Car Free with Kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did it until my kid was 10. The pandemic was my breaking point because it was harder to get rides/people didn't want my kid showing up after being on public transit. I think the hard thing about being car free is that your choices are really constrained, so maybe you like one dance studio better but the other is convenient by transit, or your kid wants to do a particular sport but it would take an hour to get there on the bus.

Also the number of doctors offices your kid can get to is limited.
Preschools too.
Birthday parties.

And if your kid has special needs forget about it. It can take years to make it off of the wait lists for evaluation and therapy for ADHD and Autism. If you were only able to get on lists accessible by public transportation that would make the wait much longer.

We are car-free in DC and do all of those things by metro/uber. The whole point of living in a dense city is access to everything.

Kid is 10 and the only reason I’m considering getting a car is that we are moving to the suburbs and I want him to be able to get to and from his friends houses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did it until my kid was 10. The pandemic was my breaking point because it was harder to get rides/people didn't want my kid showing up after being on public transit. I think the hard thing about being car free is that your choices are really constrained, so maybe you like one dance studio better but the other is convenient by transit, or your kid wants to do a particular sport but it would take an hour to get there on the bus.

Get. Rides. So you were freeloading off other drivers?

Of course, should I feel deeply ashamed for saying "we are going to the same place, can I meet you at your house and get a ride"? I hate the UMC individualism that tells us we shouldn't help or depend on others, so asking for rides worked great for me as a way of screening out those people. I also use transit and uber/lyft. Now that I have a car, I'm happy to give rides.

Right but all those times when you were taking rides you weren’t returning them.

That's the issue. If you are always depending on someone else you are a taker. How about 50% of the time you spring for the Uber ride?

Offer to pay for an uber is a nice thing to do. I can tell you as someone who has been without a car, it can be inconvenient and there is zero chance that your friend with a car wants to uber/drive/walk to your house with a car seat, wait for an uber, install a carseat in an uber, take uber to dance class, and then do it all over on the way back. They would much rather drive and get paid back with free babysitting.

[Anonymous]

We had so many emergency trips in the middle of the night with our kid who had lung issues. Ambulance bills would have piled up if that had been our only option every time. I'm not relying on Uber when my kid is having trouble breathing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think if you live in a very dense city it works, but not just because you can get places easily without a car. It's because dense cities also tend to have good car sharing and rental infrastructure. So when you truly do need a car, you can get one. And there will be times when you need a car with kids, or where it is simply very convenient to have one. Especially once they start making friends and getting invited to random stuff like trampoline birthday parties in the suburbs. Or they join a sports team that has practices in the early morning or meets in places that are not metro accessible. I don't think you have to own a car for this stuff, but you want to be able to rent a car really quickly and easily.

But also, all of that is why we have an old car that we barely use and have no intention of selling it. Our condo has a parking spot, and the car is over 10 years old with low mileage. We don't use it a lot, and it costs us very little to maintain (we put gas in it maybe once very two months, get it serviced annually, and our insurance is dirt cheap because it's an old car). But this way we always have a car when we need one, and it's great. We never have to stress about invites to random locations, we can use it for trips to the beach and other nearby vacation spots. It was invaluable during the pandemic.

OP here. This is a good point -- I currently have zipcar, which is very easy and convenient for me on the rare occasions I want a car. I don't think I've ever used it with the kids because getting the carseats in and out is such a hassle (and my older gets SO carsick) but as they get older I can see if being helpful for farflung birthday parties and the like. If I had an existing old car and free parking, I would totally keep them as you're doing.

Thanks to everyone for the responses! It's helpful to see that a lot of people are able to carry on with limited car use, assuming kid's hobbies and health allow.

[Anonymous]

We were fine through middle school.

Pandemic + travel soccer. We bought a car (after 20+ years car free) at the end of 2020. The declining transit infrastructure didn't help, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did it until my kid was 10. The pandemic was my breaking point because it was harder to get rides/people didn't want my kid showing up after being on public transit. I think the hard thing about being car free is that your choices are really constrained, so maybe you like one dance studio better but the other is convenient by transit, or your kid wants to do a particular sport but it would take an hour to get there on the bus.

Get. Rides. So you were freeloading off other drivers?

Of course, should I feel deeply ashamed for saying "we are going to the same place, can I meet you at your house and get a ride"? I hate the UMC individualism that tells us we shouldn't help or depend on others, so asking for rides worked great for me as a way of screening out those people. I also use transit and uber/lyft. Now that I have a car, I'm happy to give rides.

Right but all those times when you were taking rides you weren’t returning them.

That's the issue. If you are always depending on someone else you are a taker. How about 50% of the time you spring for the Uber ride?

oh please, there are others someone can do in the give and take of friendship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did it until my kid was 10. The pandemic was my breaking point because it was harder to get rides/people didn't want my kid showing up after being on public transit. I think the hard thing about being car free is that your choices are really constrained, so maybe you like one dance studio better but the other is convenient by transit, or your kid wants to do a particular sport but it would take an hour to get there on the bus.

Get. Rides. So you were freeloading off other drivers?

Of course, should I feel deeply ashamed for saying "we are going to the same place, can I meet you at your house and get a ride"? I hate the UMC individualism that tells us we shouldn't help or depend on others, so asking for rides worked great for me as a way of screening out those people. I also use transit and uber/lyft. Now that I have a car, I'm happy to give rides.

Right but all those times when you were taking rides you weren’t returning them.

That's the issue. If you are always depending on someone else you are a taker. How about 50% of the time you spring for the Uber ride?

oh please, there are others someone can do in the give and take of friendship.

other things