DADWAGON

It can be hard to judge the reach of this humble blog. Yes, we know we have some readers (we love you madly, by the way). But are we, to use that shiteating buzzword of the day, influencers?

Well, yes.

At least, that’s what I’m going to assume, given this news from MSNBC.com today:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Monday that the National Park Service will develop the nation’s largest urban campground at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, a former airport used by Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes.

“We want to make New York the leading example of what we can do around the country with urban parks,” Salazar said.

Casual DadWagon observers will remember that long before the idea even flickered across the great screen of the Secretary’s subconscious, we camped at Floyd Bennett field. And we blogged about it, last May. It was a hugely successful little trip. The strange serendipity of camping en plein air next to a decommissioned airstrip far outweighed the rancid bathrooms or even the NYPD helicopter landing zone not far away.

More intent observers of this space would probably remind me at this point that the reason we went camping there was because Matt wrote about it for his blog at the New York Times (he was, back then, known as the Frugal Traveler). Though I’ve never actually posted a picture of my children on DadWagon, there is a picture of my son on the Frugal Traveler post. And a picture of my hands, holding a terrified frog. It’s a good little piece, worth a read if you want to get excited about the coming camp overhaul.

You might think it more likely that the masterminds who chose Floyd Bennett for refurbishment under the America’s Great Outdoors campaign did so of their own accord. And that if they read about the place at all, it was there at NYTimes.com.

But I don’t think that’s true. I think Ken Salazar has DadWagon bookmarked. I think he is fascinated by baby yoga, Icelandic baby cafes, and babies in bars. I think he wants to know where we’ve been camping with our children and how he can use stimulus funds to make that a more enjoyable experience next time.

So you’re welcome, Ken, and you’re welcome, America. We’ll see you all under the stars at Floyd Bennett field soon.

And also, Mr. Secretary, if you are hiring any laborers to help build the new campground, please email us at tips@dadwagon.com. We could use some work: we’re totally broke because nobody ever reads this godforsaken blog.

As New York parents, we here at DadWagon fret a lot about preschool: where to go, how to get in, how to game the system so that our kids can wind up in the same classrooms as their friends, and where the closest bar is. But I think on some level, we all just assume that our kids will go to one preschool or another, whether it’s a privately run concern or a universal pre-K slot halfway across the city.

And so it’s good to remember that not everyone makes that assumption. What’s more, according to Mother Jones and Science magazine, sending kids to preschool has lifelong beneficial effects:

The results were especially good among children born to mothers who never finished high school: high school completion rates were roughly ten percentage points higher and rates of substance abuse and felony charges were roughly ten percentage points lower. Overall, the preschool groups had higher high school graduation rates, higher on-time graduation rates, higher college attendance, higher economic status, and higher incomes compared to the group who didn’t attend preschool. Interestingly, the positive effects were limited to boys. Girls, however, responded more positively to school-age interventions.

If you look at the charts associated with this story, though, there are a couple of funny quirks. For one, children of mothers who finished high school were more likely to wind up with felony charges if they went to preschool than if they didn’t. But if mom didn’t graduate, they were far less likely. Weird. What were they teaching in those preschools?

Also, going to preschool (or not) had no effect on rates of substance abuse among kids whose mothers finished high school. (Although if mom didn’t finish, preschool kids were far less likely to use drugs than their non-preschool peers.)

The MoJo post does a lot of cost calculation—does early-intervention preschool save society money in the long run?—but I like this story as a comforting salve to the stresses of the New York City education system. That is, wherever Sasha’s going to school, at least she’s going somewhere, and will be somewhat less likely to use drugs or drop out of high school than the kids who skip preschool. Still, I’m not looking forward to those felony charges.

Such sweet sorrow, when a blogger abandons his post for a week or two. On the one hand, I haven’t been writing about my kids. On the other hand, you haven’t had to read about my kids.

But all that is coming to an end, as I’m rejoining the DadWagon just in time for the week of hysteria and madness leading up to Father’s Day.  I’m writing this from Turkish Airways flight 11, the newish (and somewhat awesomely scheduled) afternoon nonstop from Istanbul to New York, which gets in at 9p. No waiting all day in bleary stupor just to go to sleep at a time appropriate for the continent you’re on. Just sleep a bit on the plane and get home and rejoin humanity.

Of course, coming back is about more than just adjusting to the time zone. It’s also about getting back into the family role that I completely abandon when I leave town. I’ve been away in the Republic of Georgia, and in Istanbul. I’ve been reporting, mostly on politics, and I’ve hardly even seen a kid in my travels. But now I’ll be needing to get right back into it. There are some bills to pay, emails to write to schools. I need to reintroduce myself to the kids, who have seen me on Skype three times over the last couple weeks, but otherwise may be less aware of my existence than before.

So in other words, it’s time for me to go to work. In the home. Being a foreign correspondent, even a part-time one, has its costs.