Monday, November 29, 2004
The Baby Gap
Couples attempting to raise children in a big blue city quickly learn the truth of what bond trader Sherman McCoy's father told him in Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities: "If you want to live in New York, you've got to insulate, insulate, insulate." Manhattan liberals all believe in celebrating diversity in theory, but typically draw the line at subjecting their own offspring to it in the public schools. With Manhattan private K-12 school tuitions now approaching $25,000, insulating multiple children rapidly becomes too expensive for all but the filthy rich.
In tempting contrast, the cost-of-living calculator provided by HomeFair.com says that a $100,000 salary in liberal Manhattan buys only as much as a $38,000 salary in conservative Pinehurst, North Carolina.
Likewise, a San Francisco couple earning a $100,000 between them can afford just as much in Cedar City, Utah if the husband can find a $44,000 a year job -- and then the wife can stay home to raise their children.
Moreover, the culture of Cedar City is more conducive to child rearing than San Francisco. Having insulated themselves through distance rather than money, they can now send their kids to public schools.
(Among red states, the South has lower white fertility than the northern Great Plains and Great Basin, perhaps because many Southern conservatives, like many Manhattan liberals, prefer private schools, which makes children more expensive than out in Lewis & Clark country, where the public schools are popular because they aren't terribly diverse.)
In Cedar City, the wife won't feel as unprestigious for being a stay-at-home mom as she would in San Francisco. And mom won't have to chauffeur the kids everywhere because traffic and crime is light enough that they can ride their bikes.
With more children, the couple will have less money per child to buy insulation from America's corrosive media culture, so they are likely to look to the government for help. Typically, red region parents don't ask for much, often just for quasi-symbolic endorsements of family values, the non-economic gestures that drive Thomas Frank crazy. But, there's nothing irrational about trying to protect and guide your children. As the socially conservative black comedian Chris Rock advises fathers, "Your main job is to keep your daughter off The Pole" (keep her from becoming a stripper).
In tempting contrast, the cost-of-living calculator provided by HomeFair.com says that a $100,000 salary in liberal Manhattan buys only as much as a $38,000 salary in conservative Pinehurst, North Carolina.
Likewise, a San Francisco couple earning a $100,000 between them can afford just as much in Cedar City, Utah if the husband can find a $44,000 a year job -- and then the wife can stay home to raise their children.
Moreover, the culture of Cedar City is more conducive to child rearing than San Francisco. Having insulated themselves through distance rather than money, they can now send their kids to public schools.
(Among red states, the South has lower white fertility than the northern Great Plains and Great Basin, perhaps because many Southern conservatives, like many Manhattan liberals, prefer private schools, which makes children more expensive than out in Lewis & Clark country, where the public schools are popular because they aren't terribly diverse.)
In Cedar City, the wife won't feel as unprestigious for being a stay-at-home mom as she would in San Francisco. And mom won't have to chauffeur the kids everywhere because traffic and crime is light enough that they can ride their bikes.
With more children, the couple will have less money per child to buy insulation from America's corrosive media culture, so they are likely to look to the government for help. Typically, red region parents don't ask for much, often just for quasi-symbolic endorsements of family values, the non-economic gestures that drive Thomas Frank crazy. But, there's nothing irrational about trying to protect and guide your children. As the socially conservative black comedian Chris Rock advises fathers, "Your main job is to keep your daughter off The Pole" (keep her from becoming a stripper).
