MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“Never underestimate the value of kids,” Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, June 19, 2010
On your mark, get set – breed!
In the past decade, Nassau and Suffolk counties have experienced a sharp, 10 percent decline in the population of children 9 and younger. These are big numbers when you add them up: 40,500 fewer children than we had in 2000.
All of us bear some responsibility for the Great Long Island Baby Bust.
The kid dip has all kinds of practical consequences for life around here. Emptier classrooms. Reduced civic and religious engagement. (It’s been proven: People with kids vote and worship more.)
And of course, less high-decibel crying in restaurants. You’ll notice I didn’t say all the Baby Bust consequences are bad.
And this is no national trend. While many Long Islanders are saying “no, thank you” to parenthood, the rest of America is apparently inhabited by human rabbits.
So why here? Is Long Island that kid-unfriendly? The experts advance various theories. But clearly the high cost of Long Island children plays the biggest role. From $200 sneakers to $10,000 summer camps to $50,000-a-year college bills, kids may be worth every penny. But you certainly can’t call them cheap.
But we need them. That’s the truth.
Who will fill the parks with laughter? Who will bring joy to adults’ hearts? And let’s be honest, there are selfish concerns as well.
If not today’s children, who will come and visit us when we get old?
So go on. Get busy. Breed.
IF NOT THE KIDS
1. Who will fix our broken computers?
2. Who will record our TV shows?
3. Who will explain the rules of soccer?
4. Who will fund our Social Security?
5. Who will laugh at our geezer puns?
ONLY ME:
Does a village mayor have some right to run unopposed? Herb Morrow of Huntington Bay seems to think so. When local resident Deb Colton staged a one-day write-in campaign and grabbed an impressive 66 votes (to the incumbent mayor’s 186), he huffed indignantly to the Huntington Patch: “very underhanded…disturbing…intimidating.” Here’s another word, Mr. Mayor: Democracy.
ASKED AND UNANSWERED:
Does it really take an eye-in-the-sky to spot aggressive drivers on the LIE? Wouldn’t an eye-on-the-side-of-the road work just as well?…Exactly which Carvel cake was Dina Lohan trying to get for free when things turned icy at the East Meadow ice cream store? Fudgie the Freeloader? Hug-Me-I’m-a-Celebrity-Mom?…As the owners of LI’s BP stations struggle against boycott threats, is their strongest argument really “the oil giant is doing its best”? Wouldn’t “we, the small people, own these businesses” be more convincing? OK, maybe not “small people.”…Does anyplace have better strawberries than Mattituck? If you think so, expect an argument at this weekend’s Lions Club fest…Someone stole an aircraft’s landing gear from Air Industries in Bay Shore? Is that the aviation equivalent of thieves boosting my car radio – or my brake lines?…Jerry Seinfeld’s in the Mets broadcast booth Wednesday night with Keith and Gary? Amazing, isn’t it, how huge stars in one realm can be giddy fans in another?… Was anyone surprised to see Long Islanders well-represented in the Justice Department’s big mortgage-fraud bust? Our sleazy brokers didn’t invent mortgage fraud – but shouldn’t they get credit for helping perfect these schemes?…Did Alicia lose her Keys? Why else would she sell that gorgeous seven-bedroom house in Syosset?…Why did it take eight years to open the Italian Garden at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay? Antonio Canova’s marble nymphs aren’t saying, but clearly they know something.
E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican
ELLIS’ LONG ISLANDERS OF THE WEEK
THE SHINNECOCKS
Their numbers aren’t large: Just 500 people on an 800-acre reservation in Southampton with 700 others scattered around. But with formal federal recognition, the Shinnecock Indians have something real to celebrate. And whatever controversies swirl around them – land fights, tax debates, casino locations – give the tribe this: Their ancestors were here long before anyone else’s. And they will be an integral part of Long Island’s future, not just its past.
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