Posted on 02/14/2008 9:09:55 AM PST by GovernmentShrinker
WHEN Jacqueline Brown and her husband, Gavin Friedman, were in their early 30s, they lived in a condominium in Santa Monica, Calif., with a black leather Ikea couch Mr. Friedman had bought for law school, a few modest pieces from Pier 1 Imports and assorted hand-me-down furnishings. Within a few years, though, having acquired professional and financial stability — both were litigation associates at prominent law firms — they bought a house in Cheviot Hills, an affluent neighborhood in West Los Angeles, and began remodeling and decorating.
During two renovations, each costing more than $100,000, they built a two-sided fireplace to separate the living and dining rooms, put in a wine cellar and installed a sleek maple and granite kitchen. They bought molded-wood chairs in the Arne Jacobsen style, Murano glass pendant lamps and a custom walnut entertainment unit. Ms. Brown, who had become obsessed with interior design in law school, poured heart and soul into the projects.
But just as Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman were establishing their first truly grown-up residence — she was 38, he 37 — Ms. Brown gave birth to their first child, Harrison, a boy who turned out as bouncing as most.
Suddenly they were confronted with a question that had never before occurred to them: given the way baby gear and toys take over households, the uncivilized habits of toddlers and the dangers posed by sharp-edged contemporary furniture, could Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman continue to live their high-design dream?
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
One is slack jawed at the wisdom.
Oh the humanity! People need to grow up and ease up on being so self-absorbed.
We bought a new couch a few months ago. The dogs were in danger of losing life or home and hearth if they got on the couch (my dear sweet wife would have been terrible to behold in her anger if they had pawed the couch or worse). The child was a bit confused that she could no longer suck yogurt while sitting on the couch but adjusted after a few snatch and grab timeouts. Now that the couch is a few months old the house has returned to normal . . .
You’ve got to be f’in kidding me. Could these people be anymore lame? Who spends so much time worrying about their freakin’ decor after they have kids?
Welcome to the world of the average Obama voter.
It’s so cute when the kids force the nutty parents to adjust:
““I wanted the Corian top so there would be no repeat of the famous carving incident,” Mr. Stratton said, referring to the time when Fia, at 4, used a pen to carve her name into a cherry dining table just delivered from France. (“I thought I would die,” Ms. McLean said.)”
Normally I would disapprove of 4 year olds carving their names into the family dining table, but not in this case.
Good grief! A whole article full of Denny Dimwits! “Style versus a child friendly home, whatever will I CHOOSE?”
What self-absorbed twits. I guess they wouldn’t approve of my 10 year old rollerblading through the house on the tile.
could Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman continue to live their high-design dream?
Yes, that's right, it is always about YOU. What did they think having a kid would be like?
I remember with our first child, my husband walking the floor with her (we were taking turns) while she complained endlessly. He looked at me and said, "I didn't think it would be like this." I asked him, "what did you think it was going to be like?" I was hesitant about having kids, probably because I was not fooling myself about what life is like with kids. However, once they arrive, they are the priority and not getting to keep your (cheap) IKEA furniture should be pretty low on your list.
I simply can’t relate to this. My life consists of removing dirty socks from the couch, throwing out the newest broken item (a lamp this week) and bemoaning the fact that I can’t have ANYTHING nice. :)
There is no “decor” with four children, a dog, two cats, a hamster, two aquariums, and a sloppy husband.
Even among this collection of parents who are all clearly in need of psychiatric attention, there are gradations. The Cherney-Bernstein parents (perhaps nudged closer to reality by the death of their first child) at least determined they would “sacrifice” the formal dining room to create a children’s play area. The Brown-Friedman parents, on the other hand, can’t even seem to let poor little Harrison’s own bedroom escape their craving for haute decor: “They put up silk Shantung draperies in Harrison’s bedroom, knowing that they might well end up stained, as they soon did — with yogurt.”
There most certainly is “decor”.It’s just that now it’s in Crayon,marker,macaroni,pudding,etc.,,
Please pardon me while I go puke.
MM (in TX)
Well the New York Times is the perfect newspaper for them.
I read the whole article with my jaw hanging down. Some weren’t as bad as others but they all are still out of touch with the real world. “Power” couples make their own reality.
Some of these “parents” won’t have to worry about their stuff in a few years. When their kids hit adolescence and turn ultra-rebellious, they’ll be lucky if the whole house doesn’t get burned down.
Phyllis Diller once said,
“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”
Nonsense. You just have to put the pretty stuff out of reach. Think ceiling cornices, wallpaper borders just below the cornices, valances, ceiling and wall light fixtures, and attractive artwork on the upper half of the walls. For me the kids are yet to come, but the prospect of them has definitely influenced my floor level decorating choices. I like Victorian style and go for the big sturdy wood furniture. The genuinely old stuff comes pre-dinged/scratched/stained, so one doesn’t need to worry about that.
“I’m very concerned with what’s in my visual space. When people come into the house, I very much do not want them being bombarded with toys.” She also refused to babyproof furniture when the children were younger. She was “never one of those mothers” who put safety corners on coffee tables, she said. “That stuff is just gross, and I don’t feel you have to sacrifice living space to that degree.” And she decided not to install wire railings on the open side of the floating walnut staircase Mr. Stratton designed to connect the first- and second-floor living spaces. “We couldn’t bear it,” she said. “It was too ugly. So basically what we did was we trained the kids to hold onto the handrail, and it’s worked. No one’s ever fallen off.”
The railing thing is really over the top. Better to risk having the toddlers break their necks than give up the custom "floating" staircase. Cute that they think toddlers can be trained in safe behavior re life and death matters. But somehow I'm quite confident that if you suggested to them that even older children could be reliably taught not to handle the loaded gun mom and dad keep handy, they'd be horrified and exclaim "But kids make mistakes! Somebody could get killed! There should be laws against keeping guns where kids could find them!"
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