Strollerderby : walk

Do Your Kids Walk To School?

Brett Singer — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:10:00 GMT

You know the old joke about how your parents walked to school. Up hill. Both ways. In a snowstorm. (Even in summer.) While being chased by a tiger. A really hungry tiger. (I added the part about the tiger.)

Well, with child obesity rates on the rise, maybe it's time to pull that old chestnut out of mothballs.

What prompted all this? Well, April 8 is National Start! Walking Day, sponsored by the American Heart Association. (Oh, don't pretend like you didn't already know.)

Over at SuperEco, Frank Paynter says that while many of us old folks used to walk to school, our children are catching a ride. Frank points to an article on Yahoo! Green by Jeff Yeager that says only 30 percent of today's rug rats stroll their way to the hallowed halls of learning.

Frank wonders when the move from bikes to the minivan began: "Some people cite safety concerns, but the chance that a child will be injured in a car accident are astronomically higher than that he will encounter evil doers out to sell him into child slavery on a chocolate plantation or something." He's probably right, at least statistically. But parental fear is a very real thing, whether reasonable or not. There are plenty of things I did as a young'un that I have trouble letting my kid do, like go to corner store. Part of that is where we live (New York City), but part of it is simply that societal attitudes have changed.

As for walking to school, sometimes it simply isn't realistic. For example, I lived in the Bronx and went to school in Manhattan. Taking the subway (2 of them) took about an hour. Walking was not going to happen. My son is too young to walk, and we also live a little bit too far away from his school. So it’s a good idea, and I like talking about it, but he's going to have to get his exercise some other way.

Since The American Heart Association was kind enough to set the Start! Walking Day start date in the spring, I may join in. Not my son -- he takes the bus. But I'll start walking when I go to pick him up. Frankly, I need the exercise more than he does. At least he gets recess.

So let me ask you folks -- do your children walk to school? Did you?

Image/Source: SuperEco

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They Say: Parents Who Use Forward-Facing Strollers Treat Their Kids Like “Accessories”

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The New Zealand publication Stuff has its panties all in a bunch over forward-facing strollers, seeing them as nothing more than the latest torture device for innocent youngsters everywhere.

Remember the recent study that found that babies who are walked in forward-facing strollers could be “emotionally impoverished” because they are denied facial contact with their parents, and are forced instead to familiarize themselves with, uh, the rest of the world? Well, Karl du Fresne has covered the study under the headline “Babies Paraded as Parents’ Fashion Accessories.” I’m not sure what kind of childhood this du Fresne character had, but he seems to think that parents are universally, egregiously selfish and vain, and the forward-facing stroller is just one more example of this mass parenting travesty.

Du Fresne sees it as “no surprise” that being “propelled toward a procession of bewildering, and possibly frightening, strangers” would impair children’s development. And naturally, the only possible reason he can imagine for such horrific parenting is—fashion. He feels that parents everywhere see their children as nothing more than “a fashion accessory to be shown off for maximum advantage. This is accomplished far more effectively when the unfortunate infant is facing forward.”

Take that, forward-facing stroller users! I’ll bet you force your kids to wear diapers with those cutesy animal prints on them, too, you sickos.

Photo: Little Baby Guide

They Say: Forward-Facing Strollers Are Bad for Baby

Should We Let Our Kids Be "Free Range"?

Kelly Mills — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:32:00 GMT

You might recall the controversy that got kicked up by a New York Sun reporter's account of allowing her nine-year-old to ride the subway alone. She was both pilloried by people who compared her behavior to child abuse, and praised by people who want more freedom for their kids. In response to the whole thing, she started a blog called "Free Range Kids," to promote the idea that kids need the same independence and freedom previous generations enjoyed.

While this gets hyped as a battle between helicoptor parents and free range parents, it is true that many kids are not allowed to do the same things their parents did at the same age, like walk or bike to school or go to the park without an adult. And as the free range advocates point out, a good deal of this may just be due to the increased media attention on abductions and crime, while crime has actually dropped in most instances. I tend to fall more on the free range side, though putting theory into practice is always a different matter when my six-year-old is involved. What do you think: Are we basically stalking our kids out of their independence? Or are the risks of allowing solo activities not worth it?