Unpredictibility and corruption plague business in India.
How presidents have spun the need for military actions from the eighteenth century to the present.
CAFOs smell really bad.
Would you dine at Fat Ho Burgers?
If you think nuclear power is unsafe, read up on coal.
The silver lining of invasive species.
The racket of unpaid internships.
Bridal registries get creative and maybe slightly less tacky.
The Post's ombudsman acknowledges that the new website is a hot mess.
Watch how you wield your metaphors, which matter.
There's a new biography of Edith Piaf.
Dowd on social conservatism.
Mike Daisey talks a lot about metaphors in the excellent, compelling, hilarious, poignant Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.
Make sure to check out saturn this month.
Oh, please. How about you pick up your f*ing child?
Last time I lived in New York, when I was childless, I had to dodge the grim-faced parents rampaging down the sidewalks with their double-wide, all-terrain strollers. Where did their rageful sense of entitlement come from? They devoured every inch of space under scaffolds, obstructed store aisles — and did it righteously, as if the world owed them an unimpeded runway for their child-furniture. I couldn’t imagine what sort of yuppie lunatic would spend a hundred bucks on a stroller. (Answer: a yuppie lunatic who wants the warranty. Yet all around are ultrayuppie ultralunatics who spent $500 or $700.)
But the stroller-haters are self-centered, too, or unthinking. There’s a fallacy among childless people that there are simple ways for parents to make their children less annoying, and the parents just choose not to do them.
Would pedestrians infuriated by stroller traffic really be happier if the sidewalks were full of 2- and 3-year-olds toddling along at their natural pace, clutching their guardians’ hands? I know it’s hard on others when I’m going up the subway steps with a giant bundle of child and stroller in my arms. But you would prefer a 3-year-old climbing ... step ... by ... step?
Posts
1 comment:
I'm going to be nice and invite you to attempt carrying a 22-40 pound toddler for more than a block or two, and you'll have your answer to why parents down just pick up their f*ing kids.
As a mother, I do realize it's not all about me, but when I use my stroller and a childless person gets huffy about it, I do hope that person realizes it's not all about her or him either. Basically, that person's trying to run errands and I'm trying to run errands. Yes, I feel that I should be allowed to take my stroller on these errands, b/c kids are not only heavy, but if they're not in the stroller, then you will not be able to get your groceries and send letters and do all the things that the childless or able to do without a stroller. We are not trying to get in your way with our strollers, we are simply trying to get things done. And yes, for whatever strange reason, we feel entitled to get things done with our strollers which enable us to get those things done. Much like you often need your car to run your errands and get places, we need our strollers to get stuff done.
I realize that this is hard for people without children to comprehend, b/c they do not in fact have children. But there's been a lot of angry bile spewed about mothers feeling entitled, when in fact we are just trying to get things done. Are you really trying to tell me that some rage filled mom purposefully got in your way? Please give me examples, b/c I'm sure most mothers have done nothing of the sort to you.
In fact, we put our kids in strollers so that they won't run up to you and tug on you or lay down in the aisle in front of your basket when we're trying to get pasta off the shelf or knock down everything on the bottom shelf, so that some poor clerk has to clean up after my kid.
The fact is that some cute single guy or woman that leaves a basket in the middle of the aisle is WAY more thoughtless than a stroller mom, who again, is just trying to get things done like the rest of you.
The argument that is usually offered now to continue hating on a large group of women who honestly are not trying to distress you as much as you apparently think they are is "Well, you didn't have to have kids."
Actually, the biological urge to have kids is felt pretty strongly by many of us. Saying that we don't have to have kids is like saying, "Well, you don't have to keep on living. If you don't like your life so much, just kill yourself." If others don't have the biological urge to have kids, then goody. But the fact is that most of us do. Strollers have made things way easier for both moms and (gasp!) childless people. My mom would've KILLED for a stroller. Do you know how much stuff my sister and I got into when we were kids? How many people we almost knocked over, how incredibly hard we made grocery shopping? We're all much better off now.
This is all to say, that's why we don't pick up our f*ing kids.
Post a Comment