Head west, stinky hippies
Posted
January 23, 2008 at
9:48 am by
Prescott
Fit Pregnancy recently released their list of the best cities to have a baby, and U.S. Crunchy Central Portland, Oregon was at the top. The magazine looked at the 50 largest cities and their quality of health care, breastfeeding rates, availability of doulas and midwives, stroller friendly parks, etc. Results were tabulated by the “Fit Pregnancy Advisory Board”, whoever they are — probably a bunch of interns throwing darts at a map. Maybe I’m just bitter because my hometown, Chicago, ranked number 28th. What? Who wouldn’t want to have a baby in a Cook County hospital? And the Windy City gets an “F” for stroller-friendliness? The whole place is covered with concrete, what’s not stroller-friendly about that? Have you ever tried to push a stroller on a wooded trail or through a lush meadow? Not fun. Hmmph. Here’s a run down of the top 10:
- Portland - perfect for socialists who don’t like to shave their armpits.
- Minneapolis - great if you’re having a baby popsicle.
- San Francisco - every commercial that uses a runaway ball, car, piano, etc. films on San Francisco’s hills — that’s stroller-friendly?
- Seattle - like Portland, but with more caffeine and software moguls.
- Denver - good luck with those high altitude breathing exercises.
- Boston - if you’re carrying a wicked pissa, Boston is freakin’ awesome.
- Omaha - so boring I don’t even have anything to say about it.
- Virginia Beach - best thing Virginia has going for it? It’s not West Virginia.
- Austin - just hope your due date isn’t during South by Southwest.
- Albuquerque - actually, Albuquerque is kinda nice.
Bottom of the list? Detroit. So at least we’re better than the Motor City. Which is like being a better parent than Britney Spears.
Tags: best-city-to-have-a-baby, fit-pregnancy, Parenting, portland, pregnancy |
6 Responses to “Head west, stinky hippies”
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1. Allison said:
January 23, 2008 @ 11:11 am
Bottom of the list? Detroit. So at least we’re better than the Motor City. Which is like being a better parent than Britney Spears.
LOL
LOL
LOL
That’s awesome! Sorry, everytime I think of Detroit, I flash to that movie “8 Mile” with Eminem.
Yeah, not what appears to be a very baby-friendly place, to me………
2. Rita said:
January 24, 2008 @ 8:31 am
LMAO, you know I’ve LIVED in four of those cities (areas): the Minneapolis area, the Boston area, the Chicago area and right in Austin city limits.
Yeah, the Minneapolis area is very family friendly, that’s all I can say. EVERYONE here breastfeeds. I was totally the freaky one out with that. The hospital where I delivered had several midwife clinics housed inside it (and only one OB/GYN clinic). It is a lot crunchier than you might think, and it’s not just because the snow has sublimed in the sub-zero temperatures.
I also delivered (Katie) in Austin and it was pretty crunchy, too, which seems weird since the big pink Capitol building is downtown Austin. But, it does have that funky transient element. Lots of young parents in Austin, which I think sways the curve to the non-mainstream side.
3. Erika said:
January 28, 2008 @ 10:33 pm
(I hope that my previous post doesn’t get posted, since it was an accidental “send” thanks to an overly sensitive mousepad.)
Great post. I found their list annoying for many reasons. All in all, the sad (and only real) thing that Fit Pregnancy’s “best cities” list shows is the sad state of health care for women and children in this country. [quote comment="138609"]Bottom of the list? Detroit. So at least we’re better than the Motor City. Which is like being a better parent than Britney Spears.
LOL
LOL
LOL
That’s awesome! Sorry, everytime I think of Detroit, I flash to that movie “8 Mile” with Eminem.
Yeah, not what appears to be a very baby-friendly place, to me………[/quote]
Well, you might be surprised, if you visited it. “Eight Mile” represents only one aspect of life in the Motor City.
Detroit and the Detroit Metro area are more baby friendly than you’d imagine. Okay, it’s not Boston (I know, I lived there most of my life) with its excellent teaching hospitals and some of the best schools in the nation; but I still had access to excellent prenatal and natal care, breastfeeding support, a great OB and midwife and a fabulous hospital–I even got wireless fetal monitors. I have access to parks, museums, networks of parents, kid’s programs and libraries. And people here are less likely to get in your business when you nurse in public than they are in my dear Puritanical Boston.
I’m not bitter about Detroit being at the bottom of the list–especially since I don’t actually live *in* Detroit. The list and their criteria is just plain flawed.
4. Sally said:
January 30, 2008 @ 10:29 am
What I know about Austin is that it is a Party City/College town, one of the highest on the list of Party College Campus towns or whatever they call them. Every Friday night some of the downtown streets were roped off from traffic and turned into a block (pleural as in more than one block)party. I do not remember, maybe it was every night instead of Fridays and weekends. Two of my sister’s kids went to college there. There is a lot of bar hopping and country and western music and the kids all have a lot of fun. I was very surprised to see this city on the above list. I agree it is in a beautiful part of Texas. It is spread out over a large area and it is the capital city of Texas, but I still am surprised that it is on the list. Maybe a lot of the college kids settle down there and make it have a large population of young parents. There are some other places named Austin, but I assume this is meant to be Austin, Texas.
5. Caroline said:
January 31, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
Hmmm… Portland is “perfect for socialists who don’t like to shave their armpits”?? Actually you’ve got the socialist part right (might account for why Portland is a great place to have a baby - the Oregon Health Plan might be providing maternal care to a greater percentage of women than other cities??) but we all pretty much shave our armpits here. Force of habit, I guess…
6. MommyGoddess said:
February 6, 2008 @ 2:28 am
ROFL at the Cook County post… considering I had my son at Christ in Oak Lawn. And now have *2* friends with LAWSUITS against that particular hospital. Throw in the fact that I had EMERGENCY surgery at COUNTY, where I WOKE UP DURING THE PROCEDURE…
Yeah. I think I could see why they’re at the low 20’s. Um. Yeah. Definitely.
=P