Families and kids

Fun house
Classic: Laffing Sal and the rest of Musée Mecanique’s entourage of antique arcade games and fun-house gizmos—moved from the Cliff House to Pier 45 in 2002—are still bringing smiles for a quarter or two. From Susie the Can-Can Dancer to Pong, the machines make up the world’s largest privately owned collection. Pier 45, Shed A, At the end of Taylor St., Fisherman’s Wharf, S.f., 415-346-2000

Future classic: Following May’s closure of the Sony Metreon video arcade, committed gamers (and parents with game-crazy kids) now head south to the wonderfully frenzied Milpitas Golfland. Just beyond the borders of San Jose, this miniature golf mecca hosts more than 200 arcade games, from new hits like Dance Dance Revolution (in which your shuffling feet serve as the joystick) to old classics like Pac-Man. Teens love the heated competition in games like Street Fighter. But while the place may sometimes look as if it’s been taken over by 14-year-old hoodlums, Golfland hosts more than 20 kiddie birthday parties a week.
1199 jacklin rd., milpitas, 408-263-6855,
milpitas.golfland.com

Musical outing for parents and kids
Classic: Since 1993, the San Francisco Symphony’s Music for Families series has featured four programs per year, all designed to instill the wonder of orchestral music—from composers like William Schuman, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and more—in the young, while not boring the bejesus out of their elders.
www.sfsymphony.org

Future classic: Kids’ dance parties are springing up in clubs, including the Rickshaw Stop’s ’60s-themed twistorama, Pipsqueak-a-Go-Go; Ruby Skye’s ’70s-styled Baby Loves Disco; and 12 Galaxies’ ’80s-minded—and LGBT-friendly—Jump Around. All three make the case that tots will get as much of a kick out of the Ramones or Michael Jackson as parents do. And the parties are for kids young enough (0 to 7) that you can shake your own booty without worrying about whether your kid will ever speak to you again.
www.myspace.com/pipsqueakagogo,
www.babylovesdisco.com, www.12galaxies.com

Way to inspire a bored teen
Classic: For 15 years, Ron Chase has run the brilliant San Francisco Art & Film Program for Teenagers. On Friday nights, he shows art films like La Strada and The Bicycle Thief at the Randall Museum or the Delancey Street screening room for free and conducts postscreening discussions. On Saturdays, he escorts kids to galleries and museums, lunch, and a first-run movie—all for the price of the movie. And on Sundays, he teaches a seven-hour filmmaking workshop that costs just $1,000 to attend for an entire year. Chase says he was appalled by how little exposure young people have to the arts and decided he had to act. Hear, hear.

415-864-2026, www.chaseartfilm.com

Future classic: If your kids are the outdoorsy types—and even if they’re not–the Santa Cruz–based company Adventure Out will entice them with its lineup of surfing lessons, hiking trips, and survival training seminars. Owner and operator Cliff Hodges,
a charming 26-year-old surfer bro and MIT grad, may seem overqualified to teach kids how to make fire by friction. But if the man learned anything at school, it’s that he wants nothing more than to teach kids how to enjoy the great outdoors.

www.adventureout.com

Way to be there for our kids
Classic: Kids in trouble need someone who’s always there for them—and when you’re a ward of the court, like 2,000 of our city’s kids, it’s too easy to slip between the cracks. Court Appointed Special Advocates are volunteers who act as a stopgap between public services, foster parents, the school system, and the Department of Public Health—advocating solely in the interest of the child in the court system, while providing mentorship and counsel as the one constant in the child’s life. When a kid looks his or her advocate in the eye and says, “I really hope my mom doesn’t relapse again,” it fully drives home the import of this program.
www.sfcasa.org

Future classic: Kids in trouble also need somewhere safe to go. And for 6,128 of our city’s youth, the Boys and Girls Club is that place—providing not just shelter from the streets but also athletics, fine arts, tutoring, and health skills to the kids who need them most. And thanks to a recent gift of millions from the Giants and Doris and Don Fisher, the club will soon be reaching even more kids with the construction of three state-of-the-art clubhouses, including a long-awaited, brand-new site in Hunters Point.
www.bgcsf.org

