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
2:02 – well done. Game ovah!
is it over yet?
I’ve lived in Park SLope for the last 31yrs (my whole life). This is how I see it.
There are a fair amount of self-entitled parents raising self entitled kids in this neighborhood. They will run you over without apologizing. They will tell you to move out of their way (even when you are pushing your own stroller and trying not to hit people). They will stop their stroller in the middle of the sidewalk without pulling over. They will come up to you in the street and ask why your stroller isn’t a bugaboo, mclaren….
There are a fair amount of non-parent self-entitled people in this neighborhood as well. They will bump into without apologizing. They will stop to talk with a friend in the middle of the sidewalk. They will push your stroller out of their way and tell you to back to the projects (yes this happened)
In my admittedly biased view. There are a whole bunch of assholes in the neighborhood, parent and non-parent. Assholes tend to complain about any situation which does not fit their version of a perfect world. Non assholes try to deal with each situation individually, rather than bash the entire neighborhood/parent community/non-parent community.
11:34 here. A few things,
1. Being a child’s primary caregiver is a difficult task no matter where you live. If you think an expensive stroller really makes a big dent in this, then it’s pretty obvious that a) you don’t have a kid and b) you have very little sense of empathy/imagination when it comes to what parents go through, rich or poor. Do PS parents deserve an orchestra of sympathy violins for their trials? Of course not. Do they deserve to be reduced to poorly informed cultural stereotypes. Also, no.
2. Why does anyone care if a kid, behaving appropriately, is in a bar with his parents in the early afternoon/evening? Have you people been to the bars around here? It’s candyass central. The few with any kind of “edge” to them never have kids in them anyway. And seriously, if you really want to do a bump at the bar at Long Tan while eating your chicken satay and drinking your Saketini and my kids are around… go for it. I’ll go Nancy Reagan on them when we get home.
Hating on parents/kids – one of the last acceptable forms of liberal bigotry.
1:39, that was exactly my point! I’m saying that one should experience how parents in other countries drink around their kids if one is horrified about the thought of a parent in Park Slope drinking one beer in the afternoon.
And 1:24, there are not many people to whom one can more easily say “I told you so” than a person who does not have kids but plans to. It’s simple to say how your kids will behave but come back to us after you have them and we’ll see if they are the little angels you expect them to be. Even the best parents sometimes have kids who “run amok” from time to time. They are kids; they do that.
As are 221 and 223 Berkeley Place.
Days on market: 1
and 1 Pierrepont St is still in contract
And you MR BROWNSTONER had visions of discussions of parlor floors and subway tiles. HA strollers and diapers win out. Kinda of reminds me of SOCCER MOMS.
Come on posters…racism, sexism, gay bashing….those are all fare game under a Brooklyn real estate/lifestyle forum.
Please do not stoop so low as to not have anything better to discuss than how bad Bush is…masters of the obvious…so pathetic