I signed Kaia up for the spring session of a well-known and popular music class in New York City. I originally found out about it a year ago, but I didn’t think it made much sense to pay for a music class for her back then when she wasn’t particularly interactive or responsive; to me, that felt like I would be paying for entertainment for our nanny vs. our own baby, which I did not want. Plus, before the age of 1, she would be exposed to plenty of music at home, on TV, and outdoors when we’d be out and about. So I waited until now to sign her up. It’s 13 weeks, with one class per week. You get two makeup sessions if you are out of town/have to miss a session for any reason. The ones I signed her up for are in Central Park. Her makeup sessions, which I’ve already pre-scheduled, are in Riverside Park, so all are quite close.

The annoying thing, though, is how specific they are about charges. So for example, because I signed Kaia up for the outdoor sessions, if I do a makeup session that’s “indoors,” they will require me to pay a $20 surcharge. Why…? Is it because they are paying for the indoor space, and that space, given we’re in Manhattan, is quite the premium? And they also suggested we purchase a “band in a box,” which is a box full of class props, like scarves, music-related toys, etc., for her to use during and outside of class. That costs $30. And because I didn’t want her to feel left out or like she was getting a half-assed experience, I sucked it up and paid for the box. Yep, I did THAT parent thing and just got it for her. Part of me thinks: this class is quite expensive at $35/pop (assuming you purchase the full season’s session), so why aren’t the props/toys just included? I suppose they are just being capitalists in a capitalist society and want to find every possible way to make more money. And of course, parents like us are going to pay for it because who, in this neighborhood, is going to cheap out on their child’s education? But the other part of me just feels annoyed that seemingly everything “baby” or “toddler” related has to be so expensive and has to have yet another price tag added to it. It’s exhausting sometimes. And when you do find the “free” things (paid for by… my TAX PAYER DOLLARS, like the library), it’s super competitive and cut-throat to get in, or it requires you queue up for hours on end. It’s just another thing to make parents’ lives more difficult, or to make child-rearing itself more challenging and expensive.

I learned about Culture Pass years ago, but I was reminded of it again through a Facebook parents group I belong to. It’s a New York City program for library card-holding patrons 13 and older of Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library, and Queens Public Library. With your library card, you can reserve a pass to get free admission to dozens of museums, historical societies, heritage centers, public gardens, and the like. Major museums like the Natural History Museum, the Met, and the MOMA participate; the Bronx Zoo, New York Botanical Gardens, and Wave Hill participate. And slightly lesser known historical societies and mansions such as The Japan Society and the J.P Morgan Library and Museum are included. Even the Brooklyn Children’s Museum and the Children’s Museum of Manhattan are included. Each cultural institution has its own rules: some require timed entries that you have to pre-book in advance, on top of securing a Culture Pass reservation for a specific day; others are more generous and allow you to take up to 3-4 people with you (the average seems to be you plus one other person). They typically allow you to do one booking per calendar year, so it’s not something you can take advantage of repeatedly in a short span of time. So this would not serve as a substitute for say, an annual membership to the Children’s Museum unfortunately.

After taking a look at the open passes available over the last couple of weeks, I also noticed that the breadth is pretty wide of what’s included: Second Stage Theater shows are occasionally added, as well as concerts held at Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. I thought this was pretty generous. Even if the seats are balcony/nose-bleed seats, this would be high quality arts for literally the cost of your time to sign up for a library card! Of course, taking full advantage of the Culture Pass means being diligent on checking for openings regularly, especially at the beginning of each month when things open up and new events like concerts are added, but that seems like a small inconvenience given admission to any of these places would be free.

I’ve already reserved tickets for next month to visit The Japan Society, as it’s not only supposed to be interesting from an obvious cultural perspective, but the building itself is supposed to be architecturally quite unique.

