PARENT

Stroller Rage

Stroller Sisters, hang in there! We will overcome! We will achieve our aim of becoming a visible minority.

In the early days, when my friends and I were new mothers, we wheeled our strollers meekly down the sidewalk, apologizing for our very existence to stony-faced passers-by, who pointedly walked dead ahead without deviation. After repeatedly scrambling to maneuver our precious cargo around them, "Stroller-Rage" was born!

It was therefore agreed that before embarking on our journeys to the mall, we would meet in the lobby of my apartment building. Heady from sleep deprivation, with all the spirit of a hockey team, we high-fived and set forth to confront the masses. Armed with a firm resolve and bulging diaper bags that matched the bags under our eyes, we transformed into "The Stroller Brigade". Ceremoniously we assumed our stroller positions, and with our fingers curled around the steering bars, Jeckyll turned into Hyde. United, we barreled down the sidewalk with the unmistakable glint of challenge in our eyes, scattering anyone unwilling to make way.

Before I experienced Motherhood, I assumed that a mother walking along with her baby in a stroller would be much like Moses at the Red Sea; crowds would part and she would cleave her way through effortlessly. I also did not think that taking the elevator at a mall would require tactics usually reserved for a military operation.

I would be pushed aside and jostled out of the way by over-zealous shoppers who seemed determined to set the world record for elevator cramming. This experience turned my usually passive and mild mannered friend into a Super-Hero, as she braced herself against the elevator doors like Xena the Warrior Princess, using her steely-eyed glare as a weapon to keep the enemy at bay.

A commonly-shared complaint among new mothers is a feeling of invisibility. There are many stories illustrating this. One occurred in our local vegetable store. We were waiting to exit the store, but were being held prisoner by a wall of people. My daughter in her stroller was crying in Dolby stereo because she needed a diaper change. I stood amazed at how sudden deafness and blindness inflicted the crowd as I implored someone to make way. The louder my daughter cried, the more invisible we became. How I longed for emergency bumper pads, and an attachable horn to honk!

Taking the bus is guaranteed to magnify these feelings of invisibility. With my daughter in her stroller, I boarded the bus and was met by a sea of vacant faces. After a few toxic stares were cast my way, a small space was reluctantly cleared and I was able to burrow my way into it. While in transit, one thoughtless fellow, instead of holding on, insisted on using the surrounding crowd as a buffer. As a result a second passenger changed his position and this propelled the offending passenger forward with the force of a missile, my baby directly in his path. With all the speed of a lioness protecting her cub, I reached out and grabbed him by his coat, narrowly averting disaster. With knees of jelly, I groped my way off the bus at the next stop, promising never to take public transit again.

My promise was short-lived and soon we found ourselves taking the subway. I was by then well versed in the almost hostile looks from some commuters, who seemed to openly resent having a stroller taking up space before we even entered the train. My skin had already thickened into rhinoceros hide so I was accustomed to brushing aside these looks, as one would swat away a pesky fly. I was about to enter the train when I noticed that the "gentleman" in front of me, after giving me a particularly uncharitable backward glance, was deliberately walking as slowly as possible, so as to bar my entry. Knowing that I had limited time before the doors closed on me, "Stroller-Rage" ignited and my normally reasonable temperament vanished as I rammed heels with wheels. His glowering look was countered with my saccharine-sweet smile while I secured my rightful place on the train.

It is not a good idea to mess with a new mother who has had no shower and a total of 50 minutes sleep in the last 24 hours. A body that feels like a truck has driven over it is too easily tempted to run over unresponsive obstacles in its path. Fellow travelers and pedestrians beware - the Stroller Sisters are here!