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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


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  1. I don’t even have kids yet and think this guy is a jerk. Yes, if someone runs into you with their stroller they should apologize. But if they don’t, they aren’t any worse than the dozens of other people who every day walk into while on their phone and say nothing, run over your foot with their granny carts and say nothing, or step on the back of your shoes as they obsessively count strollers on the block and say nothing. To elevate stroller moms to their a special level of rudeness is unnecessary—the guy has a beef, nothing more.
    And on the subject of deeming kids “too old” to be pushed around in strollers—what does he know? If you’re walking somewhere with a little kid— let’s say it’s a mile—that’s a totally walkable distance for an adult. But for a little kid, even one who can walk on his own, that can be pretty far. They walk slower and they get tired more easily. If you don’t take a stroller, your options are to carry the kid or drive there. Would he rather have all these parents clogging the streets? Well, probably… it would keep them off his blessedly child-free sidewalk.

  2. 10:10 and 10:22 have it exactly right — this is Brooklyn people. One of te rules is that we have the right to call people out (even in public) when their behavior is rude and inappropriate. Regardless of how harried someone is, knocking over anyone is inexcusable, especially someone with a cane. Even big bumps deserve a real “watch it buddy”.

    Maybe if more people were willing to say this, parents who are too harried with their small children to notice these things would reconsider whether the brooklyn life is for them at this point in their lives.

  3. i’ve lived in park slope for about 3 yrs and in that time there has def. been a proliferation of suv stroller wielding parents, and at times i’ve nearly been run over. it is dangerous, not only to baby-free pedestrians, but also to the babies in those stollers! there have been times where i have had to literally stumble out of the way for fear the bag on my shoulder would knock a child out if the stroller did not slow down. all this being said, i have also been nearly run down by stroller-less pedestrians who think they are entitled to more sidewalk space than I. everyone just needs to slow down and say excuse me.

  4. I am a recently married 20-something guy and have lived in Park Slope for over 6 years. I cant figure out what this stroller issue is or why it is even an issue at all.

    If anything these people should be respected and appreciated for helping keep our local economy alive, not to mention the incredible sacrifice and burden it takes to raise children. Pathetic loser single hipsters that look down on people raising and caring for their children are the ones that really make me sick. If the sight of a stroller or a happy family walking together on a sidewalk infuriates you, I pity the childhood you had and the lonely future you are sure to have.

    If someone in a stroller bumps you or takes up too much of the sidewalk without saying excuse me, that is indeed rude, but seriously…Get your self-absorbed head out of your ass and realize society, especially in a big city, is going to be like that. Dont vent your frustration on all stroller pushing “Elites”. That would be the same as the crazy black guy that knocks into me on the street and me hating all black people as a result. Get over yourself people.

  5. What a sad man, who is so angry that he fantasizes about pushing little children into traffic to their death! (Or perhaps a journalist who calculatedly does whatever he needs to do to get a bit of attention paid to his prose. The answer to that, I suppose, is the same as to any tantrum – we should ingore it.)

    I don’t have kids (though I don’t hate them – I rather like them) and in 20+ years of slope living (and walking) I also have never once been run off the sidewalk, much less bumped, by a stroller. (Not saying it hasn’t ever happened, but rude people come in all sorts, I’ve noticed. Though I wonder if it is sometimes these entitled people who think there should be no small children on the sidewalks to impede their progress that aren’t the cause of some of these supposed accidents.)

    Big surprise that at certain times of the day (likely when parents are taking children to and from school) there are more of them on the streets! Hey, this was true 45-50 years ago when I was a little kid (remember the baby boom generation? – it wasn’t called that for nothing) – and I didn’t grow up in a suburb, but a city. Deal with it, grow up I say.

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