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
It’s simple really. Buy your own stroller (the larger the better), and engage in a game of “sidewalk chicken” with the offending breeders.
Rules:
1. You have to maintain eye contact with the other “player”
2. Full speed ahead only
3. Whoever flinches/veers off 1st loses.
Bonus points:
+5 if you make them veer off the sidewalk and under an oncoming car
+1 if you use a dog stroller with a yappy poodle mix
+1 if you wear that t-shirt while playing
The entitled parent syndrome is REAL. I see it all the time and it is really annoying that these people think they own the sidewalk and feel no obligation what so ever to even pretend that anyone else exists–how much would it hurt to swerve that stroller a centimeter or two? Well, for the most part I’m glad the stroller gangs parade in the afternoons and take over restaurants in the early evening. Park Slope is a much better place after the kiddy’s bedtime. Funny, the stroller gangs in other areas seem way nicer and down to earth.
park slope stroller posts are going nowhere. they must be terrific for page views.
This is such a difficult and painfully embarrassing/enraging thing to read about. To acknowledge.
Full disclosure: I am a Bugaboo pushing Mama.
I am also a swift moving mama. More often than not, I get stuck behind incredibly slooooowwww moving groups or couples on the sidewalks of Manhattan (who appear to be the same people who can’t be bothered to either move their legs or even step to the right side when on an escalator)thereby making me miss every single light rotation – particularly if I’m in a hurry. But I digress.
What appears to be the seeds of discontent or outright anger with regard to said stroller pushers is the supposed air of entitlement or downright rudeness we possess in spades.
While I certainly agree that, just as there are incredibly rude and self-entitled people of all types in this world, there are rude and cranky mothers too. Whether it rises to the level of whacking into an old man with a cane and not even bothering to apologize kind of rudeness, is another question.
And if it did actually go down as this guy perceived it to have gone down, it simply must be the rare exception.
I have never seen anything even close to it. Not in four years of parenthood, nor in 16 years of living in New York. Never.
I have seen drivers do some unbearably cruel, reckless and dangerous things, but never a mother pushing a stroller.
Anyway, we shouldn’t excuse self-entitled, cruel or shamelessly thoughtless behavior by anyone. Stroller pushing mama’s included.
I’m just left to wonder if something else might be going on here. Perceptions are a truly odd, transferential and subjective thing.
When we expect to see something, we usually do.
Here we go again… Used to love this blog, but now Bstoner is too busy with the Flea to post real news, so we get our chain jerked to stir up activity. Thanks. Like we don’t get enough of that from our pandering leadership. Mr Knipel should just come out and admit that he hates people. Want stress free non exhausting life — meditate.
I’ve had one problem with obnoxious parent/child in the two years I’ve lived in the slope. Child bumps into me. Mother makes snide remark under her breath about me not watching where I’m going. I publicly correct the misguided mother.
Hardly a life-altering event.
I am young (ish), single, gay and have no children and live in Park Slope.
I love it.
For me, I’ve found home and the place I’d like to live for a long, long time. To me, it is the most beautiful neighborhood in Park Slope and just feels right.
Now I have not had any issue per se with strollers and in fact welcome parents into the neighborhood. Their presence to me shows that indeed Park Slope is a terrific and energized neighborhood by the sheer fact that they want to raise children there.
I do, however notice that in society in general lately (and this has nothing to do with Park Slope) there are a few people who seem to think that if one is raising a child, that nothing and no one else matters.
I’ve been treated this way by one of my neighbors, in fact. Made to feel as though I’m less busy, and that I sleep later and that I don’t have a REAL life because I don’t have a kid. And THAT attitude is what I have a problem with. This is not just a Park Slope attitude. This is something far bigger than that. I have my own theories about it…jealousy (when I told my neighbor her kid was being too loud at 7:30am on a Sunday (imagine that??!) and was asked when I wake up and said around noon the response was…”Well that must be nice”).
You know what…it IS nice! This is how I’ve chosen to live my life. Pay no mind to the fact that even if I wanted to get married I couldn’t in NYC and that to have a child I’d need about 50K, but I digress.
Just because you’ve decided to have a child does not make you more important than anyone else. Or more busy. Just like me being gay, single and enjoying that life in NYC does not make me better or worse than anyone else.
The difference here is that YOU CHOSE to have a child, so don’t pawn off you feelings of bitterness, jealousy or sheer exhaustion onto me.
Do these people not remember how EXHAUSTING it is to be single???! I was out to 2am last night wasted trying to find a man!!!!
😉
It’s not just the Slope, it’s all over. People bring those huge things into Sahadi all the time, ofetn with a child who is clearly 3-5 years old. In line the precious child will often touch all the bread while mother says “no dear, we don’t want that bread” … And now no one else does either! I am a mother and my child started walking everywhere at 2 — the stroller went to goodwill.
Does anyone actually believe Jim’s story for a second? It’s a trend piece driving web traffic with the added bonus of being impossible to fact check.