A warning to the baby-phobic

daniel

Obviously, as a baby-hater, you should be avoiding Park Slope in general. But if for some reason you do find yourself here, I implore you, at all cost, avoid the Tea Lounge on Friday afternoons. I was there today, and it the place was teeming with small children - I'm pretty sure they were checking at the door, and only allowing people in with babies, but I managed to sneak by so I could grab an iced chai. I was able to make my way through the maze of abandoned single-, double- and triple-strollers, and through the herd of women with their babies hanging from their necks using various sorts of slings. Surprisingly, it was relatively quiet inside - whining and crying was at a minimum. I got my chai, and was able to escape without being drooled or spit-up on. Next time, I might not be so lucky.

Lesson learned: next time, don't be so lazy - walk the extra 3 blocks to go to Ozzies.

arielbl

hehehehehehe!

as a baby hater (I had three younger brothers and skads of cousins; I've had enough of babies and toddlers) I DO avoid Park Slope.

Unfortunately, the strollers tend to invade the PH on farmers' market day.

flute

How can you possibly "hate" a baby ?

arielbl

Its not a hate so much as I prefer not to be around. I just don't find them appealing. Also, they tend to be loud and disruptive (more so toddlers than babies). Its not like I make faces at babies in the supermarket, I just avoid places which I know to be baby-clogged and have no intention of having any of my own. And I get frustrated when 1) people with HUGE strollers hog the sidewalk and 2) parents bring loud and/or disruptive babies and toddlers to nice restaurants.

alafairnadia

Subject: Re: A warning to the baby-phobic

daniel wrote: Obviously, as a baby-hater, you should be avoiding Park Slope in general. But if for some reason you do find yourself here, I implore you, at all cost, avoid the Tea Lounge on Friday afternoons. I was there today, and it the place was teeming with small children - I'm pretty sure they were checking at the door, and only allowing people in with babies, but I managed to sneak by so I could grab an iced chai. I was able to make my way through the maze of abandoned single-, double- and triple-strollers, and through the herd of women with their babies hanging from their necks using various sorts of slings. Surprisingly, it was relatively quiet inside - whining and crying was at a minimum. I got my chai, and was able to escape without being drooled or spit-up on. Next time, I might not be so lucky.

Lesson learned: next time, don't be so lazy - walk the extra 3 blocks to go to Ozzies.

friday afternoons? try ANY weekeday during the day. I made the mistake twice -- once on a tuesday afternoon and once on a thursday morning. NEVER AGAIN. I'll drink mcdonalds coffee first (and that's saying something). I also caught a cold after the second trip and was convinced that one of the little snots had touched & poisoned me.

I'm not against space for moms/dads/caregivers to take their kids during the day. but both times I was there the kids were running wild. one kid somehow got into a really tall garbage can and was rummaging around in refuse, and another kid was running on the backs of the sofas and, of course, brained himself on a table. I'm amazed tea lounge management hasn't been more pro-active in calming the daytime population. their insurance should be through the roof.

flute

arielbl wrote: I get frustrated when 1) people with HUGE strollers hog the sidewalk and 2) parents bring loud and/or disruptive babies and toddlers to nice restaurants.

On that point, I can ENTIRELY relate. :evil:

arielbl

Yeah - when I lived in a state with smoking sections, I used to sit there because there was a decreased likelihood of kiddies.

Unfortunately, people who bring their kids to smoking sections seem to have even louder/more obnoxious/less controlled offspring

daveb

I'm violently allergic to children. I'll like them when they start letting me eat them.

dailyheights

What's with all the baby hating? Did you all spring anew from the skull of Zeus, fully growed up and clad in armor?

daveb

dailyheights wrote: What's with all the baby hating? Did you all spring anew from the skull of Zeus, fully growed up and clad in armor?

Actually yes. Yes I did.

daniel

We all know babies are good but for one thing:

http://arminm.com/images/baby_cannibal3.jpg

Eating! Yum!

-ps: link is to picture that some may find highly offensive, of "Performance Artist" Zhu Yu, eating a mock-baby.

arielbl

Just cause I WAS a baby doesn't mean I have to LIKE babies.

carnivore

daniel wrote: We all know babies are good but for one thing:

http://arminm.com/images/baby_cannibal3.jpg

Eating! Yum!

-ps: link is to picture that some may find highly offensive, of "Performance Artist" Zhu Yu, eating a mock-baby.

