My Way Or The Swagway

Alas, I fear that my family and I will forever remember this holiday season with one tormenting word: Swagway. If you’re not familiar, the Swagway is a slick-looking two-wheel motorized board that apparently is pretty easy to balance on and thus get around on. I first encountered it an airport in Hawaii a few months ago when a guy who looked like a young A-Rod motored merrily past my family and I on a long-stretch of promenade leading to the luggage pick-up. The Swagway U-turned back in to my life a few weeks ago when my 11-year-old son requested it as his Chanukah present—and it’s been a primary source of family anxiety and conflict ever since.

So far, the Grinches (i.e. my wife and I) have held to our conviction that we really don’t see this as a good thing in Adam’s life. So, no. And he’s been almost unrelenting in his counter arguments and emotional tugs, his frustration fueled anew almost every day by news that another friend or acquaintance is getting one for the holidays. You see the dilemmas mounting up?

When this first started emerging as the issue of the season in our house, I emailed around to a handful of parent friends to see what they thought of the Swagway phenomenon, and the results were split between those who thought it seemed like good fun, and those like myself who see it as a bit of a public nuisance, a bit anti-exercise, an expensive trend, and a worrisome crime target and safety hazard. I have a scenario that I keep coming back to: My son carries his Swagway to the local park (it’s illegal to ride on sidewalks so he’d have to carry it there); he plays around on it for a while alongside other kids on their Swagways; then he wants to join in with his friends who are playing basketball, football, baseball, soccer, or one of those all-park catch-the-other-person games; and in the meantime parks his Swagway is in a place where it’s readily available to swipe. Or worse. He goes to the park and all the kids are on their Swagways, and that’s all that they’re doing. No more running around. Just wheeling.  For older kids, it’s not inconceivable that the Swagway is the new Razor scooter. Or double worse: It weighs over 26 pounds, so the odds of him carrying it all the way to the park from our apartment seems unlikely.  That means he’s riding it where he’s not supposed to, on sidewalks and cross-streets. Apparently, there’s a home safety concerns too, signaled by a spate of reports of hoverboards catching on fire.

I know I sound like a curmudgeon. Even if I think I have a point, it’s not my favorite role, and in truth I’m starting to waver. Adam really does know a lot of kids are who are getting them, and in the face of all that parental approval (or is it acquiescence?) my wife and I are starting to feel like our resistance is seeming less reasonable and more obstinate.

I keep saying that we should review this in the spring, and see what happens with the return of good weather. Are kids really using it? Is it really wonderful in ways I don’t get? Are my concerns ridiculous? But of course he doesn’t want to wait.

And if we consent to it now, after weeks of saying no, after weeks of him feeling tormented and being a tormentor, will that instill the worst possible lesson: Whatever it is, you don’t stop complaining until they give in.

Or can I be clear enough on why I would change my mind—because everyone is doing it and I don’t want you to be miserable—that he sees genuine concern and flexibility, not weakness?

My wife recently had dinner with an old friend, told him the story, and he said: “You know, if I was 11, I would think it was a really cool thing.”

We get it. We still hate it.

[This just in: I just saw a recent advice column in the Times about how to talk to children about why you don’t want them to have a Swagway.  The writer, Ron Leiber, who wrote a terrific book about parenting and money called “The Opposite of Spoiled,” explored  the case of child who wants to use his saved money to buy a Swagway,  but is at odds with his parents, whose reservations include aura of class and wealth behind such a purchase. I didn’t explore the anti-status factor  in my post, but it influenced me as well.] 

Eric Messinger is the editor of  New York Family. He can be reached at emessinger@manhattanmedia.com