Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Introducing strollers to Africa
Across Africa, women can be seen carrying sleeping or sometimes giggly babies on their backs, swathed in cloth. The babies move to the sway of their mothers' hips, synchronized throughout the day, bending with them as they collect water or sweep the floor and rising again when the women stop to rest. They hang on as their mothers sell food in the market or pray at a church or mosque.
The introduction of strollers and baby carriages, both known here by the British word "pram", horrifies traditionalists, even someone such as Wambui, who sells them. The stroller is appearing in major cities around Africa, but so far has not been a hit.
"It's not so wonderful. In Africa, we just carry our children or let them roam. They can't sit like lumps," said Wambui, 24. "Besides our roads aren't even good enough for these devices. If everyone had a pram it would cause jam-ups in traffic. Then we would be bad to our children and bad to our roads."
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The stroller has sparked debate among African pediatricians who think the device -- first crafted as a labor-saving tool for the European middle class -- may damage the relationship between a mother and a child.
"The pram is the ultimate in pushing the baby away from you," said Frank Njenga, a child psychiatrist in Nairobi, Kenya's bustling capital. "The baby on the back is actually following the mother in warmth and comfort. The baby feels safer, and safer people are happier people."
In the United States and Europe, strollers have long been controversial. Recently, some doctors and child psychologists have blamed them for everything from pediatric obesity to low self-esteem later in life.
After living in Africa for two years, one of the things I noticed when I returned to the U.S. was exactly this. It seemed like people in the U.S. kept their babies at arm's length, while in Africa, the babies were literally attached to the mother most of the day. African babies also seemed calmer, perhaps from having that constant human contact. It seems like such a simple idea: babies like and need to be touched. Yet we spend all this money on contraptions that essentially isolate the baby from its surrounding environment. What does that possibly do to the young child?
posted by chris at 1:43 PM
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