Rolled Backpack or not?

Last Friday, my son's quite cheap trolley type backpack finally broke. It was a happy occasion as I have been meaning to get him a new one. That one was bought with only a year of service is enough and that's it. Basically just for his kinder year with less books and frequency of usage in mind. It did surpass my expectation. :)

Now that it's finally out of commission, the question is what kind of new one should I get? Initially, I was thinking of something that is sturdy, with well padded straps, strong back support, and can last at least two years. He's still young so his book load won't be as much when he hits 3rd or 4th grade. But after seeing that it could really be quite heavy even now that he is just in his early grade school year, I am more inclined to get him either a decent backpack with a hand carried book bag or a wheeled or trolley type school bag. I am willing to fork out slightly bigger budget than before for a decent bag for him.

The big problem is hubby prefers a good quality traditional backpack and a big NO NO to the trolley type. Upon insisting that we head out to the local department store right away, I objected and suggested that I check the thrift shops first. I have been checking out the bags at the store and they are not worth their prices. They are quite overpriced in my own opinion. The pads are still quite thin compared to the ones that I can find in thrift shops that is almost half their price. Good thing is that he relented. Problem is, with that choice of store, the most likely bag that I would find is a backpack.

So we ended up buying a backpack which is quite big in my own opinion. It was a good quality but still a little too big for my boy. He may be able to carry it but to put in all his morning books is going to be too much weight. And here is another battle with his father. He doesn't listen to the fact about the issue on the toll of heavy bags in one's spine. We ended up arguing about the topic all the time. Why he cannot listen to the stats and researches and still subject his son to such is beyond me.

I had to do a more specific online search about the weight proportion. Some says that it should be ten percent, while others give 15 percent of the body weight. The last time I check my son't weight, he is roughly around 20 kg. That makes his ideal backpack weight to be around 2 kilos only. I still have to check that it is the actual things that he will have in his morning bag.

Hmm...wait 'til I get around to it and...