I wasn't able to see the pic using your link, but I enjoy the sentiment.
I think that Jonathan Swift had the same idea almost 3 centuries ago. See "A Modest Proposal" here:
http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

Best line:

”I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.”

alafairnadia

[quote=dailyheights]What's with all the baby hating? Did you all spring anew from the skull of Zeus, fully growed up and clad in armor?



actually, I think kids = booty zeus. er, below stool zeus. except not that quiet.

bluedove

[quote=dailyheights]What's with all the baby hating? Did you all spring anew from the skull of Zeus, fully growed up and clad in armor?



Dailyheights, you don't use a cigarette holder and spend too much time at Mooney's, do you?

bluedove

I like babies in the same way I like pets (wait, let me finish...) I like individual babies who are well-behaved/especially cute or cool/who belong to relatives or people I know who are not obnoxious about them. I fully intend to have my own babies in the not-THAT-far-now future, and I fully intend to enjoy it.

That said, I detest out-of-control brats, strollers hogging the sidewalk, people who don't take their wailing offspring OUT of the nice restaurant/movie/coffee shop when it becomes clear that it's not a quickly-appeaseable problem...etc. But: Kids are what they are. 99% of the problem with children is actually the parents.

Same with pets.

alafairnadia

bluedove wrote: I like babies in the same way I like pets (wait, let me finish...) I like individual babies who are well-behaved/especially cute or cool/who belong to relatives or people I know who are not obnoxious about them. I fully intend to have my own babies in the not-THAT-far-now future, and I fully intend to enjoy it.

That said, I detest out-of-control brats, strollers hogging the sidewalk, people who don't take their wailing offspring OUT of the nice restaurant/movie/coffee shop when it becomes clear that it's not a quickly-appeaseable problem...etc. But: Kids are what they are. 99% of the problem with children is actually the parents.

Same with pets.

right there with ya. I wouldn't mind having one of my own. perhaps two if they came, naturally, in a pair. otherwise, that's it. my cat is nice, calm, and chill. my kid will be too. if he/she isn't, he/she and I will spend a lot of time at home, figuring out what's up. I keep my cool on airplanes and the subway. otherwise, I'll walk out of your establishment if there is squalling.

carnivore

alafairnadia wrote: right there with ya. I wouldn't mind having one of my own. perhaps two if they came, naturally, in a pair. otherwise, that's it. my cat is nice, calm, and chill. my kid will be too. if he/she isn't, he/she and I will spend a lot of time at home, figuring out what's up. I keep my cool on airplanes and the subway. otherwise, I'll walk out of your establishment if there is squalling.

Will you promise not to use your stroller as a battering ram?

Look at Park Slope's latest accessory to mount on the front of a baby stroller:



another model:

anonymous

This is a most excellent thread. I have lived in Park Slope for many years and I love it, but the whole baby thing has just gone totally over the edge. I like babies (one or two at a time), especially if they are my own or related to me. But, I've stumbled into that Tea Lounge scene and man it is SCARY.

Reminds me of the scene in Aliens where Ripley stumbles into the alien egg cavern and kinda realizes where she is. If I had a flame thrower I woulda started using it right there in Tea Lounge. It was awful.

Anyhow, my niece and nephew came to visit awhile back. And I got to haul them around Park Slope is this gigantic SUV double-stroller with mag wheels. Now that was some fun, ramming into people, rolling over small yappie dogs, shoving people off the streets, and generally acting like a total a-hole parent.

Yup, I gotta agree with whoever said 90% of the problem is with the parents. It's just that there is something about being behind the wheel of a stroller that just makes you wanna smash into somebody with your screaming toddlers.

alafairnadia

Miguel wrote: This is a most excellent thread. I have lived in Park Slope for many years and I love it, but the whole baby thing has just gone totally over the edge. I like babies (one or two at a time), especially if they are my own or related to me. But, I've stumbled into that Tea Lounge scene and man it is SCARY.

Reminds me of the scene in Aliens where Ripley stumbles into the alien egg cavern and kinda realizes where she is. If I had a flame thrower I woulda started using it right there in Tea Lounge. It was awful.

Anyhow, my niece and nephew came to visit awhile back. And I got to haul them around Park Slope is this gigantic SUV double-stroller with mag wheels. Now that was some fun, ramming into people, rolling over small yappie dogs, shoving people off the streets, and generally acting like a total a-hole parent.

Yup, I gotta agree with whoever said 90% of the problem is with the parents. It's just that there is something about being behind the wheel of a stroller that just makes you wanna smash into somebody with your screaming toddlers.

this sounds like my frequent urge to stomp on the heads of tiny dogs. I like tiny dogs just fine (no really, they're cute and cuddly and stupid in an endearing way). but when they're out on the street, all vulnerable and pooping on the sidwalk, I kinda want to put them out of their misery.

flute

Miguel wrote: This is a most excellent thread. .

