Twentieth year of publishing: Brooklyn Family hits two decades

This year we are entering the 20th year of publishing Brooklyn Family. At the time I was completely new to this business but extraordinarily enthusiastic about the idea of creating a parent guide that could help moms like me. My daughter was then 6 and in the first grade at a public school in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn where we managed to get her in on a variance and then win a place in the lottery. We wanted her to go there because they offered such a great multi-cultural program with a human rights core curriculum, things that were important to our family and important to me as a soon to be publisher.

So as a busy multi-tasking working Mom, I was also a parent seeking information about programs, schools, support groups, etc. that I hoped would be the backbone of the magazine I would create. Additionally, I wanted it to be completely reflective of the whole of Brooklyn, not just “some neighborhoods” and set about to make sure it was distributed everywhere and that it didn’t cater to a readership of largely top-end parents.

Apparently it worked. With a lot of hard work, consistency and distribution in the right places, it flourished and was soon followed by a magazine in Queens, the Bronx and my original borough of Manhattan. The Special Child magazines came next, then NYParenting.com and now an Annual Guide and a soon to be published Summer/Camp Guide.

It’s been a real labor of love and I’ve had the pleasure of working with many talented and committed people over these years. Parenting small children united us all. Some of us don’t have “small” children anymore. Many of us have children who are now taller than us and call us things like “little mommy” which is what my taller than me daughter sometime calls me. Whether taller or smaller, the parenting experience never really ends. They are our children forever just as we were to our parents.

2018. It’s amazing where the time and years go and how fast they move from one to the other. Hopefully, we’ll all have a great year and that our children will grow and flourish with the good nurturing that we, as engaged and concerned/loving parents will be giving them.

Thanks for reading! Happy New Year to all.