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Stroller

Object Lessons

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Stroller

By: Amanda Parrish Morgan
Narrated by: Rachel Handshaw
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Bloomsbury presents Stroller by Amanda Parrish Morgan, read by Rachel Handshaw.

The Best Books of 2022, The New Yorker

Object Lessons is a series of short books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Among the many things expectant parents are told to buy, none is a more visible symbol of status and parenting philosophy than a stroller. Although its association with wealth dates back to the invention of the first pram in the 1700s, in recent decades, four-figure strollers have become not just status symbols but cultural identifiers.

There are sleek jogging strollers for serious athletes, impossibly compact strollers for parents determined to travel internationally with pre-ambulatory children, and those featuring a ride-on kick board or second, less “babyish” seat, designed with older siblings in mind. Despite the many models available, we are all familiar with the image of a harried mother struggling to use a stroller of any kind in a public space that does not accommodate it. There are anti-stroller evangelists, fervently preaching the gospel of baby wearing and attachment parenting. All of these attitudes, seemingly about an object, are also revealing of how we believe parents and children ought to move through the world.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.©2022 Amanda Parrish Morgan (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Aesthetics Literary History & Criticism Motherhood Parenting & Families Philosophy Relationships New York
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Critic reviews

For Morgan, strollers aren't just tools we use, or products we buy; they're dense symbols, with no single or settled meaning, of our relationships to parenting.
Designed objects tell stories, and the stroller is no different - except perhaps that it's a typology that has received little sustained critical framing until this text. A compelling writer, Amanda Parrish Morgan deftly weaves together conversations around aspiration, accessibility, and aesthetics as they relate to this accouterment of modern parenthood and posits the stroller as a complex and sometimes confounding topic worthy of our attention and inquiry. This is an immensely readable volume, and we’re proud to have it on our bookshelves.
Part object history, part capitalist critique, a consistently acute and deeply felt depiction of the pleasures, traps, thrills, and dangers of early parenthood, Amanda Parrish Morgan's Stroller compellingly depicts the history and taxonomy of this most weighty and unruly device, ally, and antagonist.
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