I used to think motherhood was sacred. Perhaps it was a result of being beaten over the head with endless Madonna and Bambini paintings during my past Italian adventures, but I've just always felt that the undeniable yet inexplicable bond between mother and child was the last good and pure thing left in our rapidly devolving world. To this day, I bashfully fancy myself as something of a momma's boy, reluctantly clinging to my mother's teat like a second-guessing suicidal man holding onto a skyscraper ledge.
Then one recent afternoon, I was walking down a crowded Manhattan street when I encountered two moms, each with a doublewide stroller (that's four kids, if you're counting), taking up the entire width of the sidewalk. As they approached, locked in mindless, gossip-filled conversation, I expected them to consolidate their stroller girth and form a baby pushing line, graciously allowing others to pass.
Instead they throttled toward me without hesitation, unjustly embroiling me in some twisted game of chicken. With little recourse, I dove out of the way just before impact, finding myself in the road and in the direct path of an oncoming bus. If not for my cougar-like dexterity, I would have become the first recorded victim of strollhicular homicide. More importantly, though, these unwavering carriage-crashers revealed to me the true nature of the modern mother. As a result, my idyllic image of maternal love has been shattered forever.
This new breed of child-rearing female is bolder and more ruthless than ever and is popping up in places previously unthinkable for children. They've left the confines of their local malls, the slowly lifting shadows of a pre-dawn walk and the secluded refuges of parks and schools. Now they are hitting your bustling downtown streets and you had better make room. These aren't your regular pistol-packin' mamas. They are stroller-wielding, buffed up monsters, and they are out for your blood.
These mothers have a seemingly docile fa?ade, but when crossed, they become unflappably militaristic. They use their babies and their high-priced strollers as crudely improvised battering rams, and they have little patience for straying outside their predetermined strolling route. This behavior veers more toward stimulant-fueled blitzkrieg than infant inspired bliss.
They often roll in packs like raucous biker gangs, only with less neck hair and more butterfly tattoos (I've heard rumors of a rogue conglomeration of leather-clad mothers up in Montreal that is giving the Hell's Angels a run for their money in the prostitution racket). This is when they are in their most dangerous state. A solo mother making a manicure appointment on her cell phone might be persuaded to act in the best interest of her child and yield the right of way, but together group mentality dominates, leaving the fate of any innocent passerby to the whim of the alpha mom. You can spot the leader by her rigid posture, high-cocked chin and apparent lack of Dior shopping bags (she is not to be encumbered, so the subservient ones carry her designer shoes and hand-dyed pillowcases).
Like Hitler in the Sudetenland and Osama in Afghanistan, the mothers of tomorrow are training an ever-growing army of militant mommas and are amassing them around every county and state border close to you. Under the title of Stroller Strides, they have developed a strict fitness and combat regime. Supposedly in the business of bringing moms together to walk their children, socialize and stay healthy, Strides has developed a way to continuously train their breastfeeding cadets, mainly through a workout plan that involves using their strollers while engaged in their daily neighborhood prowls with baby included, as resistance for squats, lunges and other body toning exercises. So the next time you see a muscle-bound socialite in a Chanel Lycra jumpsuit bench-pressing a gilded stroller, you'll know its more than just 'roid rage - it's a declaration of war.
But this is America, the home of the preemptive and poorly planned strike. It's time to fight back. I've been assailed and brushed away too many times. Now I make my stand. Who among the still living broken and shattered streetwalkers is with me? I say down with doting, enough of extravagant adoration. Negligence in parental handling has been spiraling toward oblivion for some time now. The key to survival? An upsurge of feminism. It's time to burn those bras and unhinge women from male-imposed, baby-centric tyranny. Only then will our streets be safe for our children once again.
