Where are the kids?

It turns out they’re all in after-school or weekend programs. Some do coding, some learn another language or take art or music lessons.

My daughter does some of these, too, at least in part because everyone else does and it would be weird not to. But we still leave her a lot of time to do nothing much outside. It’s becoming rarer to find kids her age doing the same.

It’s not just the upper-middle class overscheduling its kids, either. City- and state-funded after-school programs are plentiful in New York City. In fact, Gotham boasts a higher percentage of kids in after-school programming than the rest of the country, with nearly 30 percent of kids participating. And that doesn’t count all of the kids doing classes and lessons outside the official after-school programs.