Tradwives and fundi babies: America 2024

Let’s all be frilly — and dependent.

By Caitlin Kelly

Like every immigrant, I moved to the U.S., at 30, filled with hope and optimism for my new future in a country that spends a lot of energy telling the world — and its citizens — that it’s a “city on a hill”, a bastion of freedom with “liberty for all.”

As if.

In the decades since I chose the U.S. — and especially since the election of Donald Trump, unleashing a hatred and racism and ignorance that stuns many worldwide — I’ve become less and less enamored of the shiny rhetoric. The current mood towards immigrants (always a recurring theme here), towards women (back to the kitchen!) and, always, towards non-white Amerians, is becoming more hateful and louder every day.

State after state is moving to restrict access to abortion, trying to criminalize every effort a woman — or teenage girl — makes to control her own body. How dare she! How dare we!

Then there are “tradwives”, a wildly popular genre on social media — women, often white, thin, affluent — who pride themselves on having a lot of children and relying solely on their husbands for economic support.

From The Guardian:

Trad wives can be traced back to the Red Pill Women forum that was set up in 2013. According to research from Julia Ebner in 2020, 30,000 women identified as Red Pill Women or trad wives. As with most far-right trends, most of them appear to be in the US, but due to the networked nature of the modern far right, trends that start stateside don’t remain there. Interviews I conducted revealed that the British far right encourages its women to be trad, with women attending nationalist conferences such as the annual Patriotic Alternative conference, and making a name for themselves on the far-right infosphere.

The subculture shares aesthetics and values across the Atlantic. Long, floral dresses are the norm, idealising a mythic past of feminine modesty. Women should be covered up, as their bodies are just for their husbands. A woman’s role is to stay at home, serving her spouse domestically and sexually, while her partner goes to work to support her. Men should “discipline” women.

Unsurprisingly, they are anti-feminist, with the far right recruiting women to the trad lifestyle by claiming feminism has failed to make them happy. While not a trad wife herself, “alt-right” influencer Lauren Southern shot to fame by claiming feminism taught women “to work 9–5 and drink wine every night until their ovaries dry up”.

I came of age during second-wave feminism, Ms. magazine and Helen Reddy chanting “I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers to be ignore!” I grew up in Canada, where abortion has long been readily available legally. I was stunned when I moved to New York and began job hunting in Manhattan in media, what sexist bullshit women were putting up with! I had lunch with a married very senior editor at Newsweek — then a dream job for me — who leaned close and said “I can’t smell your perfume.”

Gross.

I was lucky enough to have parents who never once suggested marriage and motherhood were the only proper uses of my body and intelligence. I was out of the family home at 19, living alone in a tiny apartment, and managing all my own money. As readers here know, I’m ferociously independent in many ways.

I also learned the hard way the real price of deliberate ignorance when my first husband walked out the door for good after barely two years of marriage and quickly married a colleague. I didn’t even know when the mortgage was due — he walked on June 15th…now I know!

Luckily I had a pre-nuptial agreement and he had to pay alimony to get me back on my feet; here’s my recent New York Times story about that.

Which now brings us to fundi babies, a phrase I had gratefully never heard before GOP Senator Katie Britt’s bizarre State of the Union rebuttal.

She sits in a weirdly expensive all-beige kitchen with costly appliances, insisting she’s just a mom like every other decent American, and talks in a breathy little voice — fundi baby — that, apparently, is a powerful dog whistle to any girl or woman raised in an evangelical Christian household — taught to model submission and docility to men.

An explanation, from a Substack by Jess Piper:

I threw so many folks for a loop last year when I discussed the voice in a video. I used my “training” as a former Evangelical, a Southern Baptist, to describe the breathy cadence and the soft, child-like high pitch. Folks outside of Fundamentalist culture had never heard the term—they just knew the voice made them uncomfortable.

I know that voice well…in fact I can’t shake it myself. It was engrained in every woman I knew from church and every time I speak about it, folks will point out that I sound that way myself. Yes, friends. That’s the point.

Be sweet. Obey. Prove it by speaking in muted tones.

It’s hard for me to fathom women who willingly make this choice and keep making it. Call me judgmental and I’m fine with it. Relying solely on a man’s benevolence can leave women abused, homeless and broke. And it does.

No, thanks.

I’m weary of this country’s relentless push to keep women submissive to male power and influence.

This, just as France enshrines abortion in its Constitution.

Flaco — the eagle owl that united so many of us

By Caitlin Kelly

His name was Flaco, and he was a Eurasian eagle owl, his feathers the most glorious mix of black, rust and sienna, his distinctive ear tufts sometimes blowing sideways in the Manhattan wind. His eyes were brilliant yellow, his talons impressive. He was beautiful and ferocious — and very much out of his natural habitat.

We all feared the day it might kill him, as it did when he recently flew into a window on the upper East Side, one of many birds who die such a terrible death.

Flaco was born and raised in captivity, but set free a year ago from the Central Park Zoo by a vandal who cut the wires of his cage. Thus began an adventure shared, thanks to social media, with many fans worldwide, as Flaco flew onto construction sites, water towers, apartment balconies — all the familiar landmarks of the city.

Can you imagine finding him perched on your balcony? It was a true celebrity sighting!

He was much photographed, allowing his many admirers on social media — I saw him daily on Twitter — to cheer him on as he swooped high above urban towers, finding rats and pigeons for his diet. Whether asleep or taking flight or in flight, or gently hooting above all the city noise, he became a somehow comforting presence in a time when everything we see on the news — Gaza, Darfur, Ukraine, the election, climate change — is so relentlessly awful and depressing and overwhelming. Flaco was gorgeous and free and someone we could all cheer for without reservation, profess our admiration for without fear of rancor or argument.

He was also an introduction to bird life in a way us non-birders never appreciated — asleep, preening, spreading his wings, spitting out the remains of a mouse or rat. The many excellent photos of him allowed us a detailed view of avian life.

