Letters to the Editor
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re: Where do these people live?
I live in Brooklyn. I don't own a car and my apt is about a mile from the subway. Everything I do requires walking. If I need go to the laundry-mat I've got to lug my cart full of dirty clothing down 3 flights of stairs, down the street and then back home. If I need groceries I walk three blocks to the store and walk home with my purchases. And if I'm not walking I'm going up or down subway steps or hanging our at bus stops. Snowing, raining, hot or cold I walk and use public transportation.
I do see the $800 strollers in my neighborhood and I do NOT live in a wealthy area (you can generally get them lightly used from some UES or suburban parent for half the original price). What I do hear local parents saying is that they hop curbs and broken sidewalks and are still light enough to pick up and carry up and down subway steps. And you can expect them to stand up to that sort of abuse for years and years. Can an umbrella stroller really do all that? Do you think I should really strap my infant to my person and lug that growing weight around until that child can walk along side me?
I totally agree that there is way too much crap targeted at new parents. Lot of this 'single use' junk seems silly to me too. I'm sure the reality is you NEED very little. But it's awful to be so smug and sure of what everyone else needs. I'm not telling suburban dwellers to give up their cars and car seats and all that junk that needs to be brand new for safety and such - so how about taking it easy on the fancy strollers and city moms?
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Off-roading strollers
Most Americans are only using their strollers in the mall. Europeans have to deal with pedestrian areas with cobblestones. As a result, the typical cheap folding umbrella stroller is extremely uncomfortable for the kids and fairly unmanageable for parents on uneven surfaces. My Emmalunga stroller was perfect. But when #2 arrived, I spent $90 on a double seater Graco and it was definitely money well-spent.
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@Carol H
Your post about the "stroller prison" was spot on. Once the child can walk or run well, they shouldn't be strapped into the stroller. I think it looks a bit odd to see a 3 or 4 yr old strapped into a stroller when all the parents are doing is walking around.
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three things
1. Until I used a swaddling blanket on my cranky colicky newborn, he couldn't sleep.
2. I live in Europe and the zippered "sleeping sack" alternative to a baby blanket is not only safer it makes so much more sense than trying to get a tiny twisty turny person to stay under a blanket all night.
3. Baby signing has nothing to do with whether or not your baby can hear. A one year and two year old child may and often does know exactly what she wants/needs but lacks the fine motor skills to manipulate her tongue and mouth into forming words. This can be hugely frustrating and lead to tantrums. I taught both my children how to sgn for basic things like "eat", "drink", "new diaper", "book", and so on. It was easy and they picked it up quickly and enthusiastically.
Why the generic snottiness concerning things that are in my opinion a huge improvement in living thru the really stressful first few years of a childs life?
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why not just replace the wheels on a cheaper stroller?
Since a lot of city dwellers/people in snowy climates say that the little wheels on a regular stroller just won't cut it, why not buy a $100-$200 stroller and replace the wheels with bigger, stronger ones? You can buy wheels for tricycles and push mowers at most hardware stores for about $5-10 a pop, and they're pretty sturdy. You'd have to take a look at how the stroller folds etc., but it could probably be done on a lot of models.
(I don't have kids but I take my laundry to the laundromat in one of those folding grocery carts. I live in a third-floor walk-up in a building with thirteen-foot ceilings, and the sidewalks are very uneven in the French Quarter, so I replaced the little plastic wheels that came with the cart with more substantial ones, and I can now "roll" about fifty pounds of laundry up the stairs with one arm.)
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We were so poor...
Preachy responses--including my own--always bring me around to this Monty Python sketch...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo&feature=related
;)
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These letters seem odd
Coming from a group of people who wear their $50 Crocs to Whole Foods to shop for $15 hot sauce and plop it into $20 canvas bags. And when they get home they shop around for the 40th Doctor who will agree that their snowflake has the newest learning disability.
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I wonder what you really object to?
Is it the age of the child? Because I promise you you complainers will spare no expense on teenagers who desperately need that summer enrichment program at an Ivy League school for $4500 for 13 days.
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@smoothyo
Whatever your argument is, kids develop these 'disorders' because of the environments they grow up in.
Neuroscience is fast debunking your assumption that Nurture defines Nature. ADHD, for example, is the reduced electrical activity in the prefrontal cortex (compared to controls). This is factual, and independent of whether you want to call it a "disorder," which is after all a cultural determination. Research currently supports that it is heritable. But really, any personality can be tracked to neural activity, so that a "Type A" or a "passive aggressive" or a "sweet" person also demonstrate cognitive signatures.
When I had my first child, he was compliant and sweet. I thought it was all due to my parenting. Then came the second.
Personally, I've discovered after lots of anecdotal evidence that elainea is more on target: my point being that I think innate personality has far more to do with who your kid turns out to be and do than if you put your kid in the shopping cart and race around the parking lot instead of strapping her to your chest.
But then I did all the stuff I've mentioned in previous posts and think it helped shape my kids in some way, so I don't dismiss nurture altogether. I guess it's a mix, with a bit more nature than nurture. That's my most recent opinion, anyway. It too will change with the facts on the ground. Sigh.