Mums are being robbed of their pricey buggies – and it’s sparked a mini crimewave

My heart was pounding. I had taken my daughter Liberty, then about 10 months old, to a mum and baby yoga class in west London, when suddenly there was an enormous scream from outside the venue – it sounded as if somebody was being murdered. We all ran out to investigate the source of the commotion. I looked over the railings. “Catch him!” one mum shouted, as a buggy snatcher fled out of sight from the pram park with three or four lightweight and collapsible YOYO prams over his shoulder.

These chic and lightweight French-designed buggies – one of the few that can fit into an aircraft holdall – are loved by celebrities including Keira Knightley, Eddie Redmayne, and Kim Kardashian. They cost around £399 new. That is, of course, before the add-ons: there’s the cup holder for your flat white, the leather handlebars and footmuff, the parasol and mosquito net. But as far as expensive strollers are concerned, it’s cheap. The average price of an upmarket buggy is more likely to be £700 to £1500, and others cost more. A top-of-the-range Cybex Platinum e-Pram costs £2,289, with its app-controlled rocking function to soothe your baby, while a Baby Dior Stroller in powder pink costs £2,600.

The panic at the yoga class was therefore understandable – it’s not just that you can’t ferry your children around without a pram, it’s also the often eye-watering cost of replacing it. The mums like me were unable to run down the street after the thief because we were still holding our babies. Instead, we looked on in desperation to see if our prams were still there – I saw my YOYO as it had a caterpillar toy hanging from the handlebars. Some of the unlucky few collapsed in tears.

This was years ago – Liberty is now six – but thefts of buggies have only boomed since then. Today it’s a miniature crimewave, according to the Metropolitan Police. Between 2021 and July 2024, 1,500 buggies and wheelchairs (which are recorded together) were reported stolen in London alone – and it’s on the rise. Across the UK the figures are even higher – many of these thefts aren’t reported, either – and it’s creating a “black market” for posh buggies.

You only have to look on the Nextdoor app to spot neighbours of yours who’ve encountered this very problem. It’s not just wealthy yummy mummies falling victim to pram thieves, either, but ordinary women – like the one whose brand new buggy was taken from a pram park in a Sainsbury’s while her baby was sitting in the shopping trolley.

The YOYO is loved by celebrities including Keira Knightley, Eddie Redmayne and Kim Kardashian. They cost around £399 new, before the add-ons (Stokke)

Strollers are being stolen from cars in smash-and-grab sprees, or from the boot when cars are left open on people’s driveways. Other times, buggies get stolen along with the car – but while the vehicle is often retrieved, the buggy is not. It’s a lucrative sideline for thieves and opportunists – a bit like stealing Amazon packages from people’s front gardens.

Now parents are finding their stolen buggies on Facebook Marketplace or eBay, where they’ve been put up for sale by buggy burglars. But while you might be able to buy them back – having recognised, say, the distinct vomit stains down the side of one – that’s often where the story ends. Most of the time there is no proof that the online seller is the same person who stole the buggy – and police are unable to prosecute. And all of this is a fast-growing crime due to the fact that posh pushchairs barely lose their value – as I discovered when I sold my second-hand YOYO for £200.

So, is it really any surprise that the criminal underworld has set its sights on designer prams? And even when we know that a luxury buggy makes us a target, why do we keep buying them?

“Strollers are one of the most visible accessories that new parents have,” says the American author Amanda Parrish Morgan, who wrote 2002’s Stroller, in which she unpacks the buggy’s impact on motherhood. “It’s a way of signalling something very public about our priorities and ethos as parents. Specifically, the super-expensive ones might suggest a mother willing to spare no cost for her child in a world where we have so little control over the things that, much more than style or safety of baby gear, really scare us about our children’s futures.”

While fixating on the safest pram might help us try to create the illusion of control, Parrish Morgan also goes as far as to suggest that it’s not just the pram that is a commodity – it’s now also the child. “There’s a tendency to view children as products rather than as humans – as something parents are ‘producing’,” she says.

The rise of luxury strollers, such as the one Victoria Beckham had, can be seen as part of a broader trend where consumer goods become extensions of personal identity (Beverly News/Shutterstock)

According to Janet Rawnsley, the author of 2009’s The British Pram: A History of Prams, the “game-changer” for the posh buggy market was the Bugaboo pram, which became all the rage in about 2004. It was the first of the super stylish, design-led and compact pushchairs with a detachable carrycot, and became popular after appearing in an episode of Sex and the City in 2002 – it could be seen parked in the hallway of Miranda’s apartment after a sleepless night with her baby. In no time, the Frog – as this early model was named – was the pram of choice for celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, despite costing £500, which at that time was a lot more than any other pram on the market.

Rawnsley says that until then parents had cumbersome and solid pushchairs – the poshest were from Silver Cross and Marmet in the Fifties and early Sixties. That’s until the portable folding Maclaren buggy became hugely popular in 1967; it was basic in deck chair stripe in red, blue or brown. But now, with prams holding so much more weight than just the child in it, is it a question of the better the pram, the better the parent?

Professor Carolyn Mair, a fashion business consultant and the author of The Psychology of Fashion, tells me that the buggy you choose says a lot about you as a parent. “The rise of luxury prams can be seen as part of a broader trend where consumer goods become extensions of personal identity,” she says. “Historically, parents have sought high-quality products for their children, but the modern emphasis on branding and design reflects a shift towards what is termed ‘performative parenting’. This is amplified on social media as the buggy becomes a prop in curated depictions of family life. The pram becomes a way of projecting a carefully curated image of modern, capable, and successful parenting.”

Pricey buggies include the Baby Dior Stroller in powder pink, which costs £2,600 (Dior)

This could, she says, suggest that some parents feel they are “better caregivers” if they can afford and display premium goods for their child. The snobbery is similar to luxury handbags and cars, she points out, and “it stems from the psychological association between material goods and self-worth”.

But while the choice of pram can provide new parents suffering from “status anxiety” a degree of reassurance to help them feel less vulnerable to judgement about their parenting choices, this benefit is typically short-lived. “It can be problematic if the pram becomes part of a cycle where material goods are used to address emotional insecurities.”

The truth is, most of us mums aren’t thinking about the psychological impact of prams when we obsess over whether to get a stroller with all-terrain wheels – like Meghan Markle, who opted for a top-of-the-range Bugaboo Fox with “all-wheel suspension” for Archie costing £1,305. All we care about is whether we need a jogger, one with puncture-proof tyres, or an egg shape so it looks like a Design Museum exhibit. But at the end of the day, if they’re going to get stolen, wouldn’t a basic £35 one from Argos do?

Source link

Life Style