The New York Times recently ran a large article about him, to the delight of all his fans — and the photographers who tracked him so carefully:

obsessed Flaco fans scoured the internet to find out more about his past, learning that he hatched on March 15, 2010, at the Sylvan Heights Bird Park in Scotland Neck, N.C. He apparently had younger and older siblings named Gertrude, Salazar, Stan, Morrisey, Boston and Thatcher; and his parents, Xena and Watson, were the offspring, respectively, of Martina and Sinbad, and Nyra and Ezra — owls who traced their lineage back to Eurasian eagle-owls from Europe. The German-born photographer Anke Frohlich noted that some New Yorkers identified with Flaco as a fellow immigrant, another outsider who learned to live as “a stranger in a strange land.”

This, too:

The owl, once described by a frequent zoo visitor as a grumpy and slightly pudgy bird, reinvented himself as New York’s most majestic raptor — the “Prince of the city,” as the dancer Heather Watts put it, who has become a captivating symbol of freedom, resilience and the possibility of renewal.

Then — maybe a first for the Times — a front page obituary:

Ruben Giron, 73, a registered nurse who lives on 112th Street, said he had wept Saturday morning when he heard the news.

“He’s a symbol of just enjoying being out and letting the sun hit you,” he said. “It’s a heart-opening experience of what it means to be free.”

He added: “We’re all figuring out how to live life. That’s what we’re doing, and he did it.”

He will be very much missed.

The vicarious pleasures of others’ rural life

By Caitlin Kelly

I am so not a rural person!

I lasted 18 months in small town New Hampshire when I was 30 and it just about killed me: broke, lonely, no jobs, super unfriendly people and a boyfriend in medical residency who was either away and exhausted or home and exhausted.

It was a bigger culture shock to leave cosmopolitan Montreal and its bilingual nature and style for plain-Jane, no makeup, no perfume, how DARE you care about fashion New Hampshire than leaving Toronto for eight months’ of a journalism fellowship in Paris.

So the fantasy of a farmhouse and lots of land is very much not mine.

I love looking at photos of rural life — I admit to subscribing to a few magazines featuring this life, albeit an upscale one.

I love the raw beauty of it on visits.

But to live in, 24/7?

We recently spent a day and a half in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania — Amish country — visiting a friend who’s living there for a while.

It was like a dream state.

photos: Jose R. Lopez

Long clotheslines full of small black trousers and single-color plain dresses.

Men and boys in wide-brimmed straw hats.

Girls and women in bonnets.

Black horse-drawn buggies clip-clopping past.

The Amish, like many such religious communities, live by strict rules and everyone has to abide by them.

That alone is anathema for me, maybe having spent my years ages eight to 13 in a boarding school with endless endless rules, very few of which made any sense beyond avoiding a lawsuit by an irate parent or, rarely, personal injury.

We literally had to fill out a paper permission slip in order to make a phone call, detailing who we wanted to speak to. The phone was in some weird cupboard under the stairs. Hogwarts, it ain’t!

I did love our distinctive uniform — while Toronto’s four other girls’ schools wore tunics, we sported a handsome Hunting Stewart tartan kilt and tie. Our blazer was dark greeen wool, as were our knee socks.

I did love some of the school’s traditions, but being shouted at by ancient grouchy housemothers got really tedious by ninth grade — and I was told I could not return after that year.

I’ve now lived in a co-op apartment building for decades — and it, of course, imposes stupid rules as well.

The need to adhere to arbitrary rules set by others? No thanks.

I know rural life, for some, is bliss — room for horses and cows and llamas and a huge garden. For me, it smacks of lonely boredom, too far from a chic cafe or indie film house.

I do love several rural women on Twitter, like textile artist Rowena Dugdale, in western Scotland and Alison O’Neill, whose photos of her Yorkshire views, sheep and gorgeous border collie Shadow, make us all sigh! The only time (yet!) I’ve seen those stunning Yorkshire views is on TV, in shows like All Creatures Great and Small.

I do love silence and nature, maybe in smaller doses than a two-hour-plus drive to a city and endless mud season.

But I also treasure a bustling city street, people-watching the stylish, being a flaneuse (lazy wanderer) and a very good gin martini at a hotel bar.

And yet — of course — farming is becoming a hot-button political issue in Europe as 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from agriculture, reports The New York Times.

One of the blog followers, who’s become a friend, grew up in a cottage on the moors, home-schooled, with a pony.

Swoon!

Do you live somewhere rural?

Do you love it?

An immigrant’s guide to the U.S. (mine)

By Caitlin Kelly

As more and more and more and more migrants flood into New York City, many of them are shocked to find a place that’s difficult, expensive and highly competitive. I know why they flee. In my hometown of Toronto. I worked as a volunteer interpreter for Chileans fleeing torture. I’ve lived in Mexico and seen poverty there and in other places — like rural Vermont.

As someone who left Canada at 30 to immigrate to the U.S., I also arrived brimming with hope, excitement and optimism. Thanks to my mother’s American citizenship I was able to obtain a “green card” and stay here indefinitely; I renew it every decade and always know exactly where it is.

Decades after moving here, a few thoughts:

Parts of this richest of nations loathe the poor and needy

It shocks me daily the casual cruelty of the conservatives here, like the governor of Arkansas eager to kick as many residents off of Medicaid as soon as possible to curb “government dependency.”

People need help. People get sick. People lose jobs, all the time, in a place with minuscule union membership and the legal right to fire anyone anywhere anytime for no reason at all. “Labor flexibility” they call it.

This cruel attitude makes me so so so angry — the Nebraska governor who rejected $18 million in federal funds to feed hungry children in his state. “I don’t believe in welfare,” he said.

Wait, there’s even more!

