Hello Mr Anti-Pram aka Jeremy Lee
If calling you Mr Anti-Pram sounds drastic, calling the "over-use" of prams (or a more appropriate term, stroller) a "truly distressing social ill" is, yes, you are right, truly distressing.
This is not the first, and certainly not the last article/comment (a fellow dad posted this a few hours after me) addressed directly to you regarding your now-notorious article, but I will have to write it anyway, because to you, a personal, one-sided, subjective rant like this is completely acceptable.
I will not go into detail explaining why parents need the aid of prams when bringing their child/ren out (it has already been done well here), neither do I care whether you are a parent or not, but the part about taking lifts is just a painful thing to read. If you, presumably a grown man with healthy limbs and an outstanding command of English, can roll your eyes at prams in lifts and expect kids to train their muscles once they are ready to walk without falling flat on their faces, why can't you expect yourself to take the escalator or even the stairs instead? If you fall flat on your face frequently while walking, please accept my sincere apologies and go train some muscles.
I cannot blame you for writing what you think. However, I shudder at the thought of this article being read, edited and subsequently published on the website I read it from. If this has been a tasteless form of driving readership, I have to admit, it has achieved its aim.
In any case, I have some final words for you.
Take comfort, because Bangkok, the city I have lived in for the last 4 years, does not encourage parents to bring prams into malls.
But, don't ever come to Bangkok, unless you decide to spend all your days burning on the streets and weekend markets.
Because, many major malls in Bangkok already have their very own fleet of prams ready for rental to all their customers with a simple exchange of any form of identification, so technically, no family needs to bring their own. These are certainly not considered "C-class" prams, but are at least "Altises".
So beware.
If you decide to come, and can't help but set foot into any of the world-class malls scattered across the whole of this City of Angels, be afraid. Be very afraid.
An entire army of "Altises" will be charging at you.
And the worst thing is, one of them could be mine.
Yours sincerely,
Eddie aka Stranger in Bangkok
In a feeble surrender to the marketing initiative driven by this article, those who wish to read the article I was responding to, you can do so here.
As a singaporean living in Bangkok with baby n kids for more than 7 years, i disagree with you. Most Thais and residents in Bangkok get around without prams. They are not practical on roads, or sidewalks that are littered with street stalls. The malls are equipped with prams, but used largely by tourists really. And I think you are really just talking about very few selected malls.
ReplyDeleteI think Jeremy has a point - coming back to SG for a visit, I feel there seemed to be really many prams, and some really older kids are in prams!
Since we weren't able to use prams in Bangkok our kids also 'bo bian' got used to the walking. And we used slings etc as well.
Just only my 2cents view :)
Thanks anonymous for your frank comments.
DeleteI frequent 3 malls here (Mega Bang Na, Paradise Park and Terminal 21, of the 3, 2 of them have almost no tourists in them), and all come with rental prams, and I have my own, so I don't visit them because of the prams. Even Emporium has prams for rental if you know where to go.
But anyway, why many parents are so worked up really isn't about whether kids should walk more or whether prams are necessary, their sentiments are brought about because of how Jeremy wrote this piece, and how ST allowed it to be published then reiterated its support of it. That's all.