'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Season 7 Episode 12 raises the question of exorbitantly-priced baby strollers in US
Spoilers for the ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Season 7 Episode 12
Ever since Jake (Andy Samberg) and Amy (Melissa Fumero) got pregnant, things have changed on the NBC cop sitcom ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’. While Amy’s character has retained the same nerd energy she has always had, a more responsible Jake is something viewers are still getting used to.
But the one good thing about this new development is that it gives the show writers an opportunity to move away from its usual brand of humor to new-parenting humor. An earlier episode this season explored sex-reveal cakes. This time it was something else.
In episode 12 of the show’s seventh season, ‘Ransom’, a side plot was Amy going crazy over a baby stroller. It was of Swedish make. And it was very expensive! She even entered a contest to win one -- and thanks to Rosa’s (Stephanie Beatriz) annoyance at everything, lost the contest. And that too, to her boring ex-boyfriend.
It’s unlikely that Jake and Amy would ever own that good a baby stroller now; it’s not like cops make a lot of money. And that brings us to an interesting point: why are baby strollers so expensive?
The American baby stroller market was not always this bad, notes a 2018 long-form in The Guardian. But before Dutch brands arrived on the market, the existing strollers were also pretty bad, the report said, adding that by 2016, the US industry alone was worth nearly $750m. Today, a good stroller can be worth as much as $1,000, even more.
While perambulators (or prams) began as a luxury item, urbanization and decreasing public and private spaces soon turned them into necessities for young parents. And keeping in line with that, strollers and prams were marketed toward parents with affordability as a prime factor.
But times have changed. As Americans turn into more conscious and somewhat more obsessive parents, the question of affordability was surpassed by factors that public perceptions of their parenting skills, image consciousness, and other similar factors. This is, of course, not to imply that the expensive strollers don't serve a purpose, or that they don't provide adequate benefits. Plus, doesn’t everyone want their children to have only what’s best?
“What I think has happened is that we have really seen the emergence of a lot of premium brands and they have become a sort of a status symbol,” said Paul Hope, senior home editor at Consumer Reports.
But not everyone is happy about how expensive strollers have gotten, and rightly so. A few years ago, a Facebook post had gone massively viral where a woman had posted a photo of herself giving a stroller the middle finger. She wrote in the caption about how her expensive stroller was ultimately useless, considering that her daughter did not take long to start walking.
It was a post that resonated with parents across the world. When it comes to children, there are enough expenses all around already to have to worry about buying them a vehicle they wouldn’t be able to use in a couple of years.
Hope added, "If you feel pressured to keep up with your peers, keep in mind, Consumer Reports has not found any reason to buy a stroller that costs more than $1,000."
'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Season 7 airs on Thursdays at 8.30 pm only on NBC.