Way to get kids sailing in the right direction
Classic: Gliding into its eighth year, the Treasure Island Sailing Center gives kids the chance to shed their fears of the water and indulge in the preferred pastime of heirs and trust funders. The center introduced about 600 kids to sailing last summer, over 80 percent of whom were on full scholarship.
The youth outreach programs leave participants with teamwork, decision-making, and communication skills that come in handy on dry land as well as on deck. Friday night Free Sail on July 13 and 27 at 5 p.m.,
415-421-2225, www.Tisailing.org

Future classic: Even better than getting away for an afternoon is sailing away for weeks on end. And what’s more worthy of escaping from than a difficult female adolescence? The San Francisco State University–accredited Tall Ship Education Academy takes about 15 disadvantaged high school girls from San Francisco and Oakland sailing for six weeks in the Caribbean during the school year and along the California coast for six weeks during the summer. Not running into a reef becomes an algebra lesson, and interviewing native people on remote islands becomes a history class. This out-of-the-classroom learning reengages students who’ve lost interest in traditional education and gives them a reinvigorated sense of who they are and where they want to go in life.
415-405-3703, www.tallshipsemester.org

Delivery
Classic: Each month, year in and year out, 500 babies get delivered like magic at California Pacific Medical Center’s California Street campus in spacious rooms with whirlpool tubs, armchairs, TVs…if you weren’t laboring, it’d be a pleasant stay! The filet mignon served in celebration of the birth is characteristic of the make-Mom-happy hospitality at CPMC, where excellent medical care is comprehensive and follow-up is thorough.
415-600-2229, www.cpmc.org/pregnancy

Future classic: Breast-feeding, cloth diapers, and now natural birthing have made a comeback. But if you want to go au naturel without forsaking modern medicine, Homestyle Midwifery can provide the closest thing to a home birth in St. Luke’s hospital, where obstetricians are available but midwives—of your own choosing—guide the labor. The pre- and postnatal-care home visits spare patients the hoopla of traveling while very pregnant or with a newborn.
www.homestylemidwifery.com

Place to catch a flick with a baby
Classic: The Parkway Speakeasy Theaters welcome babies, and their parents, at the Monday (in Oakland) and Tuesday (in El Cerrito) Baby Brigade nights ($6; babies free). For baby, the room is semidark with constant background noise, and there is no no-crying rule; for Mom and Dad, there are love seats, pizza, beer and wine if they’re trying to relax, and espresso and brownies if they’re trying to stay awake for the whole movie. For your baby’s toddler siblings, Saturday matinees and all Sunday shows welcome all ages, though crybabies lose their welcome, enjoying freedom to fuss only during Baby Brigade events.
1834 Park Blvd., Oakland; 10070 San Pablo Ave.,
El Cerrito; 510-814-2400, www.speakeasytheaters.com

Future classic: Monthly Moms and Kids Movie at the Presidio Theatre features a time (around 1 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month), location (Chestnut Street), and price (free) that’s attracting a large portion of San Francisco’s cooing stroller-riders and their gabbing moms. The typically quiet theater becomes a chorus of doting comments, intermittent pleas for more milk, and shushing. The mom-friendly movie (no jolting action flicks) is still heard, but the audience itself provides more entertainment. Moms have marketing-savvy realtor Jill Russo and lender Lorianne Daluz to thank for the complimentary showings.

2340 Chestnut St., S.F., 415-776-2388, www.jillrusso.com

Mommy meeting ground
Classic: Before mothers made friends at pay-to-play support groups at places like Day One and Natural Resources, new parents and their babes made friends at the local junior college. The tradition continues at City College of San Francisco’s Child Observation Classes. The little tykes stare at the toys and one another while the moms share gripes, tears, and advice with the help of a City College instructor who unabashedly sings the nursery rhymes you can’t remember (postpartum, even the lyrics to “Brown Eyed Girl” can be a challenge) and occasionally leads you on adventures to the Japanese Tea Garden or Fort Baker Discovery Museum. The classes are free for moms and babes.
415-239-3172; e-mail Terry at tfahey@ccsf.edu for schedule and locations

Future classic: Thanks to the weekly Noe Strolls, San Francisco now feels small-town, almost quaint, when over a dozen strollers, babbling babies, and eager moms take on Castro Street’s hills together (raising the pulse on the way up, adrenaline levels on the way down—stroller leashes are recommended), breaking at Dolores Park to nurse and yak about all things motherhood.
Thursdays, 11 a.m. at Holey Bagel, 3872 24th st., S.F., www.noestrolls.com