Neighboring Iowa is also opting out of the program, with Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds announcing that decision last week and saying, “An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”

States that participate in the federal program are required to cover half of the administrative costs, which would cost Nebraska an estimated $300,000. Advocates of the program note that the administrative cost is far outweighed by the $18 million benefit, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates would benefit 175,000 Nebraska children who might otherwise go hungry on some days during the summer.

Women too often viewed as baby-makers, submisssive to patriarchy

I read a lot of threads on Twitter and cover my eyes in horror at the bullshit so many women put up with here, whether within their hyper-religious families/communities and/or living in states whose legislators thrill to restrict every possible reproductive right. The misogynist repressive social and government behaviors some disdain as typical of other countries are in fact very common now in parts of this country, the one that blathers on most about liberty. How dare we claim autonomy?

More than 600 mass shootings in 2023

Awesome. I wrote my first book “Blown Away: American Women and Guns” about the role that firearms play in American lives, whether that gun is wanted or not. I spoke to 104 men, women and teens from 29 states and traveled to Texas, Ohio, Massachusetts and New Orleans to do on-site interviews and research. I understand why millions are addicted to gun ownership but I have zero patience for “gun rights” without concomitant “gun responsibilities.” Without the NRA, Second Amendment and a lot of money flowing into bought politicians’ coffers, things might, might possibly change. They won’t.

Rhode Island

 

Arrive, if possible, well educated and with excellent English

I did, and I know how privileged that made me. University/college education here can be very expensive and, too often, doesn’t win graduates the jobs, careers or incomes they assume it would. Millions of Americans spend their entire lives saddled with college debt, the only one (?!) you can’t legally discharge through bankruptcy.

 

 

Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market — amazing!

 

You’ll likely pull away from family/friends in your place of origin

I found this essay powerful and moving, by a woman who left Puerto Rico (still a part of the U.S.) for NYC:

When I decided to leave the island at 21, I thought it would be temporary. I’d hoped that furthering my education would give me a leg up in an already brutal job market at home. Instead, the Puerto Rican government announced it was broke just months before I graduated, and the limited career opportunities dwindled even further. I was also in love with my now-husband and excited about living in New York. So I stayed. I’ve since built a meaningfullife and career, but I wonder if it was worth the cost. Our lives run on parallel tracks, only briefly intersecting. My family and friends love me deeply, and I am genuinely happy when I get to hold them after months apart. But the time we steal together when I visit once or twice a year can’t make up for the prolonged separation. No matter how well we stay in touch or how much they try to make me comfortable, I feel like a guest in their lives who’s just passing through.

I don’t regret choosing to leave Canada: small labor market with very few good jobs in my industry; no desire to keep moving across the country to rise within it; long, cold winters and a wider cultural aversion to risk I found tedious.

But I have seen many times the significant gap between my life here — and the energy it demands — and the success my friends back home have enjoyed. They, too, work hard, but the social and professional networks are much much smaller. I admit to sometimes wishing they really understood what it takes to thrive here.

There’s always the “shadow life” immigrants feel — what if we’d stayed at home? Would life be better? Worse?

Hustle is normal, expected and necessary

This bit doesn’t bother me, which is probably why I’ve done OK here. There are very very few unionized jobs so it’s up to everyone individually to figure it out and get it done. That can be tiring and intimidating, of course (which is why a decent education and excellent English are a huge advantage.) But I sort of enjoy the transactional nature of the place — if someone thinks you can help them make (more) money or gain some social standing, you’re more likely to get a chance.

Don’t ever be poor and sick

13 million Americans lost access to Medicaid this year, a new high. Other developed nations — like France, Canada and Britain — make sure everyone living there has acceess without fees to medical care. There are now some really long waits, true, but it is never about how much you earn.

 

American children grow up legitimately terrified of gun violence affecting them

A gun was wielded or fired on school property at least 344 times in 2023.

This is certifiable madness.

As a non-parent, I can’t imagine having my kids do “active shooter drills”, learning how to prepare for murder and mayhem in their classrooms and hallways. But they do.

Here’s a powerful recent story about a group of outraged private school mothers in Tennessee fighting to reduce gun violence in their state after students and teachers were killed at the school their children attend.

Expecting “the gummint” to help you is folly

This is a real eye-opener if you move to the U.S. from places with much deeper social safety nets, like Canada, France, the UK and other European nations. It’s all up to you! The preferred American “solutions” to conflict and abuse of power — sue ’em or shoot ’em.

The Constitution is cited hourly somewhere

Fascinating. Best to learn it and understand its power.

It’s an extremely large, beautiful, deeply divided country

One of the best experiences of my life was traveling the entire width of the country — from Seattle to NY — by train, in 2003. I had been out near Dayton, Ohio reporting on the nation’s largest shooting competition (100+ people), and needed to rush to Vancouver, Canada for my mother’s brain surgery (she was fine later.) Last minute airfares are prohibitive so I went from Chicago out there by train and bus, then all the way home by train.

I will never forget how stunning the landscapes are, and how varied. The people on the train were an amazing mix — Amish in bonnets, military folk in uniform, families, singles. It was the most diverse crowd I’ve ever seen traveling.

 

Big Sur, California

I wept as I drove to the L.A. airport and as the flight left for NY — after a month in California, I was so moved by its beauty and history. I’ve driven the back roads of North Carolina, smelling night jasmine, and crossed the Great Dismal Swamp. I’ve savored the silence of rural New Mexico and the millennia of the Grand Canyon. It is an astonishing country in its variety, landscapes and histories.

Researching my gun book gave me valuable and intimate entree to the most disparate corners of American life, from an elite women’s college — Mt. Holyoke — to candid conversation with four young women arrested for gun crime in New York City. I spent an evening with two lawyers in upscale New Orleans, husband and wife, one who loves guns and owns many and one who hates them. I went to a library in Waco, Texas focused on women and asked where the books were about women and violence….an entire stack. In my journalism and book research, I’ve been lucky enough to learn a lot about this country and its many confusing contradictions.

