OK, this post is not going to make me popular with any of you mothers out there, but this needs to be said. Just because you have a pram, does not mean you own the shopping aisles, footpaths, laneways or anything else that requires you to share space with people.
I get that you’ve got a baby and that you need to get out of the house and keep said baby in reasonable comfort. What I don’t get is why you have to abandon usual good manners and sense of sharing the minute that pram hits a hard surface.
The other day I got trapped by prams in a shoe shop. There I was having one of those very serious debates about whether I really need that new pair of boots or not. I got into one of those zones and then, when I finally snapped to it, talked myself out of the boots and decided to make a hasty retreat, I couldn’t. I was trapped. Stuck. Shit, I thought, if I don’t get out of here I’m going to have to buy those boots.
So why was I trapped? Had a pile of shoe boxes fallen from a great height causing a barrier in the aisle? No it was prams. Four of them. Two on one side, two on another, each pair parked into an impenetrable barrier across the aisles. I couldn’t get out. So I pretended to look at a few more shoes, hoping that the prams would be moved, but no. They weren’t budging, so I politely said excuse me, I need to get through and what did I get in reply? A glare, a sniff and a begrudging movement of the pram by about six inches. I squeezed my way through, marvelling that they would even want someone so obviously undesirable as me anywhere near their offspring.
Now if this was an isolated incident I’d tell me to get over it. But it’s not. It happens all the time. And if the prams aren’t blocking aisles they’re whacking you on the heels without so much as a sorry. The Brisbane Ekka is on right now and as sure as Justin Beiber flicks his fringe, there will be pram wielding people pushing their way through the showbag pavilion, that place where excited children and long-suffering parents congregate to pay big dollars for big crap.
Why would anyone knowingly enter such a hell hole and then get cross and run their pram into people? Do they forget there’s a baby in the weapon of mass destruction that they are ramming all over the place?
Look I get that you’re cranky that you can’t get around the place as easily as everyone else with this baby and pram. You’re probably really cranky that you had to haul the stupid pram out of the boot and put it together, or collapse it. Now that’s really hard. I couldn’t collapse a pram to save myself. I hated it so much that I refused to use a pram.
I carried my baby everywhere. When it was time for her to sleep I went home. When she could walk she walked so I avoided being a pram parent. The pram annoyed me so much that I knew that I could easily become an selfish pram using member of society. So I sold it. I know I should have destroyed it to prevent others misusing it, but I was poor.
So why do people persist with prams for so long. I don’t know, have no idea. I saw a kid about four in a pram the other day. He was climbing around so obviously he could use his legs. Why wasn’t he walking? Shouldn’t a four year old be walking?
Now I do know that prams are not going to go away. Gosh they’re becoming a status symbol so they’re definitely here to stay–because my baby’s Bugaboo shows the world that I really care.
But can’t pram operators use common courtesy when in charge of a pram by not blocking aisles and running over people’s feet? Can’t they use their common sense and say too many people, big crowds, not pram friendly and go to a nice park instead? Image
Loaded Web Australia