LOL

anonymous

alafairnadia wrote: [quote=Miguel]This is a most excellent thread. I have lived in Park Slope for many years and I love it, but the whole baby thing has just gone totally over the edge. I like babies (one or two at a time), especially if they are my own or related to me. But, I've stumbled into that Tea Lounge scene and man it is SCARY.

Reminds me of the scene in Aliens where Ripley stumbles into the alien egg cavern and kinda realizes where she is. If I had a flame thrower I woulda started using it right there in Tea Lounge. It was awful.

Anyhow, my niece and nephew came to visit awhile back. And I got to haul them around Park Slope is this gigantic SUV double-stroller with mag wheels. Now that was some fun, ramming into people, rolling over small yappie dogs, shoving people off the streets, and generally acting like a total a-hole parent.

Yup, I gotta agree with whoever said 90% of the problem is with the parents. It's just that there is something about being behind the wheel of a stroller that just makes you wanna smash into somebody with your screaming toddlers.

this sounds like my frequent urge to stomp on the heads of tiny dogs. I like tiny dogs just fine (no really, they're cute and cuddly and stupid in an endearing way). but when they're out on the street, all vulnerable and pooping on the sidwalk, I kinda want to put them out of their misery.

alafiarnadia,

Yes, yes, you totally grok me. I am so excited to meet a kindred soul. Whenever I see those little tiny dogs that look kind of like rats, I just want to punt it across the street, like just totally drop kick it. Or I find myself wishing I had a pitbull I could feed it to.

daniel

More annoying than the tiny dogs - almost up there with the battering-ram strollers - are the people who walk their dog with the retractable leashes fully extended, their dog about 25 feet in front of them, leash cutting a line across the sidewalk.

alafairnadia

Miguel wrote: [quote=alafairnadia]this sounds like my frequent urge to stomp on the heads of tiny dogs. I like tiny dogs just fine (no really, they're cute and cuddly and stupid in an endearing way). but when they're out on the street, all vulnerable and pooping on the sidwalk, I kinda want to put them out of their misery.

alafiarnadia,

Yes, yes, you totally grok me. I am so excited to meet a kindred soul. Whenever I see those little tiny dogs that look kind of like rats, I just want to punt it across the street, like just totally drop kick it. Or I find myself wishing I had a pitbull I could feed it to.

august 31st @ soda!

has anyone else seen the short thug walking the pitbull? nothing funnier -- if that pitbull started running, it'd all be over.

arielbl

alafairnadia wrote: this sounds like my frequent urge to stomp on the heads of tiny dogs. I like tiny dogs just fine (no really, they're cute and cuddly and stupid in an endearing way). but when they're out on the street, all vulnerable and pooping on the sidwalk, I kinda want to put them out of their misery.

See, I love the small dogs and find myself smiling at them like most people smile at babies
(I do draw the line at small dogs in dog carriages. Unless your dog is 15 and has crippling arthritis, it should walk!)

My maternal instincts must be totally misplaced.

bluedove

arielbl wrote:
(I do draw the line at small dogs in dog carriages. Unless your dog is 15 and has crippling arthritis, it should walk!)

For REAL. I watched this show called "The Dog Whisperer" (shut up! I was on an airplane!) and there was this extremely flamboyant couple with a chihuahua which they named Paris and dressed in little sparkly outfits, including hats and shoes, EVERY DAY, and carried around in a little purse AT ALL TIMES. And then wondered why the dog was psychotic. The dog guy told them that if they took the dog for walks (the proper way to walk a dog--not running 25 feet ahead of you on the sidewalk) and let it get some actual exercise, it wouldn't be so neurotic, and what do you know: It worked.

This is what I was talking about when I said bad parents and bad pet owners are equivalent evils. Except that, you know, one raises a different kind of beast.

anonymous

Subject: gratuitous baby-bashing?

What's the point of this thread? That there were a lot of kids in the Tea Lounge but that "it was relatively quiet inside"? Wow. That's like saying, Watch out for Carvel! A lot of black nannies congregate there! It's overrun with West Indian women! A large group of one type of person was there! But it was very pleasant. But it might not have been!

What the hell is people's problem with the existence of kids? Why is there an assumption that parents are "smug" (an often used slur) and superior and disdainful of those w/o kids? Who the fuck cares who's in your family? If you are threatened b/c I'm walking down the street with my kid, you have major problems. I don't know of any parents who think that other people should have kids necessarily. Seriously, just who cares? It's the strangest accusation. It's like saying, I saw ten people with tattoos on 7th Avenue today! Who do they think they are, trying to make me feel uncool? Fuck them!