 

I now understand fully some people’s attachment to firearms — and anyone who wants to better grasp this should read my book, termed “groundbreaking and invaluable.” I was honored that it was bought by the law libraries of every Ivy school and by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy. I know that bringing a fresh, non-American, feminist and non gun-owning eye to this subject made a compelling difference.

I admit — I live in a safe, affluent area, a Democratic bubble. I don’t fear daily shootings or crime. I’m not lectured at by preachers who tell women they’re sinful for wearing certain clothes. My neighbors, by and large, are not ferocious defenders of the Second Amendment.

As we head into 2024 and a crucial election year, this one might break American democracy.

We’ll see.

 

 

A Thanksgiving note of gratitude

By Caitlin Kelly

Big Sur, California, June 2022

I’m very fortunate….and this is a post to acknowledge it.

My earlier life was often pretty chaotic emotionally, and my parents weren’t the greatest, often distracted or absent — literally many thousands of miles away, traveling the world, long before cellphones or the Internet. I took care of myself a lot of the time, especially in my late teens and 20s.

At this point, and fingers crossed, things are good and calm and I’m damn grateful for it!

Work

I stopped work officially — but, funny thing, am still happily working part-time. I teach French two hours a week to a home-schooled teen. I still write for The New York Times. I do PR strategy work with a global agency and coach writers one on one. I really enjoy the variety and challenge this offers. It keeps me connected to the larger world and some of my work is really challenging. I need that!

Social Life

Living in the suburbs without children, this has long been a difficult part of life. This year I began attending a weekly French conversation group, followed by one in Spanish, at a local library, and find it a lively, fun group. I’m slowwwwly learning to play mah jongg with neighbors who are patient with my beginner skills. I have regular long — 90-120 minute — phone calls and Zooms with friends as far flung as British Columbia, Toronto, Portland, Oregon and the UK. I email others and make sure to stay in close touch with my oldest New York friend who moved to Texas. I go to spin class 2-3 times a week at the local JCC and enjoy my friendships there as well. It all adds up. It does mean being quite intentional, but that’s OK. I check in regularly with my bestie from freshman English class at University of Toronto. Our lives could not have been more different — she has three daughters and two grand-children and worked in college education and lives far away in B.C. We’re still the pasta twins — Catellini and Marioni.

Ringing the gong to mark the end of my radiation treatment, joined by the team. An emotional day

in November 2018.

Health

This is the great unknown. I’m five and half years out from an early stage breast cancer diagnosis, needing only lumpectomy and radiation and five years of low-dose Tamoxifen. I do live in suppressed anxiety about a recurrence. I have to lose a lot of weight before I can get my very painful right hip replaced so this is the biggest challenge of the moment. We do have decent doctors and dentist and a decent nearby hospital, all of which help, plus insurance and savings.

Money

We have worked hard and saved hard, so we are OK for retirement. Not millionaires by a long stretch but OK for now. Jose is still busy working three freelance jobs. I really want to travel a lot more so we’ll see how this works out. I enjoyed six solo weeks in Europe the summer of 2017 and four solo weeks driving California in June 2022. We get back to Canada several times a year to see family and friends. Our mortgage is paid off as of this year, which helps.

Home

Still in the same one bedroom apartment (!) 36 years later….how is this even possible? Well, it’s NY and life here is really expensive and our 60s building has finally redone the lobby and hallways, freshened up the exterior, put in a new intercom system, making it finally a much more attractive place to live than it was for a very, very long time. Now I’m happy to invite people over. We renovated our one tiny bathroom in 2008 and our galley kitchen in 2013. I designed both and they still look and work well. Our apartment, with a view still unobstructed by new buildings, still enjoys great sunsets — facing NW — and winter views clear up the Hudson. It’s still an easy 45 minute drive into Manhattan for a blast of culture and energy. Our town has terrific restaurants, from the local diner to a fantastic paella/tapas bar. Whenever we discuss moving, it’s actually hard to think of a place we would like more — and I initially landed here by accident, thanks to my first husband’s medical training. Very glad we did!

Marriage

Going into our 24th year together! It’s hard to imagine it’s been that long, but it has and we’re still laughing daily. I count myself very lucky to have found a happy second marriage with a man who’s as passionate about ideas, creativity, beauty and journalism as I.

If you love San Francisco, a terrific new book!

By Caitlin Kelly

I fell in love with the city on my first visit, solo, in my mid-20s and was even interviewed for a job there, which I decided I didn’t want. I’ve been there four times, most recently in June 2022. It has such elegance.

A good friend and much respected fellow Canadian journalist in the States has just published “Oldest San Francisco,” a fascinating dive into the city and its history. He lists 68 cool spots, and admits it was hard to choose.

Three of my favorite are Levi Strauss and Co. (1879), Tadich Grill (1849), where I’ve eaten and the oldest Recording Studio (1969) where legendary musicians — CCR! — came and laid down tracks.

If you love the city, or are just curious about it, this is a fun book, and nice holiday gift!

Here’s my Q and A with the author, Alec Scott.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I am, like Caitlin, a Canadian. Take One, career-wise, was the law. I practised litigation in Toronto for a few years, libel and slander, freedom of expression. One of our clients was the Globe and Mail (Canada’s national newspaper.) I edited my high school paper, and worked on my university’s daily ands was a stringer for the other Globe, the Boston Globe. I realized I wasn’t happy giving legal advice to journalists, but wanted to be back in the fray, writing and reporting. My journalist friends said I was crazy — some of them wanted to go the other direction. I did not think I’d have kids, so I decided to try the riskier business of journalism. I didn’t realize quite how that industry was circling the drain, but still, I never looked back. The people in my first media job, fact-checking at the city magazine Toronto Life, were so categorically my people, story-tellers, rakish, clever people who tried to enrich the cityscape with good, sometimes riveting, sometimes amusing stories. Arts and culture, my core interest as a writer, was central to the magazine’s mission.

