I don't think I can be friends with moms who drive huge SUVs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you consider a huge SUV? A Toyota Highlander or Honda Pilot or are we talking Suburbans and Escalades?

OP here. I believe it's the escalades and it's just they are all the SAME. Same color, same size... it's like people can't think for themselves...

Ok because pretty much every single house in my close-in walkable neighborhood has a Pilot, Highlander, Audi Q5 or 7 or Mercedes SUV. Those SUVs are very standard and pretty much everything I see on the road--with the smaller crossover SUVs- CR-Vs and Mazda C3, etc.

The two people I know with Suburbans have 5 and 6 kids, respectively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! We have one child and have a "large" 3 row SUV. Because I'm her Girl Scout troop leader and she's in a big car pool for school (LD school). It is also our only vehicle as we live walking distance to metro (Vienna). Don't assume you know everything about these people OP!

Blah, blah, blah. You lost me at one kid.

As a parent of one kid, most parents of multiple kids expect you to do the driving/hard work as they complain they cannot with multiple kids.

I'm a parent of one kid and no one has ever expected me to drive their kid around or take care of their kids. Also, my kid does Girl Scouts and I can only think of a handful of times where it made sense to transport them somewhere in one vehicle, and we collectively rented a vehicle for it. None of the parents of our troupe has a car big enough to transport all of them at once and no one would expect them to -- there are always multiple chaperones for any activity so there are 3-4 cars going anyway since of course no one has a car big enough for 3-4 adults and 7 girls. That's called a transport van.

Sports carpools of 3-4 kids are very, very common if your kid played a travel sport with 3 practices per week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! We have one child and have a "large" 3 row SUV. Because I'm her Girl Scout troop leader and she's in a big car pool for school (LD school). It is also our only vehicle as we live walking distance to metro (Vienna). Don't assume you know everything about these people OP!

Blah, blah, blah. You lost me at one kid.

As a parent of one kid, most parents of multiple kids expect you to do the driving/hard work as they complain they cannot with multiple kids.

I'm a parent of one kid and no one has ever expected me to drive their kid around or take care of their kids. Also, my kid does Girl Scouts and I can only think of a handful of times where it made sense to transport them somewhere in one vehicle, and we collectively rented a vehicle for it. None of the parents of our troupe has a car big enough to transport all of them at once and no one would expect them to -- there are always multiple chaperones for any activity so there are 3-4 cars going anyway since of course no one has a car big enough for 3-4 adults and 7 girls. That's called a transport van.

Sports carpools of 3-4 kids are very, very common if your kid played a travel sport with 3 practices per week.

And economical, I might add!! Instead of all 4 households driving separately. Isn't that what you want?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! We have one child and have a "large" 3 row SUV. Because I'm her Girl Scout troop leader and she's in a big car pool for school (LD school). It is also our only vehicle as we live walking distance to metro (Vienna). Don't assume you know everything about these people OP!

Blah, blah, blah. You lost me at one kid.

As a parent of one kid, most parents of multiple kids expect you to do the driving/hard work as they complain they cannot with multiple kids.

I'm a parent of one kid and no one has ever expected me to drive their kid around or take care of their kids. Also, my kid does Girl Scouts and I can only think of a handful of times where it made sense to transport them somewhere in one vehicle, and we collectively rented a vehicle for it. None of the parents of our troupe has a car big enough to transport all of them at once and no one would expect them to -- there are always multiple chaperones for any activity so there are 3-4 cars going anyway since of course no one has a car big enough for 3-4 adults and 7 girls. That's called a transport van.

Sports carpools of 3-4 kids are very, very common if your kid played a travel sport with 3 practices per week.

WTF? the former pp is making the argument that all her friends drive separately to activities AND claiming to be Miss Environmentalist?? Oh lord. So we should all drive to work separately and get rid of HOV-3 and any other carpool initiatives? More cars on the roadways is better? Who knew?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you consider a huge SUV? A Toyota Highlander or Honda Pilot or are we talking Suburbans and Escalades?

Pilots drive like cars. If you have 3 teen boys 6 feet and above (I do and lets not forget the husband), and a large breed dog (90 pounds) that comes on family vacations something of this size is a must.

Are you opposed to Minivans too? We have the necessary third row given the size or our kids (size of men) and the dog and we often drive up to Maine so need the leg room.

I have to admit the Suburbans and Navigators that are inevitably in the wrong place at pick up blocking everyone else can be annoying as F, but if someone can actually drive it properly and obeys the same rules as everyone else that I could care less what they drive.

I tend to drive the small beater car in the city and we live in a walkable neighborhood so unless we are going to one of the many sports' events, we WAH and don't really drive.

Yeah. Try squeezing all of that into a Prius

Yep. Teen boys are the size of men. Try basically 4 adult men (3 teens; dad) and mom. All fit, not fat...but tall.

You have little kids. We didn't upgrade our car until they were in middle school...and got the big dog at the same time. Not the giant ones you are referring to, but it does have a third row.

[Anonymous]

I’m confused about the relationship between the earthquake and global warming. Is the global warming causing it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you cared about the environment, you'd still be living in an apartment in the city where you can walk everywhere. Hypocrite.

THIS.

Ok, not op here but I’m choosing to raise my kid in the city, in an apartment, and rarely drive because I think we all need to do our part to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

I also think giant SUVs are a pox on humanity.

So now what’s your excuse?

Do you fly on airplanes?

Aviation is the most climate-intensive form of transport.

It reminds me of when Meghan and Harry got serious sh*t for shading everyone about their lack of environmentalism and then were called out for flying in private jets everywhere.

