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Why Don’t People Walk with Infants?

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Finally, I met another family walking with a pram. Usually, I walk with Klara in her pram through empty residential areas and the few people who come outside stare at me like I’m weird.

Of course, the family with a pram (baby carriage, stroller, whatever) I met today was immigrant. Is it simply not a customary thing for people here in the Midwest to walk with their infants? Where is everybody? I know for a fact that there is a newborn baby two doors down from me but I don’t see him outside.

How is a person supposed to lay down groundwork for future play dates if prospective play daters are hiding indoors?

29 responses to “Why Don’t People Walk with Infants?”

  1. xykademiqz Avatar
    xykademiqz

    They take the babiest to the shopping malls. (I am not kidding.)

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      That’s about the last place I’d look, so it’s good to know. 🙂

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  2. ninamishkin Avatar
    ninamishkin

    I don’t know about the midwest. But in cities in the East, where young mothers live in apartments without back yards in which their babies can get fresh air, and where I lived when my children were small, we walked the carriages (prams) to playgrounds, even when the babies were still too young to play in the sandbox or sit in a baby swing and be pushed. That’s where the mother bonding took place and future playgroups were formed. New York still has such playgrounds, although it tends to be nannies who congregate there. My two Florida grandchildren, who live in Tampa, were taken to the nearest playground by car, because it was too far to walk, but the play dates were formed somewhat later in paid pre-nursery schools and “classes,” in which they were enrolled at the age of eighteen or twenty-four months (with their mothers also attending at first) for a couple of mornings a week. You might try exploring the Tampa-type alternatives if you don’t discover any playgrounds within walking distance of your house.

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    1. Shakti Avatar
      Shakti

      My two Florida grandchildren, who live in Tampa, were taken to the nearest playground by car, because it was too far to walk, but the play dates were formed somewhat later in paid pre-nursery schools and “classes,” in which they were enrolled at the age of eighteen or twenty-four months (with their mothers also attending at first) for a couple of mornings a week. You might try exploring the Tampa-type alternatives if you don’t discover any playgrounds within walking distance of your house.

      There are a lot of places which shouldn’t be too far to walk but are in fact too dangerous to walk unless you enjoy playing pedestrian frogger with distracted careless drivers. There are also a lot of play areas in malls and McDonald’s.

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        I’d sooner take the baby to a Trump rally than to a McDonald’s. 🙂

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  3. Editor (Retired) Avatar
    Editor (Retired)

    Sad to say, Clarissa, but this modern world, at least the U.S. urban-suburban part, is not kind nor welcoming to children. Parents have children and then spend as little time as possible with them. And most of that time is indoors, either in front of the TV, or at the mall, where they usually have a little indoor playground where you can find parents and children taking a brief respite from their harried lives.

    I don’t believe I’ve seen an old-fashioned baby carriage, in which a newborn or young infant could lie flat and be pushed along and admired by the neighbors, in years. I wonder if they still make baby carriages? I know that strollers, on the other hand, are available in a wide variety of models. The most popular strollers are the ones designed to be pushed at high speed by a jogging parent (who obviously doesn’t have time to be bothered with neighbors). There’s also the contraption designed to be pulled behind a bicycle by the cycling parent. Seems kind of dangerous to me.

    The one place where you can routinely find moms, dads, and sometimes whole families out pushing a child in a stroller or even a carriage is in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in places like New York and Baltimore, especially on the Sabbath.

    The words “play date” and “day care” make me cringe, because the words themselves make clear the nature of modern childhood. Those words didn’t exist in my childhood. Any child who wanted a companion for play simply knocked on nearly any door on their own block and said, “Can Mary come out and play?” But that was more than a half-century ago. Sorry to ramble.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Here is the baby carriage I’m using:

      The First Outing

      You are right, the whole point is to have the infant lie on her back and not sit in a weird bunched up position like Walmart strollers make infants sit. And my fantasy was to meet other people with baby carriages and admire each other’s babies. For now, this part is not working.

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  4. Editor (Retired) Avatar
    Editor (Retired)

    BTW, I think “pram,” as used in Canada or the U.K., is extinct in the modern American dialect.

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    1. cliff arroyo Avatar
      cliff arroyo

      I think the item is largely extinct too (I hardly ever remember seeing them in the US whereas they’re common in Europe).

      I don’t think they mesh well with automative transport, they’re a walking and/or public transportation thing. As neither of those is very common in the US the item itself is kind of scarce.

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      1. Jones Avatar
        Jones

        Ah, yes, this explains what’s different on American public transport …

        The fronts of buses aren’t crowded with people trying to jam a dozen prams into the area reserved for people with disabilities.

        [… also, “Wotsa pram?”, the first thing an American friend of mine said when he heard the song “A New England” by Kirsty MacColl …]

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          The very first version of English I learned (at home) combined a very American accent with a very British vocabulary. This is why I say “a pram, a flat, etc.”