How did you end up in San Francisco/area? How long have you been there?

My then boyfriend, now husband, David, a tech-savvy guy, got a job offer down here in 2008, and I left the CBC to come down here, trying to cobble together enough good work. I’ve since written for the Guardian, LA Times, Sunset, the Smithsonian Magazine, and taught writing at Stanford. In COVID, I completed a project I’d long slaved over, a first novel — I’d taken chapters of it to Banff and Bread Loaf, worried over it, and work hard on it for years. This book, phew, was a nice break from the intensity of that slightly autobiographical piece, and built on my training at Toronto Life, trying to tell stories that speak to a city’s DNA. A different city, but same idea.

What do you enjoy most about living there — especially since San Francisco’s woes have been much in the news (homelessness, high rents, etc)?

I’ve loved SF since I first visited it, coming to see a college friend. She had a family crisis and left me on my own with the use of a powder-blue Volkswagen bug. It didn’t have great brakes, but still, to be alone with this city … I went to the Japanese Tea Garden. It was so permissive relative to where I grew up, (a small town in Southern Ontario). I went to a nude beach. Though straight-laced, I knew I wasn’t straight, and some time in the Castro, the rainbow flag waving above it, helped convince me the time had come to come out. I love that the city is sui generis, its own thing. If blindfolded, you could be dropped in SF, and know that was where you’d landed. I like the old and deep civil rights tradition here. The book speaks of the city’s longtime innovation in social services, focusing on things introduced here, then spread across the U.S. and abroad: the nation’s first senior center and non-sectarian free health clinic, (the Haight-Ashbury clinic, introduced to help care for the collateral damange of the so-called Summer of Love), the world’s first community-run suicide hotline. The latter was introduced by this personal hero of mine, Bernard Mayes, an English transplant who reported on out-there San Francisco for the BBC, was a priest, helped found NPR. And also, worried about the city’s draw for the suicidal, the Golden Gate Bridge a magnet. He couldn’t find a home for the fledgline org, until he found a landlord who’d once tried to take his life, showing Mayes the scars on his wrists.

What do you like least?

The expense is really prohibitive for creatives, and the cost of living here has gutted many old, storied communities. I wanted to write about some of the old black-owned businesses in the Fillmore. But none have remained here — none of the storied barbershops or jazz clubs. As I wrote this, the oldest African-American bookstore in the US, Marcus Books, moved from its longtime home in SF across the Bay to Oakland. 

SF has this amazing old art school, the oldest West of the Mississippi, the Art Institute.It is one of the world’s great schools, graduating generations of top-tier talents — Annie Liebowitz learned to photograph here, Diego Rivera covered a wall with an extraordinary mural, meditating on artist and the city. Anyway, they stopped offering classes this year, because they were out of money — also students how could they afford to live in this city while they learned? Some potential good news is that a group of investors, lead by Laurene Jobs (widow of Steve), are in talks to potentially save the storied old school. In a city built on creativity, I hope they don’t let this school fail. (Also a beautiful building, one half brutalist, the other half with a campanile like an Italian cloister — the combination, somehow working.)

What was the most challenging part of writing the book? What did you (reluctantly) have to leave out?

COVID was tough, and also trying to keep my own COVID-augmented craziness in control! There were so many things I didn’t have space for — the oldest Italian restaurant (Fior D’Italia), oldest fishing club (the Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club), oldest public children’s playground (the Sharon Quarters in Golden Gate Park).

What most surprised you?

People think of San Francisco as progressive, and, in an American context, they’re often right to do so. But so many of the city’s old clubs and institutions only recently started admitting women. The old rowing and swimming club, the South End had to be threatened with litigation before it would do so — with typical SF perversity, it’s located at the northern tip of the city. The oldest German beerhall didn’t want to let ladies lunch there — and refused to serve a woman who then helped run the civil liberties association out here. Big mistake. The proprietor felt he’d have to change the menu for women! The country’s oldest athletic club, the Olympic, also balked at including women as full members. It surprised me that these changes were so recent — and so acrimonious.

What will most surprise readers?

I don’t know. One thing I liked was the story of how Levi Strauss jeans conquered the world. Many people wrongly believe the German-Jewish immigrant made the first prototype jeans from ship sails, many of them having sailed here during the Gold Rush, abandoned on the docks by frenzied fortune seekers. The truth is a miner kept wearing out his trousers and his tailor put some metal studs in them — they proved more durable — and the tailor asked SF-based merchant to go into partnership on them. The jeans got popuar in the East, when some New York society people went to dude ranches in the West — a thing in the 20s and 30s. What interested me was the historian’s observation that it was one of the rare instances in fashion  where the trends went from the working class up, from the West East, not from Paris, Milan and New York, not from fancy folk down, but the other direction. She also had a good story about the introduction of bell bottoms, the de rigueur concert wear in the 1960s.

Also, speaking of bell bottomss, I loved hearing about certain artists laying down the soundtrack of the 1960s and 70s in a small studio in the Tenderloin. Grace Slick asking, musically, with power, Don’t You Want Somebody to Love? Crosby Stills Nash and Young recording Teach Your Children Well. Fleetwood Mac, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Carlos Santana and the Pointer Sisters recording songs I listened to on my AM radio in Canada — “Fire, your kisses are like fire.” I am a down-to-earth guy, but I had chills in those rooms.

14 of my favorite NYC spots

By Caitlin Kelly

So many!