When people talk about hiring a nanny vs. doing daycare for their young baby, they usually talk about the usual things, such as higher costs for a nanny vs. daycare, higher likelihood of being sick more often with daycare vs. at home with nanny, more flexibility with nanny vs. daycare, more socialization at daycare than at home with nanny, etc. Those are the usual topics and debates you will hear. You hear about the high rates that nannies charge. Some may tell you about costs you didn’t think about upfront, like insurance costs you will have to pay out of pocket, assuming you are paying your caregiver on the books. What you don’t hear about, though, are the hidden costs of having a nanny in your own home… like, an increase in purchasing household items like hand soap, dish soap, toilet paper, paper towels, and even wipes.

There’s really no way to get around telling your nanny to be less liberal about how much dish soap to use without coming across as cheap. There just isn’t. Realistically, she shouldn’t be using THAT much dish soap. I cook and prepare all of Kaia’s food, so she never has any pots or pans to clean. The most I ask the nanny to do is cut up food or peel fruit, plate it, warm it up, and serve it. So there’s just a small handful of dishes and utensils to be cleaned at each meal since Kaia started solids. Yet despite that, ever since starting solids, I cannot even believe how quickly we have gone through dish soap in this apartment. Once, I watched our nanny while washing dishes, and she used two massive squirts of dish soap just to clean TWO PLATES. I use barely a dime-size amount to clean 10-15 dishes; how can she possibly use that much soap to clean two of Kaia’s plates…?!

Chris has also recently pointed out to me that he doesn’t understand how we could already almost be out of our Costco box of wipes. The last time we restocked these was in October during our last Costco run. We only used one large packet out of ten in December since we were in Australia. So how did we possibly go through a thousand wipes, and we’re not even through March yet? And let me just say: the Costco wipes are extra large; they are more than enough for one pee diaper. And given we just sized Kaia up to the next diaper size, there’s more than enough room on the bigger sized diaper to handle wiping off residual poop prior to even using any diaper wipe. So you really only need one wipe (at most two for the huge poops/blowouts) to get her fully clean. I’m all about maximizing the things we buy, so since the beginning, I’ve gotten really good at minimizing the number of wipes we use and maximizing every last centimeter of space on each wipe to get her unsoiled. So where the hell did all our wipes go? Is our nanny just being super liberal about the wipes, too, and using one wipe for each centimeter of Kaia’s butt each diaper change? Or worse, is she using them for herself to clean her own hands…? I’ve also noticed parents and caregivers in public using diaper wipes for tasks just wiping their children’s mouth or hands. There are cheaper ways to clean your children’s faces and hands, people!!

Again, there’s no way to control for these things because you have no idea since you’re not there watching her every second. And to try to ask about it just makes you either come off as a micro manager and/or cheap. But… we suck it up because it’s our (privileged) choice to hire a nanny to care for our baby.

When I was at the building’s gym two weeks ago, a woman stopped me to ask if I was Kaia’s mom. I didn’t recognize her, but she let me know that she was the mother of X, the friend in the building that Kaia has been playing with. Our nanny had befriended nanny and X while in the playroom during the winter months, and so I had seen many photos of Kaia and X playing together until I met his mom. And then the mom reminded me that I had actually given her well wishes on her actual due date in the gym on the elliptical this time last year, and let her know that at that time, I was about three months postpartum. What a funny little story! I had not seen her at the gym at all since, so I didn’t recognize her.

So I left her a note with my number and let her know that it would be good to set up play dates since our babies were already acquainted, and it would also be nice to have nearby parent friends. We’ve been texting on and off lately, and she shared she had a 3-month membership at the nearby Children’s Museum, where her nanny was taking X at least once a week. The membership includes admission for 2 adults and up to four children, so she suggested that Kaia and our nanny go with their nanny and X tomorrow. So I thought – why not? Freebie for us, and I’m sure we’ll do other future things where they’d benefit, as well.

I really do need more local friends who have kids my age. An added bonus is if they live close by.