What's with these parents taking massive trolleys when they go out for a day with preschool kids?

We don’t have one but I’ve always thought they looked useful for carting around picnics/drinks/umbrellas/sun cream/changes of clothes and everything else you need for a day out with kids. Stuff that you’d have put in the bottom of the pushchair when you used one.
Mine were good walkers but I can also see how they’d be useful for plonking a whining pre schooler in when they don’t want to walk any more.
No harm to anyone, anyway.

I absolutely would have had a trolly back in the day carting kids and stuff about was exhausting a 3 year old wanting "a carry" was soul destroying ! Then you have jackets and food, bung it all in a trolly is genuis,

God I’d love one. As @YoQuieroVinosays, it’s actually just having the storage space and shade that appeals to me most! Also a way to contain my children 🤣

My children have boundless energy, especially my eldest who has additional needs, so it’s really not that they can’t cope with walking. But on a long day out when I’ve spent ages running after and being on high alert for my eldest all day, I look on at those little wagons with envy!

However it wouldn’t really work with the sort of place I live, too many narrow streets and old buildings, and we spent most our “days out” on hilltops or the woods! We go on the types of day out where I’d love to have a wagon so infrequently that it doesn’t seem worth getting one.

I can’t wait to get one.
I have a 1 year-old and baby 3 is due in September so as soon as I can shove them both in a trolley, I will be doing so 😂 well… if it’s the trolley I’m thinking of anyway. Not a literal trolley.
They’re great for tired kids, storing your picnics/bags etc.

My neighbours have just got one and it’s fabulous ! Two little benches facing each other and a little table between them- with 2 cup holders. And a hood.

We're near a beach - they're brilliant if you want to take 4 chairs, a windbreak, a bbq and everything else you need for a properly-catered beach day.

If you have older kids @JoJuniorShabadoo surely you remember the whinging it was too hot or their legs were tired or wanted you to take their goods and chattel that they insisted they needed!

A fan on a wagon sounds like a addition to a nicer day out at the zoo or wherever.

The other replies on this thread have influenced me to change my mind and seriously think about getting one actually - OP, you ought to be on commission!

They were never a thing when my kids were young but they look fantastic!

What's your problem with them OP?

My eldest is 19 and I had one when both of mine were little. Not sure when it is that people think they didn't exist.

I didn't drive and both DC had a limit to how far they could walk (genetic conditions affecting joints) and they solved a multitude of problems. I could take out all the kit I needed and had somewhere for the DC to sit when they tired. I still use mine when camping, at festivals or on some days out when I need to cart chairs, sun shades, cool boxes etc to a beach or similar.

Your aside about it being linked to "laziness" isn't warranted.

They irritate me, not because they exist, but because the parents pulling them seem to lose all sense of space and direction and I've been clipped multiple times by passing ones.

Otherwise if you have multiple smalls they seem like a good idea. Just employed with a bit of spatial awareness.

To be fair my oldest child is 33 so, they were not really common in the 90s.

I saw an elderly couple with one at the beach a few weeks ago.

They had deckchairs, a parasol, little table and a picnic in theirs.

That seems reasonable. They're not "new" new though are they? My friends and I had them two decades ago. They're probably increasing in popularity I admit but it's not a knowing example of modern parents just being lazy and indulgent which is definitely the tone of the op.

I was thinking of getting one, we live near the beach, would be great for taking chairs and picnic. Just me and DP at home now so no kids involved.

I’ve got one for local shows, agricultural shows, days out, beach.

it takes everything, picnic, raincoats, suncream, sleeping child.

Frankly I’d get one now and mine are adults!
thry look amazing!

We have one but its not for the kids to sit in. Its to kart stuff around. Mainly for the beach so you dont have either a thousand trips to the car or trying to control children crossing the road while weighed down with stuff.
Anywhere that requires walking and needing chairs, picnic, blankets, toys to be karted from a parked car to a place it is useful.

When my kids were little we had to hang so many things on the handles of the buggy, you couldn't let go or it would tip over!

Trolleys are a much better idea.

It's a more convenient pram really. You can put everything you need in it for a day out plus the kids are happier because they're not strapped down and can move about a bit so it's exciting. I don't have one but I totally get why people do.

A trolley would have been amazing when I was a single parent as struggling down to the beach with two kids and all the stuff was horrible.

You're backtracking slightly. Your op isn't about too much "stuff", it's about "bloody fans" and "lazy kids", intimating something about the parents' indulgence and the stamina of kids these days.

If I'm being forced to go to the beach, I need the stuff. Four chairs, a parasol, blankets, food, swimming stuff, towels and on and on. I can't carry it on my own and the trolley is the perfect solution.

I don’t recall seeing them at all when my DC were little - now 40 and 30. I saw a fair few yesterday on a park day out - mostly with mums lugging them behind them full of everything including children. Unfortunately because the woodland play area was exactly as described, in the woods, the trolleys had to be left out of sight as there was no way they could get them up the hillside on the shingle path.
We had 1 buggy, 1 small balance bike which went on the top of the buggy when not being ridden and a back pack each holding the picnic and toddler necessities.