I’ve never lived in the city, as we call it — as if there were no other! But I love exploring it, and have been since I would visit in my early 20s, even getting into the legendary Studio 54 for a night of dancing with a gorgeous guy I met in the shoe department of Brooks Brothers — both now long gone. I had visited the offices of Glamour magazine (now only digital) and left my heavy black portfolio with examples of my published writing (pre-websites) — and they decided to buy one (typewritten) that had not even been published yet by the Canadian magazine that commissioned it. Heady days!

My favorite spots, I admit, are mostly in Manhattan — the other boroughs too far away for me or not of much interest except for one. They’re also places that have survived decades, a few even centuries.

They have staying power!

Here are some:

Arthur Avenue, the Bronx.

Here is a slice of New York many tourists will miss, and it’s so great! Fab food shops — bakeries, fresh pasta, fish, huge vats of olives and nuts. Terrific restaurants. A streetside clam bar. This is old school New York. Here’s a whole blog post I wrote about it on my last visit, in January 2023.

Fanelli’s

I’ve been dropping into this classic bar since I first arrived here in 1989. I used to take fencing lessons up the street at NYU night classes from a 2-time Olympian and the school’s fencing coach. The food is adequate but the crowd a glorious mix and its etched glass doors feel like you’re in London or Dublin.

Bergdorf Goodman

Oh my. Barney’s is (also) long gone but this is a shrine to costly style with an elegant restaurant upstairs with great views.

The Tenement Museum

I love this place — a true glimpse into this city’s gritty and challenging history. Here you see the tiny rooms that housed multiple members of the many European immigrants who crossed the Atlantic to start a new life in this tough city. Very worth a visit.

The Neue Galerie

Pretty much the polar opposite of the Tenement Museum — and which offers the stunning Klimt portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Cafe Sabarsky, in the basement of this Beaux Arts mansion, is also lovely.

Casa Magazines

This tiny, cramped shop at 22 8th Avenue is a total joy if you still love reading in print, whether newspapers or magazines. I always leaving staggering beneath the weight of $150 worth. Snag a Casa T-shirt, tote bag or hoodie.

Morandi

Delicious Italian food, pretty room.

Via Carota

Same. Have a Negroni, their legendary green salad and cacio and pepe. Line-ups likely.

Pete’s Tavern

Since 1864, this bit of history has been operating on a quiet corner.

Keen’s Chop House

Old school elegance: white tablecloths, a dining room that feels like a world away from grimy, noisy midtown. The lobster bisque is excellent.

Grand Central Terminal

Terminal, not station! The place is full of beauty (and commuters heading north): its stunning turquoise ceiling covered with gold constellations, its central clock, the hanging lanterns and elegant ironwork. The Grand Central Market (a food hall) offers two classics — Murray’s cheese and Li-Lac chocolates, where you can buy a chocolate Statue of Liberty.

Edith Machinist

The city has many vintage clothing stores but this stalwart is my favorite, owned by the woman whose name is on the door. Great stock and reasonable prices. I rarely leave empty-handed.

John Derian

Gorgeous stuff for the home. Go!

The Oyster Bar

A classic, beneath Grand Central. Sit at one of the curved counters, slurp some oysters and notice the curved Guastavino ceiling tiles and the lamp fixtures with boats.

And here’s a terrific recent list of new, trendy, elegant spots thanks to The Observer.

And here are even more new and cool NYC bars and restaurants, thanks to the NYT. The city has so many terrific options and every neighborhood has a different vibe. Just be sure to flee noisy, crowded midtown!

The tilted playing field of American education

The dining hall of Massey College, the campus for graduate students at University of Toronto, my alma mater

By Caitlin Kelly

Here’s a depressing reminder of how much money really counts if you want to attend an elite school in the United States.

From The New York Times:

Elite colleges have long been filled with the children of the richest families: At Ivy League schools, one in six students has parents in the top 1 percent.

A large new study, released Monday, shows that it has not been because these children had more impressive grades on average or took harder classes. They tended to have higher SAT scores and finely honed résumés, and applied at a higher rate — but they were overrepresented even after accounting for those things. For applicants with the same SAT or ACT score, children from families in the top 1 percent were 34 percent more likely to be admitted than the average applicant, and those from the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to get in.

You may think this doesn’t matter — or matter much — and maybe it doesn’t for some students and some schools. But there are entire industries and cities/regions where an Ivy or elite school degree means the difference between your resume getting read, let alone getting a job interview. Journalism is certainly one of these! I arrived in New York City at the age of 30 in a recession with Canada’s top university — University of Toronto — on my resume.

It might as well have been blank. I was, and always have been, facing competition from people who attended East Coast prep schools (mine was also in Toronto), then Ivy colleges and often Ivy graduate school. If a hiring manager is only looking for those people…forget it!

But there is so much unfair about this American arms race to groom even mediocre students with a lot of family money — while smart, talented lower income kids never even get the chance to compete.

I live in a middle income town in a county north of New York City that also has some extremely affluent towns — Scarsdale, Bronxville, Rye, Bedford and Chappaqua (home to the Clintons) — and whew, the endless tutoring and coaching and making sure Muffy and Jeff keep a tight hold on the best possible chance to keep climbing the ladders of affluence.

For a very brief time, I knew a local woman with tremendous wealth whose daughter said she wanted to become a journalist — an industry whose pay scales are low for all but a very few. The only question she kept asking me — how much money would her daughter earn?

Sorry, wrong question!

Certainly for that industry.

I find this endless focus on money so depressing, especially after being a Big Sister (volunteer mentor) to a 13 year old girl a while back. I should not have been so shocked to see the many obstacles she faced but I was: a noisy and chaotic household, a mother who disappeared for years only to reappear and spend her days playing video games, no quiet place to even do her homework.

The very basics other more affluent children take for granted: silence, support, discipline.

I tried to get her accepted to a local prep school but she never even showed up for the meeting. The whole thing collapsed into a mess of my liberal fantasies and her family’s clear lack of interest in, maybe even opposition to, her escaping the situation holding her back. I was deeply disheartened by it all, knowing she had intelligence and drive and a sense of humor but a lot of internal and external issues to resolve.

