(Peter Oumanski)

My pregnancy, of course, was largely dry. (Both my general practitioner and my midwife assured me that the occasional drink—even a few ounces of wine every day!—would be fine, but I found that my cravings for egg salad sandwiches and watermelon eclipsed my nostalgia for riojas and tempranillos.) It wasn’t until high summer, when I was seven months along and needing to relax after a long day at work, that I decided to break my alcohol fast, and even then I watered the two fingers of sauvignon blanc down with so much seltzer that I probably would have gotten more of a buzz using mouthwash.

I harbored abstinence-induced fantasies of glugging a fishbowl-sized glass as soon as I went into labor, but since that ended up happening at 6 a.m., the first contractions promptly followed by retching over the side of the bed into a Citarella bag, I did not, in the end, feel like bellying up to the bar, and even for the first few weeks postpartum, the suggestion to crack a bottle of celebratory champagne sounded about as appealing as doing a Jäger bomb.

That all changed by the time my son was about two months old. Once I had adjusted to the constant sleep deprivation (which, like drunkenness, tends to negatively impact your decision-making skills—as I discovered in the wee hours one morning as I hovered over the toilet, holding my wailing infant to my chest and trying to keep his swaddle out of the stream) and completed the Mensa application that is the unassisted donning of a Moby Wrap, I felt ready to resume semi-regular drinking.

This has been much easier said than done. My husband works late, and as a freelance writer I can’t afford much paid babysitting. So boozing, for me, necessitates doing it with baby in tow.

I started with an adventurous outing, meeting a friend, who in my former life had been a favorite drinking buddy, at Noho’s Five Points for happy hour. I ordered a $5 glass of wine and single-handedly demolished a bowl of complimentary potato chips with the vacuum power (and approximate grace) of a Flowbee. Nothing abnormal there. But as the dinner rush started and people filled the bar, I received some questionable looks. Because on my lap, buried under the potato detritus, sat my son. He was relatively quiet, especially given the din, but seemed out of place attempting to gnaw on the craft beer taps. My friend was proud of me for balancing motherhood and malbec, and even bragged on Facebook that she’d lured Sam out to his first bar. But I was self-conscious, and for once not willing to raise my blood alcohol level enough to numb it away.

A few weeks later, I learned that a German beer hall in my neighborhood hosted weekly “play dates” in the mid-afternoon, before patrons employed by larger and presumably more continent bosses got out of work. I showed up at 2:30 on a Thursday to find colorful mats covering the floors, and fellow nursing moms nursing hefeweissbiers cross-legged as their infants flailed beneath them.

The atmosphere seemed friendly enough, until a sour-faced twentysomething bartender approached and had me sign a sobering waiver promising never to let my child touch anything outside the boundary of the play space and swear upon pain of expulsion to use the changing table for diaper duty—which was inexplicably in the men’s room. I get that it’s health code stuff, but the contract still seemed awfully formal. That, coupled with the fact that there were no drink specials, left me cold. So I turned to my last resort: Playgroup.

Every week I meet with a small klatch of other new moms and their babies at one of their Park Slope homes. Emails are exchanged the day before to plan the potluck menu.

“I’m picking up some hummus and carrot sticks!” one will write.

“I’m trying some no-bake energy balls I saw on Pinterest!” another will chime in.

One week, the host was going through a personal crisis. I jumped at the opportunity.

“If only you were a drinker, I would bring a bottle of wine for ‘snack,’” I typed, adding a winking emoticon to communicate that I was totally kidding, ha ha, unless... she was into it.

I hit send.

Seconds later, a reply came from one of the other members: “So glad you said it—I've been dying to suggest a little boozy playgroup but didn't want to sound like the alchy mom!!”

That Wednesday we cheered impishly as we popped a bottle of Prosecco. If David Attenborough had been narrating the scene, he might have observed, “The American stay-at-home mother, shamed out of consuming alcohol under cover of darkness at the local pub, is now content to tipple away during daylight hours with others of her species.” In my pre-baby life, daytime drinking might have signaled a problem; now, it seemed the only socially acceptable time.