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  5. Z Avatar
    Z

    They also don’t stroll themselves. I walk in the neighborhood whether or not I have a baby to walk, but people find it strange.

    I was at a big urban park yesterday and there were tons of people out with their small kids, but most of these kids were at least 1. Very few prams.

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  6. raddledoldtart Avatar
    raddledoldtart

    Look out for adverts for local parent and baby classes? – e.g. swimming, yoga, music, baby sign language (!) even if you think Klara’s too young just now, these can be sources of future playdates 🙂

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      That’s a great idea. It will be fun for me, if not for the baby. 🙂

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  7. Sugs Avatar
    Sugs

    I looked at the earlier post and it’s definitely a pram, but then I’m English, and also growing older than I sometimes realise. The language is changing here too, although that’s not a buggy. Years ago buggies were called pushchairs. I had a double buggy for my kids, extra wide and a nightmare in the snow when I had to walk their older sister to school over a mile away!

    People here don’t take infants out in their pram/buggy/contraption unless they’re going somewhere, the idea of taking them for a stroll for the sake of strolling has also been relegated to the past. Shopping malls, regrettably can be the answer here too. Small infants are often seen strapped onto the parent, though obviously for you having had a Caesarian that might not be an option. I live near the local park, which as soon as the sun comes out is filled with families including infants in various mini-vehicles.

    Your point about immigrants is valid here too. We have a large population of Indian and Pakistani origin who flock to the park in huge family groups and have a whale of the time showing off their infants!

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I don’t know why people avoid walking with babies. It’s a lot more enjoyable than sitting at home. The weather is fantastic around here. What’s the point of being cooped up inside.

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      1. Sugs Avatar
        Sugs

        Definitely better than sitting at home and walking is great exercise, while driving exercises only one foot. And if while walking you chatter away to your baby, telling them all about the trees and the clouds, you get some very funny looks – I know because I do it with my grandkids… I’m also the mad woman who grins and makes faces at babies in supermarkets. It’s fun and babies should be enjoyed!

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  8. pennijayne Avatar
    pennijayne

    That’s so strange. My sister (British, living in the UK) and my coworkers (American, living in neither the US nor the US) walk their babies outside all the time, mostly because it’s a surefire way to get them to sleep. They spend hours just wandering the streets while the babies nap!

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    1. pennijayne Avatar
      pennijayne

      *neither the UK nor the US

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Exactly! This is very calming to a baby.

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  9. David P. Bellamy Avatar
    David P. Bellamy

    I don’t recall ever walking with an infant in a stroller, but I certainly have many times gone for a walk carrying an infant in my arms. It seems much more pleasant that way, both for parent and child.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Wow, you have fantastic health! My back would start killing me after just half a mile.

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      1. Jones Avatar
        Jones

        I’ve seen something that I would call a “baby rucksack” that might also work …

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      2. Jones Avatar
        Jones

        Crikey, baby rucksacks cost a packet …

        http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/walking/equipment/rucksacks/baby-carriers

        I’m usually wandering around with a regular rucksack that costs less than £60, and my current rucksack cost me £35 in Cardiff, but some of these cost well above £120 …

        Ah, yes, silly of me to think that these might be cheaper in the US:

        https://www.rei.com/search.html?q=baby+carriers&ir=q%3Ababy+carriers&page=1

        I think some of this comes down to wanting to look slightly more posh whilst Doing Amazingly Active Things That Also Involve The Baby, but this is a bit much to believe …

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          They look a bit funny but it’s a great idea. I have a baby carrier which is a lot less fancy but I haven’t used it yet.

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  10. Jones Avatar
    Jones

    It’s that American “nuclear family” thing …

    They’re all bunkered down in their above-ground bomb shelters. 🙂

    They only come out to forage at shopping malls. 🙂

    [… they’re settlers, they settle for all kinds of things such as cheap and greasy mall food …]

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    1. Shakti Avatar
      Shakti

      First rate snark, Jones. But I see many people settle for expensive and greasy restaurant food, canned vegetables, sugary and greasy elite health super food, and weird Frankenfood they make by grafting two different types of food together.

      Starbucks sells small child size boxes of organic milk that have as much sugar as a small Coke.

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        For some reason, children’s menus in all restaurants always feature the most garbagy, unhealthy food ever. Even when the food served to adults is very good.

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      2. Jones Avatar
        Jones

        I find such amazing things at the shops in America, but not always what I would consider food, at least at first glance.

        I noticed a company that is known for selling chocolate to Americans that is widely considered not fit for consumption by British people now also sells long-shelf-life milk (aka UHT milk) …

        It took a while to realise that they were not in fact selling UHT chocolate milk, and that this was in fact the standard household staple without added flavourings or sugar, branded prominently with the chocolate maker’s corporate logo.

        [… also, keep in mind that the Effete Restaurant Denizen’s Four Food Groups are, in decreasing order of quantity: Sugar, Salt, Fat, and Spice, which may explain things just a bit …] 🙂

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