Soccer Mom Rant
Radio fundraiser type girl on NPR (chirpy little sing-song type voice): “I just became a mommy, so I had to buy a mommy car.” So, of course, she has a minivan now and, this being the Planet Ann Arbor, it is a Honda Odyssey. First, I OWN a couple of Hondas and they are great but, like, so what? But what I really want to say is, “excuse me just a minute here. Mommy car? HAD to buy?”
Back in the Jurassic Age, when *I* first became a mommy, we were running two 5-year-old Ford Fiestas. Remember those? Little 2-door econoboxes. They eventually became known as “Mommy’s little gold car, Daddy’s little blue car, and the orange car.” Orange car? A Fiesta down the street from us.
I have to admit, it got *awfully* tiresome getting a baby in and out of the back seat of a 2-door vee-hickle so, when Lizard was about 8 months old, we added a VW Jetta to the fleet. Four doors, manual transmission, NO air-conditioning! Luxury! But we still drove those little Fiestas another five years or so. We eventually gave one of them away and sold the other for $50. Who the heck would buy a $50 car, I wondered. A guy whose current vee-hickle lacked a seat, of course.
I never became a soccer mom but I did eventually join the ranks of moms with minivans. Schlepping two kids and huge shambling mounds of crap back and forth to the Great White North just became too much for our little Jetta, not to mention my sanity. The red Plymouth Voyager was the first car either one of us had ever owned that had air conditioning and an automatic transmission. It was a pretty darn good workhorse but I wouldn’t call it fancy. If anything, the increased number of seats just provided more places for people to pee. grok grok. You are in trouble now, you ugly old bag. frok grook
We traded in the old red van for my beautiful blue POC. It was the prettiest vee-hickle I ever saw and I fell in love with it at first sight. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about me. grok Yeah, it liked ME the best. grok grok After a rocky relationship that lasted almost ten years, we parted ways last fall. I cried. grok grok. You should’ve given it to me! grok grok The kids are grown up now and I am done with minivans. I have downsized to little 4-door sedans. Hondas. Accord. Civic. Not exactly sustainable living but a baby step in that direction. Maybe we’ll get a new Wrangler one of these years. Those are fun vee-hickles. But I’ll never fall in love again.
What I really want to know is just what page of the Mommy Manual states, “Buy a minivan.” Is it anywhere near “Head off to the nearest housing development and buy a McMansion.” Or “Buy soccer gear and start training your baby NOW so she’ll be the best player on the 3-year-old team.” Or, well, y’all get the idea. People, there are reasons for buying minivans and some of them include babies but having a baby is not THE reason to buy a minivan. Throw the blasted Mommy Manual away and start thinking for yourself. This is about YOU and YOUR BABY. What do YOU need?