Slope Stroller Overabundance Making One Guy a Shut-In
Longtime New York Press columnist Jim Knipfel has a new rant about Park Slope stroller culture that sets the bar high for future diatribes on the subject. This is how it begins: This morning as I was leaving the bank, a woman recklessly pushing her armor-plated double stroller down the sidewalk veered sharply and unexpectedly…
Longtime New York Press columnist Jim Knipfel has a new rant about Park Slope stroller culture that sets the bar high for future diatribes on the subject. This is how it begins:
This morning as I was leaving the bank, a woman recklessly pushing her armor-plated double stroller down the sidewalk veered sharply and unexpectedly into an elderly man walking with a cane. He, in turn, fell into me. I was able to catch him and hold him upright and he seemed to be okay. Just a little flustered. The woman, of course, had said nothing, apparently considering an apology or even a simple excuse me unnecessary under the circumstances. She was a mother after all, and therefore privileged, so she simply continued careening on her way.
Knipfel says that the number of strollers in the Slope, as well as the neighborhood’s dog breed preferences (it’s really mostly the strollers, though) mean he can only leave his apartment for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time, because he finds the situation out on the streets too harrowing and exhausting. The writer says that for the past year he’s been counting the number of strollers he sees in the Slope (“I’m averaging 1.45 strollers per block. Think about it—there has been at least one stroller, and usually more, for every block I’ve walked. It’s insanity.“) Knipfel takes issue with the air of entitlement that he sees a lot of the neighborhood’s parents displaying and notes that he sees a good number of kids being pushed around who look too old for strollers. Also, he says, it’s not a subject that can be broached in polite, public Slope discourse: “The child-free adults in the neighborhood mutter and complain about the problem, but only behind closed doors, and usually in whispers. They don’t dare say a negative word when they’re outside, for the simple reason that they’re terrified, most of them. Indulgent, affluent parents are too powerful a lobby (and what’s more, those strollers can really hurt when you get rammed).”
The Statistics of Contempt [Slackjaw]
Photo from dailyheights.com
Dave – get together with 11:41 and maybe the 2 of you can figure it out together.
11:24, 10:34#5 (yes, could be a new record for posts within a minute) beat you to it. Anyway, to be politically correct for a change, no, I didn’t realize he’s legally blind so while my comment may have been ironic, it was in no way an intentional jab at his lack of sight.
Who’s Karma, by the way? She sure seems to be quite vengeful!
I hope people like 11:19 and 11:37 think long and hard tonight before they fall asleep about what horrible people they are.
Karma WILL come back to haunt you.
When you least expect it.
why’s that 11:34…make a point instead of being an idiot!!!
One hot summer day my husband and I voted for the AC at MoMA and took in a photo exhibit. The museum was quiet, it was a weekday afternoon. There was a mom with a couple of rambunctious 4 year olds and another person, also with a kid in a stroller. The kids were looking at Gary Winograd, whooping and carrying on, then looking again at Gary Winograd again. They were moving joyously thru the gallery, on their way to the helicopter if I remember correctly. Lots of questions and shrieks and echoes.
There was a very dry “Miss Hathaway” type also viewing the exhibit. In a MAJORLY pissed off voice she berated the mom in particular, telling her that kids had no place in that museum. My husband surprised me – this was long before our own kid was born – and turned to Miss Hathaway and asking her “Exactly where would be a better place for youngsters? A museum isn’t appropriate? Should she take them to a video arcade? How do YOU have the right to decide? I think YOU don’t belong in a museum, lady!”
The parents nearly lost it thanking him. People CAN be obnoxious about their own spawn, I know I could be on occasion. But in NYC, it’s only equalled by the obnoxiousness of cabs without seatbelts or carseats, mid range restaurants without high chairs and jackasses who don’t help burdened stroller moms down subway stairs or stand up for a dad holding the subway pole AND a sleeping 40 pound kindergartner.
New Yorkers are great, except when we’re assholes and this Park Slope stroller debate – both sides – represents us at our assholiest.
As a dad to two who’s been in the neighborhood (with and without kids) for ten years: if anything, I am hyperconscious and hypervigilent about my family being respectful of everyone’s space. Besides the basic level of social courtesy that my neighbors deserve, I really don’t want to serve as kindling for another flamefest like this one.
Like others have said, TALK to these inconsiderate parents who think the world revolves around them. I would venture a guess that the vast majority of them evince no sense of entitlement. They’re just out of it and, frankly, probably wouldn’t mind being told respectufully that they might want to watch where they’re going / what they’re doing / etc.
Really, this whole US vs. THEM polarization is a strawman and, as someone else alluded, just intellectually lazy.
Daveinbedstuy- you aren’t too bright are you?
i hate old people
If Knipfel is blind – how is he counting strollers?