There are annoying loud parents in the neighborhood and there are annoying children in the neighborhood and there are annoying high schoolers leaving John Jay every weekday and there are annoying holier-than-thou co-op members and yes, there are annoying single people and hipsters in the neighborhood. Welcome to urban living.

dailyheights

Amen.

oiseau

It's all about entitlement. You make a lot of money, you live in Park Slope, you think you're entitled. You feel your child is entitled. Well guess what? You're not entitled to shit and your brats aren't either. Instead of feeling entitled, try and put yourself in the shoes of all those other folks who don't think your brat is the cutest most wonderful rugrat in the world.

carnivore

Amen.

The black nannies and tattood hipsters aren't expecting any special accomodation from the world around them for their choice of lifestyle. They're not trying to mow people down with strollers or subjecting people who are trying to enjoy a quiet dinner or cup of coffee with their brood's incessant wailing.

Of course children are necessary for the continued viability of our species. What is different about the Park Slope parent is the expectation that everyone else's world revolves around their children the way theirs does. This isn't an African village; no one is responsible for these children except the parents. When they let their children run amok in a restaurant or cafe while they sit down for coffee, they are abdicating that responsibility.

dailyheights

Here's a good one:

September 22, 2005
Supersize Strollers Ignite Sidewalk Drama
By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

[CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE]

At this point, if someone were to accidentally hit Ctrl+V, something similar to the following might appear on the screen:

ONE recent evening during rush hour on a Washington subway, Jose Rivas found himself cornered by a giant stroller, with no clear path of escape. "She saw us," Mr. Rivas, 33, said of the woman pushing the buggy. "She looked at us. She was basically like: 'You better find a way to get out. It's not my responsibility.' "

When he tried to step around her to reach the door, her look became a glare. The confrontation was like a battle, he said, and the weapon, a long, army-green-colored stroller.

Christopher Peruzzi, 39, of Freehold, N.J., has also had to dodge baby strollers - especially those that are "double wide or triple long" - usually in stores, and he doesn't like it either. "They're blocking off products you want to get to," he said. "I find this particularly annoying in Barnes & Noble and Walden Books. I'm here to read. I'm not here for your kid to slam into me."

Pricey, supersize baby strollers like the Bugaboo and the Silver Cross - nicknamed Hummers - have been derided as symbols of yuppie extravagance. (They cost upward of about $700.) But some critics now say that size is not the only problem. What's worse, they say, is the way some parents use them to bulldoze their way through public places.

"I liken it to the SUV experience," said Elizabeth Khalil, 28, a lawyer in Washington. "It's just your mission to mow down everything in your sight because you can."

Critics - many of them people without children - rarely raise the issue with their friends who are parents. But they voice their complaints in conversations with one another and in online chat rooms. And many are beginning to suspect that the new big strollers are the latest fissure in a long-standing divide between parents and nonparents, a disagreement that usually goes unspoken, over who has made the right choice in life.

"These women have a child, and they're like, 'Look at me,' " said Ophira Eisenberg, 33, a stand-up comedian from the West Village who refers to oversize baby strollers as lawn mowers. "It's like this baby is more important than anything, and everyone should be bowing down because they created life."

Parents who use the supersize strollers dismiss the notion that they are inconsiderate or think of themselves as superior. "If anything I am particularly self-conscious about the stroller in public places, that I'm not bumping into people," said Chris Ford, a stay-at-home father in Las Vegas and the owner of a red Bugaboo Frog. "A stroller is something a parent uses all the time. It's one of those things, like eyeglasses. You're always using them. You don't want to cheap out on them."

Mr. Ford, who offers thoughts about parenting on ModernDayDad.com, said that owning a Bugaboo means that he never has to worry if the stroller will be able to handle certain terrain - and it's an eye-pleaser. "I like how it comes in solid colors. It's not some sort of ugly plaid or ducks and bunnies," he said. "I love its industrial design. I love how it's made of metal, how strong it is."

"If you've got a problem," Mr. Ford said, "then you've got issues beyond my stroller."

Traci Anderson, 36, of Groton, Conn., who is married and said she has decided not to have children, agrees that the issue runs deeper than taste. Often, while trying to pass someone with a large stroller, she has seen the parent acknowledge her presence but make no attempt to move. And that, she said, begs the question of whether they believe people with children have a special claim to sidewalk space.

"My choices and what's important to me shouldn't be seen as any less important in the grand scheme of things," Ms. Anderson said.

More and more strollers, large and small, are rolling into the pedestrian world. Sales in the United States were $530 million last year and the market is only expected to keep growing, according to the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association. (Sales of Bugaboo alone tripled from 2003 to 2004.)