I moved from my native Canada to the U.S. in 1989 to live in small town New Hampshire, adjacent to the Ivy college Dartmouth, with no idea how divided the world is here between the affluent and the rest of us. Whew.

I also read two deeply formative books I recommend:

There Are No Children Here, a 1992 book about life in a Chicago housing project and Savage Inequalities, also published in 1992, which compared the educations available in two American schools — one in a wealthy suburb and one in a low-income Manhattan neighborhood.

The way education here is funded is so different than many other places determined to create a smart, well-educated population and a more level playing field.

I am also so fed up of “legacies” — students who gain admission because their family members went to the same school or donated a lot of money. Canada simply doesn’t have this.

I was fortunate to attend high school in Toronto and a university whose first year’s tuition was — yes, really — $660. It’s now around $10,000 a year for undergraduates…not $60,000 to $70,000 and beyond.

This country faces so many complex challenges: climate change, religious fundamentalism, attacks on women’s reproductive rights, racism, income inequality, gun violence…

I despair now at the lack of civic participation, of educated debate, of serious conversation among millions of Americans.

Without affordable, accessible quality education it’s not going to happen.

The eternal question: “Where’s home?”

By Caitlin Kelly

Once you’ve changed cities, towns, states/provinces, let alone countries a few times…you can feel quite deracinated, literally un-rooted.

My therapist (oh, that NY cliche!) is from South Africa. Like me, she came to the United States as an adult, and returns to her native country when she can.

Every time we do, we confront our “parallel life”, the one we might have had if we had never left. How (more? less?) successful would we have been? In Canada, with smaller, tighter professional networks, likely…one former university friend now runs the CBC. Another was the speechwriter for the Governor General.

In New York, I have a pal who was the speechwriter for a New York governor, his brother a best-selling novelist. A woman I idolized there professionally at 26 and a writer whose work I read when I arrived are now…Facebook friends. My much shorter reach in the U.S., socially and professionally, came as a real shock to me. I don’t desperately care about it, but it’s very different when your home country has 10 percent of the U.S. population!

I’ll be in Toronto for eight days starting this weekend, and seeing old friends who have never lived elsewhere, apart from one outlier whose wife told him the marriage was over — while they lived in Indonesia.

The elegant lobby bar of Toronto’s Royal York Hotel

I never loved Toronto, my home city, one very much of home ownership, whose expensive, often run-down rental properties are a real thumb in the eye of those of us forever outbid on any house we even tried to buy. Today even the ugliest tiny teardowns sell for — no kidding — $1 million or more. They’re of a size and quality you might consider paying $300,000 for if you were generous. By the time I left at 30, I was restless. If I couldn’t buy a home and settle, time to go!

The city has gorgeous parks and some terrific culture, but after 25 years there I was hungry for change.

Being (cough) opinionated and direct since my teens — neither applauded as politely Canadian — would likely have foreshortened my career since there are so few major cities. I’d already lived in Toronto and Montreal and Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver didn’t appeal. So I was lucky to get a green card and legally emigrate to the U.S.

But, oooof, it’s not easy! I’m glad I came and have achieved many of my personal and professional dreams in New York: published 100 times by The New York Times, two books, a lovely second marriage, an attractive apartment. I felt I would likely not have achieved most of these had I stayed in Canada.

I recently did a podcast and one of the questions asked about my romantic life. It was messy and complicated in my 20s since I knew I wanted to move to New York eventually , which meant always dating Mr. Right Now and never Mr. Right, a potential life partner who wouldn’t be able to go with me or probably wouldn’t want to.

So that romantic frustration was another spur to keep moving. He had to be out there somewhere! (I met my first husband in Montreal, introduced to me by a friend there. He was from New Jersey and soon to move back to the U.S.)

Like most people who stay and thrive, most of my Toronto friends are doing very well professionally, have raised families, bought property. Some still head north to their family cottage, some arriving by boat. It’s deeply Canadian!

I don’t even know how to drive a motorboat…

When you leave your native country behind, you also leave behind the former you…the younger, more hopeful, likely more naive version. That’s part of leaving — if you were so delighted by home, you’d stay.

But you do get to spend more time with the people who “knew you when” and can revive some lovely memories. A very dear friend from high school told me last year he had been struck by how “progressive” I was, even at 17.

I recently had dinner in Manhattan at the legendary deli Katz’s (the one from “When Harry Met Sally“) with a younger writer who lives in a small Florida city. She finds NYC a source of creative energy, which I agree with. I told her that living/working in New York City (even though I live nearby) forces you to be fearless, whether dating, driving, looking for work or seeking friendships. Holding back and shuffling your feet there gets you nowhere!

I admit it, I like that element. Sometimes you have to leap, however terrified, to grow and change and hit the heights you seek. I always find very quick shared connection with people — at any age — who have uprooted and lived (sometimes very far) far away from their early homes. That forced adaptation, I think, opens you up to all sorts of new possibilities and identities — staying in a place where “everyone knows you” can feel a bit stifling after a while. I know I never would have studied interior design in Toronto, which I adored, as I did in New York City.

It happened to me at 25 when I spent a fellowship year in Paris.

That’s me in the stripes, around age 8, for a magazine story on kids cooking

I’m definitely a smarter, wiser, tougher version of myself for having moved to New York; as my lovely (second!) American husband has said to me whenever I get wobbly: “Now is not the time to be Canadian!”

When I visit Canada, I do have to dial it back, or apologize for being the “bossy New Yorker.” The things I’m proudest of in NY don’t really register with my Canadian friends, who don’t know these people or haven’t had to compete at those levels. That sometimes feels painful.

