Oh, the Ways We Stroll

Photo by kodismom on Flickr

I was five months pregnant when I bought my first stroller. Reviews of the Baby Jogger City Classic were favorable, and the City came in my favorite female-friendly color: purple. By the time my daughter arrived 20 weeks later, my obsession with strollers was a full-fledged addiction. I had a total of two strollers waiting for her when she came home from the hospital that fall—a stroller for walks on the Hill and a frame stroller for holding her car seat. When my daughter was four months old, we added the affordable, nanny-share-friendly InSTEP Suburban Safari double stroller to our collection. By her seven-month mark, I had acquired my fourth stroller (though I did give away our frame stroller to make room for the Baby Jogger City Mini in our car’s trunk).

While I love my City series strollers, I have been known to obsess over and covet the many strollers one can find on the Hill. Read more after the jump.

A simple walk to Eastern Market often stirs up a healthy dose of envy. During the roughly ten-block walk from my home on the fringe of the Hill to Eastern Market, I can see any number of strollers: the high-end Bugaboo, the newly trendy UPPA Vista, the workhorse Bob Revolution, the European-inspired Bumbleride and, of course, the popular (and ever-present) Phil and Ted, complete with jump seat for baby one and baby two. These aren’t the only strollers one might spy at any of the parks where families find themselves climbing on jungle gyms and catching up with friends. The stroller market is saturated with three- and four-wheeled baby transporters.

New mom and Hill resident Lauren found herself more concerned with which stroller was best for her baby than any of the other things new parents plan for. “Deciding on a stroller was the biggest decision [my husband and I] made when I was pregnant,” said Lauren, who is the owner of three strollers. “It was certainly the thing we researched and shopped for the most. We would stop people—on the street, in the park, wherever—and ask them questions about [their] strollers.”

Like many Hill parents, Lauren recognized the need to find a stroller that was city sidewalk friendly—think air-filled tires with sophisticated suspension systems and large sun canopies that are standard on her City Elite—yet compact enough to fit into Hill homes and Hill lives, like a Maclaren Triumph. Add basic utilitarian need (a true jogger for a regular runner), and you find yourself with the need to own more than one stroller.

For many Hill families, need alone doesn’t drive us to add to our collections. Moms and dads also want to get behind a stroller that makes  the other moms and dads turn their heads. One Hill dad admits, “if I am going to take my kids to the park, I want to take them in a stroller that looks cool and has lots of cool features.” For dads, strollers are much like cars: the more bells and whistles the better.

Then, just when a family has found the perfect mix of utilitarian need and urban cool, they find out they are expecting baby number two. And the process starts all over again.