Growing up in Manhattan, New York City did not feel like growing up. If you asked me what age I started walking to school alone, or what age I started going grocery shopping for my mother alone, or what age I was allowed to take the subway alone, I could not tell you. Maybe 6 or 7? Either way, this was perfectly normal on the Upper West Side. It was hard to find a babysitting job because every child could take care of themselves. It was normal to see small children enter the subway station, or the local bagel shop, or bike riding in the park alone. Honestly, living in New York as a child barely felt any different from living in New York as a teenager. Sure, I might have stayed out of the house later, found a job, and owned things like my own phone and computer, but at age 7 and age 17 I was still handed the same wad of cash from my mother along with a grocery list written on a used billing envelope, and I still walked the same five blocks to the same grocery store. No one looked at 7-year-old me walking around alone varying groceries any differently than they looked at me when I was 17 and walked the same route with the same Fairway Market bags, probably even with the same groceries inside of them. And yes, perhaps this sense of independence I gained from a questionably early age is coming in handy now that I live alone in a completely new place, but it just makes me wonder—is it normal to see third graders out and about in New York City alone, with money to spend in cafes and at food carts, and their own metro cards to get them home? Did I grow up too fast?
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