Starting in the mid-1960's and for decades, most strollers were the lightweight umbrella sort, not including the Baby Jogger that arrived on the scene in the mid-1980's. The S.U.V.-stroller frenzy ignited a few years ago, after a Bugaboo Frog appeared on "Sex and the City." That model went on to achieve a status not unlike an Hermès Birkin bag. This month Bugaboo introduced two new stroller models - the Gecko ($679) and the Cameleon ($879) - designed to traverse bustling sidewalks, sandy beaches and rough, woodsy terrain.

There are advantages that go beyond maneuverability, status and smart looks. Ali Wing, the mother of a 2-year-old boy and the founder and chief executive of giggle, a baby retailer, said the wheels on big strollers last longer than those on smaller buggies, and many parents like the way some of them allow the baby to face the walker. Ms. Wing also said that umbrella strollers are not as cushiony and protective. And the younger a baby is, the more emphasis parents place on comfort and safety.

In July a $600-plus Mountain Buggy Urban Double Stroller helped shield a 7-month-old baby as a Manhattan building collapsed around her, setting off a flurry of posts in parenting chat rooms about the potential value of utility strollers.

Yet size is no guarantee of a stroller's safety, said E. Marla Felcher, an adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the author of "It's No Accident: How Corporations Sell Dangerous Baby Products." "There are no mandatory safety standards for strollers," she said. "There is no way for any parent to know if one stroller is safer than another."

"What they know," said Ms. Felcher, who described herself as childless by choice and who admitted that the new big strollers annoy her, too, "is, 'I'm a parent that can afford to spend $700 on this.' " Not having children "doesn't mean I hate kids," she said. "But I do hate the parents who somehow have decided that they are superior to everyone else because they have kids."

It might help, Ms. Felcher and others said, if parents and nonparents could talk about their feelings toward one another. "It's the last taboo in this culture," Ms. Felcher said. "You just can't talk about it."

Ms. Anderson agreed, "We're a bit afraid of expressing our opinions for fear of being labeled as people who hate children or who do not support women."

Stroller dramas play themselves out every day: on sidewalks, in supermarkets, in museums. At a Disney theme park, a member of an online forum wrote, "I got rammed so hard on the back of my heels in Adventureland, that they actually bled." The writer, who used the moniker Tigertail777, described the offending stroller as a "huge plastic molded S.U.V." Later the same day, according to that account, another stroller knocked Tigertail777 in the shins near the Haunted Mansion.

But on the same chat room - MiceChat.com - several parents said they try to be considerate of others in the theme parks. "I have bumped into folks that all of a sudden change directions or stop all of a sudden in front of me (for no apparent reason)," wrote one parent known as DznyVan, "but I always apologize (even if it was their fault)."

Todd Levin, a writer and comedian, said he saw an especially illustrative stroller encounter two years ago at Kennedy Airport. It happened after the mother accidentally bumped the nonmother with a stroller that Mr. Levin, 34, said looked like a "massive SUV."

"Could you please not bump me with your stroller," the woman said, according to a play-by-play account Mr. Levin wrote on his Web site, Tremble.com. "I have a cat in my bag."

"Excuse me," the mother replied. "If I knew you had a cat in your bag, I wouldn't have bumped you!" Then she turned to the other travelers nearby, widening her eyes in exasperation.

An argument ensued, but Mr. Levin concluded that it was less about the collision than about who had made the better life choice, the mother or the cat owner. "The Biological mom was much, much worse, in my opinion, if only for her very clear sense of superiority," Mr. Levin wrote. "With each swipe she took at the Feline Mom she seemed to be making a transparently veiled assertion that having babies is what makes us better people. Having babies means winning."

Mr. Levin is far from the only person writing about stroller wars on the Internet. "Clogging up the paths of shoppers everywhere, these plastic monstrosities often contain piles of shopping bags, purses, grocery bags, extra sandals, sunscreen, diapers and no baby whatsoever," wrote Nathan Alexander of Los Angeles on his Web site, Commercialsihate.com. "The Baby Bulldozer is a total nuisance. There's no way around it, over it, or through it, and the oncoming parent inevitably steers it directly toward your feet."

Mr. Alexander told his girlfriend, "If I have a baby, I'm carrying it in a backpack."

"My parents," said Mr. Rivas, who had the stroller standoff on the Washington Metro, "they would make us walk."

But what if the roles were reversed? What if Mr. Rivas was the parent with the stroller, making his way home during rush hour on a steamy summer evening? He chuckled, then conceded, "My opinion might change if I had kids."