But though I’ve found a tribe, I do confess to sometimes feeling irresponsible. The old, wine-soaked me who worried about being too hungover to go to the gym and the new, spit-up-soaked me who worries about the frequency and consistency of someone else’s feces seem somehow at odds. It’s as if, upon conceiving, my motherboard should have been replaced, deleting my appetite for mood-altering substances and increasing my tolerance of insipid cartoons—but it doesn’t have to be a complete reprogramming.

I know that there is a line between someone like Lucille Bluth, the comically negligent, perpetually soused matriarch on Arrested Development, and a self-sacrificing teetotaler like June Cleaver (what a scold!)—and that I remain, as ever, appropriately in between. I also know that less than 2% of what I imbibe reaches my breastmilk, and that if I am sober enough to drive I am sober enough to nurse, not to mention operate the heavy machinery that is my stroller.

Finally, I know that my husband feels free to drink wherever and whenever he so chooses without fear of societal scorn. So, as long as one of us remains sober enough to be the alpha parent, the other is free to dabble, ever so often, as the alchy.

While the decrease is positive, this data still means that about 7% of New York City’s homeless are without shelter on an average night. New York does a better job of sheltering its homeless than many other places – the City contracts with more than 150 non-profit providers of shelter and other services for homeless people, and since the early 1980’s New York State’s courts have maintained that all New Yorkers have the legal right to shelter. Yet, homelessness remains a horror for adults and a disaster for children and families.

For a number of years I have been on the Board of Directors of Homes for the Homeless, an amazing organization founded in 1986 by Hartz Group Chairman Leonard N. Stern. Homes for the Homeless is a public-private partnership between city government, private business, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  Since 1987, my good friend and Columbia colleague Dr. Ralph Nunez has served as President and CEO of Homes for the Homeless. Each year, the organization provides shelter for about 1,000 families and 2,500 children. In addition to a place to sleep, "Homes" provides meals, after-school day care, adult education, summer camps and other services designed to help homeless families escape poverty. For about 20 years Dr. Nunez taught quantitative analysis to public policy students at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. In addition to working to help homeless families survive, he has worked to analyze and understand the causes and effects of homelessness. To do that, he and his colleagues began a small think-tank called the Institute for Children and Poverty.  According to the Institute’s website:

-More than 1.35 million children from 600,000 families are homeless in America, and available shelter and housing for homeless families is decreasing.

-Overcoming homelessness is almost impossible without steady employment, and more than two-thirds of homeless parents nationwide are unemployed.

-Homeless children have less of a chance of succeeding in school. Frequent school transfers are the most significant barrier to the academic success of homeless students.

-Homeless families are more vulnerable to serious health issues. Mental health, tuberculosis and HIV are far more common than in the general public.

-Homeless parents and their children are more likely to have experienced violence. One out of three homeless teens have witnessed a stabbing, shooting, rape, or murder in their communities.

-Homeless parents and their children are more likely to be separated from each other. In fact, 34% of school-aged homeless children have lived apart from their families. More than 60% of children placed in foster care come from formerly homeless families.

As the new Hoovervilles springing up on the West Coast indicate, homelessness is a symptom of poverty and the lack of low-cost housing. As President Obama indicated, we have a responsibility to help our neighbors who do not have the means to help themselves. One difference in New York City, when compared to some other American cities, is that homeless people are more difficult to ignore here.  While many homeless are “invisible,” many are not. This is a city of mass and walking transit. Most people can’t simply hide up high behind the wheel of their SUV and drive to the mall.  The responsibility for our neighbors here is not simply an abstraction – we see real human beings on our walk to work.

When I think about taking responsibility for our neighbors and building a community, I have to think about Leonard Stern, the wealthy and powerful business leader who founded Homes for the Homeless and then recruited Ralph Nunez to run it. Theirs is an inspiring partnership comprised of Stern’s strategic business sense and Nunez’s deep understanding of city politics and organizational management.  Homes for the Homeless is not perfect, but it is an impressive organization. It shows what can be done, and it has made a material and significant difference in thousands of lives. If you are interested in their story, check out this video and you’ll see what I mean.

I believe that we will come out of these difficult economic times, renewed and reminded of what matters. If you see a homeless child given a place to sleep and a chance to overcome the poverty trap, you can’t help but be motivated.  That motivation is the source of the hope I feel for the future.