Pushing back the boundaries

Are we streetwise when it comes to transporting our youngsters around town? Ben Bentley discovers that big isn't always best.

It strikes me somewhere between Primark and Millets - the monster pushchair being wheeled by a young dad, that is.

"Oops, sorry," he says as he negotiates his way around Telford Town Centre, "I'm only just getting the hang of this thing."

Pushing a pram of my own around Telford Town Centre, evasive action is required later to avoid a second head-on collision. I duck out of the way and into an aisle of cut-price jumpers, knowing that in the worst case scenario my fall will be cushioned by a display of V-necks.

The attack of the giant pushchairs, in which pushchairs get bigger at the same rate that policemen get younger is, it would seem, a relatively new phenomenon and one has to wonder whether owning one of these pumped-up prams and strollers is all a bit of a status thing.

Look in any baby shop these days and the range of pushchairs on offer is as impressive as the selection of testosterone-driven 4x4s available at your local car dealership. Land Rover and Jeep now make them.

In what has become the survival of fittest, once nimble buggies have mutated into off-road battle tanks with wheels that look like they've been nicked off a monster truck and chassis that appear to incorporate the kind of technology developed by NASA.

To add to the feeling of invincibility while at the helm of them, such chariots are given names such as Urban Detour and Mountain Buggy, presumably on the off-chance you take your newborn up Ben Nevis.

And the perambulator, that strict and particular baby carrier of choice for nannies of yesteryear, is back - albeit bigger, bolder and seemingly on steroids for the 21st Century.

Like their taxable roadworthy counterparts, these monsters come with a price tag best met with a finance contract. Complete with accessories, buyers can easily find themselves with little change out of £800.

For the label-conscious, pushchairs are being produced in collaboration with the likes of fashion designer Philippe Starck, but a recent Which? survey found that celebrity pushchairs are not always the best.

Manufacturers, of course, will say that for city dwellers it's about negotiating (and surviving) the urban assault course of steps and escalators, bouncing up kerbs to avoid the traffic and maintaining a course along pavements packed with pedestrians.

For some yummy mummies, this "tricky terrain" could well mean the china department at Debenhams, and faddy daddies might encounter a similar test of nerves in Halfords.

Maybe the size phenomenon is a man thing, arising from a cunning ploy to capitalise on the dad end of the market and get more blokes pushing prams. Certainly a model with pictures of pretty teddy bears on the side isn't going to appeal to most red-blooded chaps; more bare metal on show and bigger wheels is what we want.

New dad for the second time, Richard McCormick from Telford, can regularly be seen pushing around his double buggy, but his is a model that sensibly he chose for practicality rather than anything that says "My other pushchair's a Porsche".

Big isn't always better, he says. In fact, big is more often a pain in the foot muff.

He explains: "We had to get a double buggy and we went with one with seats front and back, because when you go out with the family where there are other people you can't have something that's four foot high and just as wide - if you don't have consideration for other people that's what you have.

"A lot of people are using buggies as a status symbol, they are all multi-storey, and to be honest it's not my ball game - practicality was my main priority, ours was the smallest and lightest model in Mothercare."

The other problem with monster pushchairs? Some are so big they won't fit in the car.

Richard adds: "My wife has got a Rover 25 which is supposed to be the average-sized family hatchback and we can put the buggy in the boot and nothing else.

"It makes you think about your car - for the £200 pushchair you've bought you've then got to go out and spend £8,000 to £10,000 on a new car."

Warning - when purchasing a monster pushchair you may also need to buy a 4x4 or people carrier just so you can transport it, meaning that your nifty new pram has in fact set you back tens of thousands of pounds, not to mention the fact that you now also face the prospect of having to have your house adapted to get the thing through the front door.

Worth hundreds of pounds, Teresa and Andrew Carruthers, from Wellington, have had their super-duper off-road Quinny pushchair for just three weeks and already they are about to throw in the towel. Okay, their three-month old son looks like a king cruising round in it and, yes, this three-wheeled beast looks like it could scramble up The Wrekin under its own steam.

But. . .

"It's too bulky, I can't get in the car," says Teresa. "We are getting a stroller."

Andrew looks every inch the trendy dad as he wheels it round town, but adds: "We don't go off-road with it, they are modern Chelsea tractors."

It's a similar story for Wellington mum Katie Dixon. She's had her Mothercare travel system just seven weeks and already enough's enough.

She says: "I'm getting rid of it because it's too big and bulky. It's difficult to get through the door of some shops, it's a struggle.

"I cannot get it in the car and it's a struggle getting it on the bus. I want to get a stroller instead."

But what about the urban mountain? How shall we traverse it? The answer is, don't panic and just let the mountain come to you. And when it does, use the escalators like everyone else.