Pink Stroller

So, playground politics are complicated. If I had more spare time, I'd start a separate blog on my observations from urban playgrounds and what they display about adult behaviour.

Paddington Recreation Ground is our local park, and in it has a playground. Many a child play in this playground - of all races, colors, creeds and classes - and many a style of parents and parenting (and ideas and certainties) comes with them.

Here are a few examples of some of the extraordinary parenting skills I've witnessed over the last few months (that is if you'll indulge me a moment to jump on my 'I'm a better parent than 'x', 'y' and 'z'' soap box):

Example 1 - 'x': There is the woman who baited her (2 year-old looking) daughter to kick and spit at the pigeons while yelling "That's right! We HATE pigeons! Kill the pigeons!" While I'm not especially a fan of pigeons (I think they should be described as 'rats with wings' in their Wiki), I was utterly disturbed to witness this parent encourage her child to kill (or at least try to) another living creature. Even creepier, however, was the fact that the mother kept looking over at me obviously looking to see if I was laughing. I wasn't. Little did she know I was actually piercing her pigeon-brain with my mind bullets!

Example 2 - 'y': There is the Russian father (replete with Ushanka!) who repeatedly hits his wildish (3 year-old looking) son with no affect. I've seen him twice, and both times I felt I should have called someone, very seriously, very disturbing. I've seen the little boy several other times with his passive mother and have come up with a whole domestic reality for the three of them. I worry for that little boy.

Example 3 - 'z': There is the woman who talks on her mobile phone THE WHOLE time she's there with her daughter. Her daughter tugs at her leg, falls down intentionally with a strained and pained 'yelp', and yells to get her mother's attention, but whoever is on the phone is obviously really damn important. I see her frequently too. It makes me sad to see how little she cherishes her time with her daughter.

Anywho, all this soap-boxing is only to illustrate that there are a lot of things parents do in the playground that I really don't agree with and a lot of parenting examples that scare me. (Obviously, there are many excellent parents too, but they're not the subject of this particular rant!)

Most of the more affluent parents tend to bring an array of outdoor toys to parade on the playground - e.gs. scooters, huge plastic trucks, various balls, wagons, huge plastic trikes with a push handle for their kid to ride in, and baby strollers - which generally just create a sort of status anxiety among the other parents and a bun-fight for the kids. Every single child wants to play with playground bling, whatever it is, and a frenzy inevitably ensues once a particularly gigantic, plasticy monster toy makes its way into the playground's fenced in perimeter (both Angus and I struggle with the notion of 'private property' on the playground and what it seems to negatively teach kids about personal ownership and hoarding). Generally, it's all in good fun and the kids share and trade their wares with no problem, but occasionally there is a parent who is convinced every child is going to steal their child's stuff and spends more time hovering over the thing than their spawn.

So, for months we went along with taking Jones to the playground, sans acoutrement, and watching him play with other kids' things with no problem. He was really pretty good about sharing and not taking things from other kids if they were clearly playing with it themselves. That was until he discovered baby strollers. About a month ago, every time we or John would take him to the park, he'd steal another child's baby stroller, ignore the playground altogether and really, really not want to give the stroller back to its owner (more often than not a shy and older little girl). The focus on 'borrowing' a baby stroller for the entirety of our visit to the playground was getting a bit out of control, so, despite our reluctance to buy Jones too many toys that he'll only play with for a day and then forget about (and our desire to enable collectivist politics with playground property), we bought him his own baby stroller...It's pink, it was 5GBP, and he LOVES it..like, really loves it!

Due to its colour, said stroller has caused quite a stir among some of the aforementioned 'x', 'y' and 'z'ers. If I had a pound for the number of times someone has said to me "you know they make them in blue" in the last two weeks, I'd have replenished the recent losses on my high risk mutual fund. There seems to be a common belief that a boy pushing a pink baby stroller means he might become gay, and the subtext being that 'gay' is something to be feared.

To the pigeon-hating-abusive-Ushanka-wearing-compulsive mobile talking homophobes:

a) You are stupid!
b) I am saddened by your bigotry!
c) If Jones is gay, he's been gay since his first breath and we're going to love him for whoever he chooses to love and be with when he's ready.
and
d) You've obviously missed the memo on 21st Century 'metrosexuality': real men aren't scared of pink! Just as it was once revolutionary for girls to wear pants, boys in pink is the new revolution. Suck it up reactionaries!

So, rock the pink stroller, Jones - we love just the way you are, and will love you in any and all the ways your pink stroller may or may not take you!