There is a parenting assumption nobody warns you about.
The moment your child turns four or five, you pack away the stroller and you feel quite good about it. They are big now. They can walk. That chapter is closed.
And then you go on a holiday.
We took Meera and Shloka to Pattaya last year. Meera was six, Shloka was four. Old enough for everything, or so we thought. Water parks, the zoo, Nong Nooch Garden, long beach walks. We planned it for months and packed carefully and we were genuinely excited, because this was a trip planned entirely around the girls.
The stroller stayed home. They are big kids now, I told Akash. We do not need it anymore.
I completely believed that.
The airport
Kolkata airport, departure terminal. We had just checked in and were walking toward security. Bags on our shoulders, boarding passes out, everyone was excited.
Seven minutes in, Shloka stopped walking.
Just stopped. Right there in the middle of the terminal. Arms up. That look on her face that every parent recognises immediately, the one that means I am done and I will not be negotiating.
I looked at Akash. He looked at me. We both looked at the distance still left to the gate.
We did what all parents do in that moment. We motivated. We cajoled. We promised things. Akash got down to her level and told her the aircraft was just around the corner. It worked. Shloka walked. We reached the gate, we boarded, everyone settled in, and the excitement of the flight took over. We forgot about those seven minutes entirely.
Little did we know.
That moment at the airport was not the problem. It was the first sign of the problem. The smallest possible preview of what the next five days were going to look like.
The tip of the iceberg, entirely.
Day one. Cartoon Network Amazone Water Park.
We as parents forget how massive and huge day trips to parks can be. They are spread across acres, and we live under this false notion that our so-called big kids can now walk and are very independent.
Within thirty minutes of entering, Akash was carrying her. He carried her for forty five minutes through a water park while attempting to enjoy the water park.
I looked around and counted at least twelve families with strollers. Big kids sitting in them. Children older than Shloka. And their parents were walking freely with empty hands, actually present in the moment. That is when I realised we were missing out on something.
Day two. Nong Nooch Tropical Garden.
Nong Nooch is vast and genuinely stunning and requires an enormous amount of walking.
By noon Shloka had fallen asleep standing up, leaning against my leg during the cultural show. I held her upright for twenty minutes because there was nowhere to put her down. Akash carried her on his back through the rest of the garden.
He did not fully enjoy the garden. His back has not entirely forgiven him either.
Day three. A five minute walk to lunch.
That is all it was. Five minutes along the beach road. Beautiful afternoon, sea breeze, exactly the sort of moment a holiday is supposed to feel like.
Shloka stopped at one minute. Meera stopped right after. We took turns carrying both of them and arrived at the restaurant already exhausted before the meal had even started.
This is the part nobody prepares you for. It is never only the big days that break you. It is the small moments too. The walk to lunch. The stroll back to the hotel. The last stretch of the zoo when everyone has given everything they had and there is nothing left and you still have to find the exit.
What we got wrong
We spent months thinking about everything our children could now do because they were bigger. We spent a month planning this holiday for them so that they could enjoy it, but we forgot entirely to think about what they still could not do.
They cannot sustain a full holiday on their feet. Not at four. Not at six. Not even at ten, across water parks, amusement parks, gardens, day tours, walks and airport terminals, day after day. They start strong and they fade fast, and when they fade, the whole spirit of the holiday fades with them.
So you end up carrying them. Your back pays for it. You spend half of every day convincing, negotiating, and quietly bribing a small person to take a few more steps. And the trip you planned for months starts to feel like something you are getting through rather than something you are enjoying.
We came home from Pattaya and the first thing I said to Akash was that we should have brought a stroller.
Not the baby stroller. Something built for this age.
Lightweight enough to move through a crowded theme park without a fight. Sturdy enough to take a six year old. Something that folds in seconds when a taxi pulls up or a tram arrives. Something that does not make Meera feel like a baby, but gives her somewhere to sit when her legs have genuinely had enough.
Something that should have existed when we were standing in that terminal watching Shloka stop in the middle of the floor with her arms up.
Because that moment at the airport was the sign. We simply did not listen to it.
Big kids get tired too. And when they do, the entire holiday feels it.
That is exactly why we built the Get Going.
Lightweight. Sturdy enough for older children. Folds in seconds. Built for the family that thought they were finished with strollers, right up until the airport showed them otherwise.
If you are planning a holiday and quietly wondering whether your five or six year old will manage all of it on their feet, the honest answer is probably not. Not because there is anything wrong with your child. Because a holiday asks far more of small legs than an ordinary day at home ever does.
Take something. You will use it more than you think.
Ruchi
The Get Going, built for exactly this: buttbaby.in