The “what if?” question is one I suspect haunts every immigrant, but especially if you’ve had the luxury of leaving a civil, thriving place, not fleeing war or persecution.

Have you changed homes a lot?

Do you have a “parallel life” elsewhere?

An epidemic of American loneliness

My wedding day (first one!) in 1992…still very close pals with Marion, who I met in our freshman English class at

University of Toronto

By Caitlin Kelly

It’s now deemed so large a problem that U.S. Surgeon-General Vivek Murthy says it’s as damaging as smoking for our health:

From his recent essay in The New York Times, (my boldface added):

At any moment, about one out of every two Americans is experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. This includes introverts and extroverts, rich and poor, and younger and older Americans. Sometimes loneliness is set off by the loss of a loved one or a job, a move to a new city, or health or financial difficulties — or a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Other times, it’s hard to know how it arose but it’s simply there. One thing is clear: Nearly everyone experiences it at some point. But its invisibility is part of what makes it so insidious. We need to acknowledge the loneliness and isolation that millions are experiencing and the grave consequences for our mental health, physical health and collective well-being.

This week I am proposing a national framework to rebuild social connection and community in America. Loneliness is more than just a bad feeling. When people are socially disconnected, their risk of anxiety and depression increases. So does their risk of heart disease (29 percent), dementia (50 percent), and stroke (32 percent). The increased risk of premature death associated with social disconnection is comparable to smoking daily — and may be even greater than the risk associated with obesity.

I’ve blogged about this many times, but clearly it’s not just me!

I lived in Canada ages 5 to 30, with a year in Paris at 25 with 27 fellow journalists, ages 25 to 35; I was the youngest, at 25.

I never had a problem elsewhere making or keeping friends.

While I’m only in touch with three people from my Toronto high school and a few from university, I later made friends through my work, neighbors, friends of friends…

The photo above is testament to this…as Marion lives very far away from us in British Columbia but made the long journey to New York to join me then. We still email often and schedule long phone calls. Our lives have been very different (she has three daughters and two grandchildren) but also have some very deep issues in common.

In Paris, we all vaulted between English and French, our fish-out-of-water-ness much tougher for people from North America, India, Africa, South America and Japan than for the multi-lingual Europeans. Having had to leave behind home, friends, family, work, pets — everything! — for eight months, meant we became our own support group. There were some very awkward moments when our cultural differences — especially our haste — caused offense and we needed to apologize and explain. But some of the friendships we forged then remain so deep that decades later we’re still delighted to visit one another and stay in touch.

At 31, I moved from Montreal — where I had very quickly made two close female friends, both single, as I was then, who lived in the same apartment building — to small town New Hampshire. It was a nightmare socially: my then boyfriend (later husband) was a medical resident so he was gone a lot of the time and exhausted when home. There were no jobs and no ways I could detect to meet friendly people. There was no Internet then. The only people in our social circle were all married, pregnant or joggers….none of which applied nor appealed to me. I tried hosting a few people for meals, but only one reciprocated in my miserable 18 months living there.

I had never ever been so lonely and it very much damaged my mental health, which is one reason I insisted we move to New York.

Why does friendship feel so low-value in the U.S. ?

— precarious jobs force many people to prioritize work and income over everything else

— low-paid, non union jobs do the same

— a culture where so many people feel guilty if they’re not constantly being “productive”. Sitting for an afternoon with a friend, or several, over a glass of wine — as I’ve done joyfully in Paris, Croatia, Toronto and Montreal (and once in Manhattan!) — is seen as weirdly slothful

— a culture that fetishizes individual needs over everything else; few friendships seem to have the ability to weather/resolve conflict and move on

— people move around and lose touch

— the social triage of wanting to avoid COVID

— having Long COVID

— being exhausted by caregiving

— especially in a time of high inflation, few places exist that don’t cost money (like cafes, bars, clubs, restaurants) where people can just relax for a few hours in a quiet, attractive and welcoming environment and maybe strike up a friendly conversation with someone new

— if you didn’t attend any sort of schooling with someone, you seem not to exist. I find this so weird, especially since I arrived in New York at 31

— family takes precedence over everything after work, from feeding newborns to moving far away from old friends to live closer to grandchildren. Friends? An afterthought once all the usual ceremonies (weddings, christenings, graduations, etc) are done

— wealth is a huge dividing line. People with a lot of money seem to think the rest of us aren’t worth knowing. Whatevs

— racism

— politics, especially since 2016

— transactional “friendships” where, once they’ve gotten what they need from you, you’re dropped

— lack of curiosity. Without fail, my closest friends have lived outside their home countries and have traveled widely, whether for work or pleasure, people who, like me, have had a range of life experiences and faced the challenges of adapting to (and enjoying!) other cultures.

I am very aware these are generalizations and maybe too personal to me as someone who has never had one job here for more than a few years and made work-pals. Nor do we have kids, the way most people seem to make friends. My closest friends here I made through freelancing, two from church and one from spin class.

Canadians don’t fling themselves across the country the way Americans do, for work or education, and our social and professional circles are smaller, so maybe we just retain closer relationships for other reasons.

This has also been an issue for me because, as I’ve written here many times, I don’t come from a close or loving family, quite the opposite. We don’t do birthdays or holidays together or get together for special occasions. My late stepmother was clear she didn’t want me around much and my uncle and aunt, both long dead, lived in London and were busy with highly successful entertainment careers. My friends are my family.

Many of you might have very deep ongoing American friendships.

If so, I envy you!

I am really looking forward, in late June, to seeing old and dear friends in Toronto, my hometown I left in 1986, that I have known since my late teens — at university, through my work, friends of friends. I haven’t been back in a year. I even reconnected with one woman from Grade Five (!) a few years ago as she became a neighbor and friend of one of my good friends.

I’ll have lunch with four pals from high school there as well.

Can’t wait!

Do you ever find loneliness an issue?

How do you manage it?