I’d be less worried about someone making off with my child as something random but far more likely happening. In NYC? I could easily see some homeless guy making off with the milk or the blankets! And then there’s the chance of an accident, or god forbid, the cart rolls off or something.
Last year in Milwaukee a woman slashed open the abdomen of a pregnant woman in an attempt to steal the fetus and raise it as her own. Stealing a pram containing a child would be somewhat easier.
Stepping aside from the child abduction/baby stealing/pregnant woman slicing tangent…
It has been my observation that parents frequently overdress the kids, from babies on up until they become pre-teens able to physically strip the excess clothing off (to wails of parents). They aren’t cold-blooded lizards, people, they have body heat too! Just because you’re too fashion-conscious to wear a hat or gloves or anything remotely sensible in the howling gales of winter doesn’t mean your kid needs to be bundled like a baby Inuit crossing the Arctic by dogsled!
Really, I feel bad for the heat-stressed little tykes that have been left in winter-weight wads of clothing and blankets while their parents stroll around the big box store where I work, wondering why Little Darling is fussing and sobbing? Is widdle pwecious cold, maybe? Add another blanket!
If the kid is flushed bright red and sweating he might have too much clothing on…
For kids like that, being outside in the winter is probably a relief.
While I generally like to keep a closer eye on my kids, I don’t really see the problem with what’s evidently a cultural trend (and seems quite safe, or those parents would be more paranoid).
A couple of years ago, my daughter, then 12 1/2 years old, took her young (about a year) brother for a 10-minute walk in 40-degree F weather. He was in a sweater and light snowsuit and in a stroller. Granted, my daughter looks young, but imagine my surprise when the police called and insisted that we pick the children up–someone had called, worried about my son in such cold weather (we live in Michigan, for heaven’s sake). They waited outside the patrol car in the cold, about 2-3 minutes from home, while my husband went to pick them up. The clincher? The policeman asked my daughter if her mother had been drinking. :rolleyes:
“Hey, freezing baby.”
I agree about the overdressing. I dress our kids in the same general clothing I’m wearing. They don’t get appreciably colder just because they’re small!
And I would argue that they are actually warmer. Old blood always seems to be colder. I too have seen this tendency to overdress the poor little baby.
Jerks, people are so frekin nosey
Not in the parts of Stockholm where I usually move around.