Houston: Not the Best Place to Have a Kid

But it's better than Dallas and Fort Worth. So says Fit Pregnancy magazine in their new report "The Best Cities in America to Have a Baby 2007", where we're ranked 42 out of 50.

The California-based magazine assembled a board of experts that judged on criteria including affordability, health risk to mother and child, prevalence of breastfeeding, birthing options, stroller friendliness, fertility laws/resources, access to hospitals/doctors, safety, and child care. For whatever reason, the narrow-minded panel left out several other vastly important child-rearing categories, such as availability of pecan pie, same-day furniture delivery, and easy access to the petrochemical industry. These omissions unjustly contributed to Houston's low ranking on the list.

Here's some good news, though: we've jumped up five places since last year's report. According to their "Houston Report Card", we did get an A- for our Fertility Laws and Resources, but the experts flunked us in "Maternal and Infant Health Risk", "Access to Hospitals/Doctors", and "Child Care". Oh please, does any parent really care about that stuff anyway? And more seriously, how on earth does El Paso have a better grade on access to hospitals and doctors?

At the tippity-top of the list came Boston, with the magazine lauding its 87 miles of stroller-friendly pathways. By all means, you should go have a leisurely promenade there with your young one in January. They'll love you for it: as of this posting, the windchill in Boston is a tender minus five degrees Fahrenheit.