Toddlers make terrible office mates, particularly if your office is in the living room of a railroad-style apartment. They are also not reliable companions at the neighborhood coffee shop, as Jacqui Smith, a publicist, discovered when her son had a meltdown while she tried to get some work done at Variety, a popular Brooklyn coffee roaster.
“He started screaming and I just kept working,” Ms. Smith recalled of the failed excursion last summer with her son, Louis Nash, now 15 months old. “Everyone was looking at me — it’s a very hipster place.”