How old is too old for a kid to ride in a stroller?
In my opinion, size is more of a factor than age when it comes to allowing kids to hitch a free ride in a pimped out pram.
I’ve addressed the topic of older kids bumming rides in strollers in previous blogs. Personally, I feel if your child can fit into a stroller and you are able to push it without the assistance of a bulldozer or having the wheels warp, then have at it.
My daughter is six and I still bring along a stroller when we make our annual trek from Wisconsin to Hawaii and back. Granted, she is a peanut and still fits fairly well in an umbrella stroller, but even if her shins touched the ground while she was in it, I would still bring it along just in case. You try getting an overtired 6-year-old to run from one terminal to another at 4 a.m. in less than 10 minutes, so you don’t miss your flight, then tell me if it’s not easier to just push the kid instead of dragging her the length of four football fields.
But I digress.
The reason I am resurrecting the great stroller debate is because I recently got an email from a friend that included a link to the most hilarious website ever: “Too Big for Stroller.” The photo blog is the creation of kid-less Laura Miller who fills it with shots of big kids riding around in standard-sized strollers.
Miller is an unabashed stroller hater who suffers from “stroller rage.” Some of her anti-stroller sentiments include: “Big kids in strollers (assuming that that child has no mental/physical disabilities that warrant the use of a stroller) it’s just funny to me. Though I might not love a stroller, if it’s holding a baby or a toddler, it’s like, I get it. But with actual kids, it’s like, come on. You’re seven. Your feet are touching the ground. You haven’t taken a nap in four years. You’re learning math.”
For the record, Miller is quick to point out that she “fully understands and respects the function of strollers and why they’re useful for parents,” but aesthetically she can’t stand them or parents who use them as vehicles to transport allegedly lazy kids.
I will admit that the photos on Miller’s site are comical, but I tend to agree with a reader who left this doozy of a comment: “Stop complaining about kids being too old for a stroller. Before you’ve been there, it just looks… wrong. But when you’re dealing with the competing pressures of a miserable, exhausted kid and a time crunch, you honestly don’t give a rat’s a** what anything looks like.”
Amen to that.
Where do you stand on the great stroller debate?
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