dazzling adornment practices; and acumen in barter, trade, and negotiation. Increasingly, their trade is in invisible ideas and abstractions, enhancing the sense that they have privileged knowledge and even “magical” powers. The journeys and tribulations of those who move to the island and struggle to succeed there are the stuff of legend, literally—there exists a long oral and written tradition about the supposedly indomitable and unique spirit of people who are able to “make it there.” Once they have established themselves on the island, it is said, they can “make it anywhere.”
Resource acquisition and distribution
On the whole, the island dwellers are the richest in the entire nation, living untethered from the environmental constraints that have such a profound impact on life-history courses in other habitats worldwide. Obtaining adequate calories for themselves and their children, the main ecological challenge to parents worldwide and throughout our evolutionary prehistory, is a simple given for wealthy island dwellers. However, as in many industrial and postindustrial societies, fathers of the very traditionally gender-scripted tribe I studied tend to focus on the job of provisioning their wives and families with less-tangible resources, including financial, social, and cultural capital. While many island-dwelling females work outside the home, during the childbearing and child-rearing years, many wealthy female islanders believe it is their “role” to remain home with their children, where they are often assisted by alloparents—individuals other than parents who take on parental roles. They call these alloparents “housekeepers,” “nannies,” and “caregivers.”
Island organization
The island is organized, in the minds of island dwellers, into four quadrants: Up, Down, Right, and Left. The “Up” and “Down” areas are believed to be markedly distinct—with Up being preferable for raising children and Down being considered primarily a place for pre-reproductives, cultural “outsiders,” feasting, and ecstatic nighttime rites. Islanders further divide their island into left and right hemispheres. “Left” and “Right,” like “Up” and “Down,” are believed to have different—even polar opposite—characteristics. Left is believed to be more casual and progressive, in contrast to Right’s perceived formality and conservatism.
For islanders, Up/Down and Right/Left are more than mere directions or coordinates; they are powerful and deeply felt oppositions that organize an island dweller’s identity and everyday experience. Fittingly, islander subtribes are defined by their quadrant—e.g., Right Siders, Left Siders, Updwellers, Downdwellers. Island dwellers are largely indifferent to residents of adjacent areas of the archipelago, rarely going there or even speaking of them. “Crossing over” to outlying parts of their own landmass and to other islands in the archipelago requires complex transportation, insider knowledge of routes, and a tariff, further reinforcing not only islanders’ intense xenophobia but also their literal geographical separateness.
Quadrant affiliation and construction of social identity
Many islanders express trepidation and experience anxiety and distress when they travel from their quadrant of the small island to another, considering such transitions inconvenient, time-consuming, difficult, and even unlucky. Superstitiously, some organize their lives and appointments (with their medical, financial, and child-care shamans) so that they only rarely have to leave their immediate area. Quadrant identity also informs practices such as dress and adornment, child rearing, and voluntary seasonal migration patterns (western zone inhabitants are more likely to seek out mountain ranges in summer, while residents of the eastern zone, particularly the Upper Right zone, have a marked preference for one specific, elite ocean destination. There are also zone-specific warm-weather destinations in winter).
There is a broad belief on the entire island that two zones are “best” for child rearing and family life. These two zones, Up Right and Up Left, flank the massive, fetishized, and aptly named “Big Field,” proximity to which is highly desirable. This may stem from the islanders’ collective history and prehistory; as savanna dwellers who took to trees for safety and eventually as propertied agrarians who needed to be on the lookout for hostile intruders, they may value and feel most comfortable when viewing a cleared expanse from a “safe” height. Thus, a dwelling with a view of Big Field is desirable and costly, and confers and reinforces high social status. Big Field is also believed to be ideal for children, who play there under the supervision of teachers, parents, and mostly, alloparents. No industry is allowed in Big Field; there is minimal commerce. It is a sacred zone, and believed to be a powerful health tonic: gazing at Big Field and walking in it are said to have restive and fortifying effects. Those who live closest to Big Field in the Up Right (or Upper East Side) quadrant are the richest on the island, with some of the most distinctive, entrenched, and bizarre-seeming tribal practices, rituals, and beliefs. These inhabitants are the subject of our study.
WE HAD decided to move uptown in search of a “better childhood” for our son. Uptown has Central Park, after all, an oasis of sorts wedged between the Upper East and Upper West Sides, and lots of good public and private schools. At the time it also had the things it was so hard to find downtown—kid-friendly restaurants, clothing stores for kids, and places to take your kid for a haircut where he could watch a Wiggles video while sitting in a chair shaped like a fire engine. We wanted some respite from the constant reminders of 9/11, which still hung over downtown, nearly a year later, in so many ways—poor indoor air quality, unremitting anxiety, and palpable sadness. We wanted access to playgrounds and a family-focused neighborhood in an excellent public school district. And we wanted to be near my husband’s parents, as well as his brother and his family, a web of loving cousins and grown-ups who would lend a hand and prop us up when we were sleep deprived and dealing with teething or temper tantrums. With our commitment to staying in Manhattan, this meant one thing: the Upper East Side.
Whenever I mentioned to our downtown friends that we were moving uptown, they looked at me as if I were excitedly divulging plans to join a cult. “At least a downtown trophy wife has glasses, a PhD, and her own nonprofit,” a girlfriend’s husband observed as we discussed it over drinks one night. It went without saying that we all knew an Upper East Side trophy wife had blond hair and breast augmentation. And stayed home with the kids. And the staff. Right? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t ventured above West Twenty-Third Street for years, except to visit my in-laws and go on the occasional museum excursion. At such times I could not fail to notice the lacquered, polished looks of the people and the stores and every single surface and outfit and bit of brass. But the mommies never particularly caught my eye. After all, I had never really known any Upper East Side mommies. How would that be? How would they be? “Be sure to budget the money for a fur coat,” my girlfriend smirked. I laughed, and my husband choked on a cashew. There was no shortage of stereotypes about uptown versus downtown, and I was eager to see for myself how true or false they were.
First, though, I had to find us a place. And I do mean I, because my husband promptly delegated the apartment-hunting project to me. This was ostensibly logical since, as the mother of a very young child, I had rearranged my work schedule as a writer to be “flexible” and “freelance”—I could put it on hold for days or weeks at a time. We also h
ad a part-time nanny who could watch my son while I searched. But there was a deeper cultural logic at work, too: in Manhattan, the woman is in charge of finding a place for the family to live. She might also pay for it, or for half of it. But in heterosexual marriages, regardless of who does what, it’s usually the woman who finds the apartment. I had puzzled over this plenty, and in the end chalked it up to agriculture. While our hunter-gatherer ancestors had roamed and ranged with the food supply, setting up and breaking down camp with little attachment to place or possessions, the transition to a crop-based economy changed everything. With it came the notion of property—“These fields are mine!”—and increased fertility for women, who were now relatively sedentary, and so ovulated more frequently. Before you could say “millet,” women were transformed from gatherers—with all the clout, influence, and freedom that came with supplying their bands with nearly all their daily calories—into keepers of the hearth and home, with little say beyond what time the dinner they had spent the day making would be served, and little prestige other than as baby vessels. I didn’t mind that I was the one taking care of the baby and tending to our home and finding us a new one. It made sense, given that my husband’s career was more lucrative than mine, and given my intense desire to be with our little son. But there were days when I wondered whether what my girlfriend and her husband had said over drinks was true: that, compared with downtown, Upper East Side gender politics were even more markedly agriculturalist Bantu than freewheeling, downtown-ish, hunter-gatherer !Kung San.
Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir Page 2
