Parents Divided Over Ice-Cream Ban in Brooklyn Playground
Parents in a trendy Brooklyn neighborhood have started a campaign to ban ice-cream vendors from selling their sweet treats in a local park.
This new hot-button topic started after a blog post on parkslopeparents.com, when a woman named Sarah wrote down her frustrations about visiting the playground with her son and how her visit was ruined after an ice-cream vendor showed up.
"I was able to avoid it for a little but I eventually left with a crying 4-year-old," Sarah wrote in the post, which was reprinted in The New York Post.
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In a show of support, Dorothy Scanlan, another Park Slope mother, wrote: "I should not have to fight with my children every warm day on the playground just so someone can make a living! I too was at the 9th Street Playground on Monday, and one of the vendors just handed my 4-year-old an ice cream cone. I was furious."
The story has since made the rounds on various internet forums collecting opinions from all sorts of people around the internet, highlighting stereotypes often rendered to Park Slope parents.
"You have those very involved in the community, who are obsessed with their children -- which is a good thing, when you want the best for your children," said Zoraida Walker, a mother in the neighborhood.
"However, I think they take it to a fanatical level," Walker continued. The mother said the other moms "[give] the community a bad rap... they can make an issue out of everything."
Tony Aramburu, a father in Park Slope, shared her sentiments.
"That just sounds like the typical Park Slope parent overreaction to everything," he said. "There's always debates by your child being badly influenced by television or inorganic good. There's always some kind of issue."
But according to one father, controlling his own child is too much for him to bear.
"The kids are so small, you can't control them," said Rainer Brueckheimer. "I can say no to them at 7 years old, but not at 4. I sympathize with the moms."
