A new online home for your local news
Would-be hosts can also fork
over $50 to $100 and submit to a
criminal background check to
assure other moms and dads
of their ability, according to
Snoyer, who said parents are
encouraged to swap kids with
folks they know.
Still, some do leave their
tots with people they haven’t
met, but in those instances,
participants typically bond
over their shared experience
of, well, being parents, the
Kids Club creator said.
“We’ve had people book
play dates with parents they
BY COLIN MIXSON
Goodbye wife swap, hello baby
swap!
A new free website makes
it easy for borough parents to
connect for play dates and fi nd
other willing moms and dads
to watch their kids, according
to its Brooklyn-based creators,
who sought the help of
dozens of experts to put their
platform together.
“We met with 100 families
from ‘Bococa’ and developed
a website we thought would
meet their child-care and early
education needs for free,” said
Manisha Snoyer, using the unoffi
cial portmanteau to refer
to Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill,
and Carroll Gardens.
Parents who sign up to host
one play date a month on the
new Kids Club site in exchange
receive unlimited access to a
calendar of other get-togethers
hosted by moms and dads
living nearby, which include
a healthy number of “movie
night and pizza” gatherings,
along with arts-and-crafts sessions,
board-game playing, egg
painting, cooking and baking,
and something called a “develop
your mindfulness super
power” workshop, which
Snoyer described as a sort of
pint-sized wellness retreat.
“It’s a combination of meditation
and yoga,” she said.
haven’t met already, but generally
their kids are the same
age, or go to the same school,”
she said.
Carroll Gardens resident
Rima Khusainova dropped
her 5-year-old, Yuri, off with
a stranger she met on the website
earlier this month, and
everything worked out great
— despite her husband’s skepticism
— she said.
“He’s French and very skeptical
about everything,” she
said. “But the lady who hosted
it was so nice and sweet.”
More than 80 families from
across the borough joined the
service since it launched earlier
and she believes that even
more residents will take advantage
the burden of paying for
babysitters, who can charge
moms and dads more than $20
an hour, according to a New
York Family report .
“Babysitting can cost up
to 20 percent of a family’s income,
“This will help them meet
their child care and early education
INSIDE
The thinking place: Dr. Todd
May (inset) will deliver a talk
on “Decency in an Indecent
Place” at the Brooklyn Public
Library’s third annual “Night of
Philosophy and Ideas” on Feb.
2, which attracts hundreds of
visitors each year. Todd May
A decent proposal
Philosopher talks goodness at all-night idea festival
By Julianne McShane Call him the voice of reason.
How can you be a good person
when it feels like you’re in the
Bad Place? The philosophy consultant
behind the NBC afterlife comedy “The
Good Place” will reveal the answer at
an all-night celebration of big ideas at
the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central
Branch on Feb. 2. His lecture “Decency
in an Indecent Place” can also apply to
our most fraught political debates, said
the author and academic.
“How do we look across at people
that we don’t necessarily agree with?
If we bring decency to the table, that
actually helps make things a little less
polarizing,” said Dr. Todd May, who
also teaches philosophy at Clemson
University in South Carolina.
May will deliver his 30-minute talk
at 11 pm, during the library’s free, thirdannual
“Night of Philosophy and Ideas,”
a 12-hour philosophy fest that will feature
dozens of discussions, lectures, and
performances between 7 pm on Feb. 2
and 7 am the following morning.
The scribe’s lecture will cover ideas
that he examines in more depth in his
upcoming — and 15th — book, “A
Decent Life: Morality for the Rest of
Us,” which argues that empathy and
awareness can create more compassionate
and fulfilling relationships, he said.
“The fundamental recognition behind
decency is that other people have lives to
live — they want their lives to be meaningful,
they’re probably afraid of death,
they have periods of loneliness — and
that that recognition can motivate us
towards a sense of treating other people
as if they actually are people,” he said.
May said the main character in “The
Good Place” — a woman working to
become a better person to justify her
cushy spot in the afterlife — illustrates
the idea that connecting with others can
help make us better people.
“One of the lessons of the show is
opening ourselves to the humanity of
others can have this cyclical effect, so
that as we see that humanity, that allows
us to become a little bit better than we
were,” he said.
In addition to May’s lecture, the
night will also feature a keynote address
on “defeating tribalism” by the New
York Times Magazine’s “Ethicist” columnist,
Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah,
at 7 pm; a puppet show featuring the
figures of Noam Chomsky and Karl
Marx, at 10 pm and 2 am; free coffee
from Nespresso, and a French poetry
reading delivered directly into the ears
of audience members, among many
other events.
“A Night of Philosophy and Ideas” at
the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central
Branch 10 Grand Army Plaza at Eastern
Parkway in Prospect Heights, (718) 230–
2100, www.bklynlibrary.org. Feb. 2 at 7
pm to Feb. 3 at 7 am. Free.
Your entertainment
guide Page 45
Police Blotter ..........................8
Catholic School Guide ....... 27
Education .............................. 37
Letters ....................................42
Standing O ............................52
HOW TO REACH US
COURIER L 2 IFE, JAN. 25–31, 2019 M B G
this month, Snoyer said,
of Kids Club to avoid
or more,” said Snoyer.
needs for free.”
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It’s Bklyn’s babysitters’ club!
New website helps parents fi nd free childcare, arrange play dates
ONLINE PLAY DATING: Kids Club website founder Manisha Snoyer hosted a play date with tots Vir, center, and
Yuri, right, that she arranged via the online service. Photo by Trey Pentecost
Read all about it!
Brookynites now have one
go-to website to get their daily
dose of hyper-local news, with
BrooklynPaper.com offi cially
incorporating its sister website,
BrooklynDaily.com.
The new BrooklynPaper.
com’s coverage incorporates
the reporting of its eponymous
newspaper, as well as
stories published in print in
the Bay News, Mill–Marine
Courier, Park Slope Courier,
Brooklyn Graphic, and
Brooklyn Weekly.
The website creates a single
destination for Brooklyn’s
more than 2.7-million
residents to get breaking
news from both their neighborhood
and across the borough,
offering unparalleled
coverage of what will soon be
the country’s third largest
city, according to Brooklyn-
Paper.com’s editor-in-chief.
“Publishing our stories on
a single website will not only
make it easier for our readers
to immerse themselves in the
breadth of our neighborhoodby
neighborhood reporting,
it will also provide even
more context as to how what’s
happening in one area may
directly affect the lives of
Brooklynites living nearby,”
said Anthony Rotunno.
So, dear readers, bookmark
BrooklynPaper.com
now to keep up with our daily
Kings County coverage, and
don’t forget to follow @brooklynpaper
on Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter, to ensure
you never miss a story.
— Moses Jefferson
/BrooklynPaper.com
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