Naomi Reiter

RHNYC Book Title Chosen After Reunion Carnage

Wow. I watched The Real Housewives of NYC reunion last night. The word "bloodbath" comes to mind. Our girl Alex McCord handled herself with grace in the face of, sorry, unbridled bitchiness and gets to close that chapter with the opening of a new one--she and husband Simon van Kempen have agreed on a title for their new parenting book, published by Sterling & Ross Publishers.

“Little Kids, Big City: Tales from a Real House in New York City” will launch in January 2010 and shares McCord and van Kempen’s real life parenting adventures while raising two young boys in New York.   

“I can’t tell you how delighted we are to be bringing you their wonderful stories of urban parenting to the market place,” says Sterling & Ross publisher Drew Nederpelt of the duo.

While I thoroughly enjoy being horrified by all the nation's Housewives, after having interviewed McCord about her urban parenting philosophy, I have to admit I like these two. They're pretty real in an over-the-top, winter-in-the-Caribbean sort of way. If you, too, are a fan, McCord and van Kempen will be at Book Expo America Saturday, May 30th, from 2:30–3pm at NYC's Jacob Javits Center to sign book covers and kiss babies.

In other news, is anyone else completely terrified of / fascinated by The Real Housewives of New Jersey? Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

Real Housewives of New York City Alums Challenge Parenting Status Quo

Don't even pretend you don't have guilty pleasures. We all do--it's cool. One of mine is the Real Housewives franchise. It's decadent, if not naughty, and so it surprises me that Real Housewives of New York City (RHNYC) alums and hubbies Alex McCord and Australian-born Simon van Kempen--married nine years--have been selected in the midst of a deal-killing recession to write a book about parenting.

The duo has been panned on RHNYC for their laissez-faire parenting style and want viewers to know that editing has a lot to do with that perception. 

"People tend to think that what they see on the show is the whole story. It isn't," says McCord, a Washington, D.C. native raised in Texas, Kansas and the Virgin Islands, who has been a New Yorker since 1996. "Children this young change their behavior in a nanosecond, and you can't blame the producers for wanting to include the most dramatic moments." 

Good TV

"Cute kids behaving beautifully doesn't make must-see TV as much as three-year-old François shouting in Ramona's face at 10 p.m. does, which happened at the end of one night in 2007 at a party we did not want to take him to, two hours after we were supposed to leave," she says.