I know this is going to totally blow you away, but some of us arguing against SUVs/giant houses/very consumption-focused lifestyles not only don't have private planes, but don't fly often. I fly maybe once a year. And some years not at all. I live in an apartment. My family owns one 10 year old car that we drive maybe once a week to go hiking and do a big grocery haul. We live in a neighborhood with public transportation and walkable services, and we support politicians and policies that make our lifestyle more accessible for more people. And we are not rich ourselves -- HHI of 140k, with one parent working part-time to maximize time with kids and also make it possible to do things like make more of our own meals, compost and buy used, do errands by walking or biking, and other choices that can be more time consuming but are, we believe, worth it.

I know peopel are going to responds stuff like "well I guess we can't all be perfect like you" but I'm NOT perfect and don't think I am. I'm just tired of people on this thread acting like actually living these values is impossible or miserable. We have a wonderful life, we and our kids are very happy, we don't want for anything. It's actually possible to choose something other than big house/big car/scheduled to within an inch of your life/kids in everything/huge fancy vacations to far flung locations/etc. If that's what you want to do, nothing I say will stop you. But you can't tell me I'm a hypocrite, or that living more sustainably is impossible, or only available to rich people, or that no one actually does it. Some of us do it. You could too, if you wanted to. You just don't want to.

[Anonymous]

But you are a hypocrite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We recently moved to the suburbs, and they are everywhere. Some of the kids are in travel lacrosse and soccer and they are in FIRST grade. They all have the same exact huge white SUV. It was hilarious the other day because a few of them ran into each other at the grocery store and were talking obnoxiously about their vacations while standing in line at Aldi. Anyway, once I got to the parking lot, they were all talking and loading their groceries. They all have the exact type of car a HUGE white SUV. My first car in high school was a Prius. Dh wants an SUV but I am adamant about having a sedan. We have two kids, and it's fine. Do these people not care about global warming? We had an earthquake a week ago, killing thousands of people. Driving these huge cars is such a waste and global warming contributes to more earthquakes. I went from living in an apartment to this. It's such a big change.

OMG, you are me! We went from a small house to an apartment and now a huge house in the burbs. Things are different here! Everyone has a freaking large SUV with a BMW/LEXUS/ blah blah sign on their car.

It's almost like the people who buy huge houses in the burbs don't care about their carbon footprint

*Raises hand*

Yup. You can't really shame me about something I don't care about.

Yeah we know.

Yet it seems to bug you that we don't care one bit.

People who truly don’t care don’t post on message boards about how much they don’t care.

You seem convinced people who drive SUV's have some sort of secret shame about it.

We don't. People don't spend money on things they consider shameful. I'm a car guy, I like SUV's full of neat gadgets, leather seats, lots of room and a big engine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! We have one child and have a "large" 3 row SUV. Because I'm her Girl Scout troop leader and she's in a big car pool for school (LD school). It is also our only vehicle as we live walking distance to metro (Vienna). Don't assume you know everything about these people OP!

Blah, blah, blah. You lost me at one kid.

As a parent of one kid, most parents of multiple kids expect you to do the driving/hard work as they complain they cannot with multiple kids.

I'm a parent of one kid and no one has ever expected me to drive their kid around or take care of their kids. Also, my kid does Girl Scouts and I can only think of a handful of times where it made sense to transport them somewhere in one vehicle, and we collectively rented a vehicle for it. None of the parents of our troupe has a car big enough to transport all of them at once and no one would expect them to -- there are always multiple chaperones for any activity so there are 3-4 cars going anyway since of course no one has a car big enough for 3-4 adults and 7 girls. That's called a transport van.

Sports carpools of 3-4 kids are very, very common if your kid played a travel sport with 3 practices per week.

What if you chose sports walking distance from your home?

What if your kids didn't do travel sports that require tons of driving?

What if you chose to live somewhere with public transportation or bike paths to most things, including sports practices, or lobbied your local government to provide buses and bike paths to make that possible where you live?

Y'all act like you just woke up one day with lifestyles that require a giant SUV and a five-bedroom house on a half-acre lot 30-40 minutes from work. These are all choices. I judge your choices. You are not helpless. You are living exactly the life you want to live, it is one that relies on tons of consumption, including lots of fossil fuels, and you are part of the problem.

Don't sit there and try to convince me you have NO CHOICE in any of this. The whole point is that we all have a choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused about the relationship between the earthquake and global warming. Is the global warming causing it?

I don’t know, but I’m blaming the Prius.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you cared about the environment, you'd still be living in an apartment in the city where you can walk everywhere. Hypocrite.

THIS.

Ok, not op here but I’m choosing to raise my kid in the city, in an apartment, and rarely drive because I think we all need to do our part to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

I also think giant SUVs are a pox on humanity.

So now what’s your excuse?

Do you fly on airplanes?

Aviation is the most climate-intensive form of transport.

It reminds me of when Meghan and Harry got serious sh*t for shading everyone about their lack of environmentalism and then were called out for flying in private jets everywhere.

I know this is going to totally blow you away, but some of us arguing against SUVs/giant houses/very consumption-focused lifestyles not only don't have private planes, but don't fly often. I fly maybe once a year. And some years not at all. I live in an apartment. My family owns one 10 year old car that we drive maybe once a week to go hiking and do a big grocery haul. We live in a neighborhood with public transportation and walkable services, and we support politicians and policies that make our lifestyle more accessible for more people. And we are not rich ourselves -- HHI of 140k, with one parent working part-time to maximize time with kids and also make it possible to do things like make more of our own meals, compost and buy used, do errands by walking or biking, and other choices that can be more time consuming but are, we believe, worth it.

I know peopel are going to responds stuff like "well I guess we can't all be perfect like you" but I'm NOT perfect and don't think I am. I'm just tired of people on this thread acting like actually living these values is impossible or miserable. We have a wonderful life, we and our kids are very happy, we don't want for anything. It's actually possible to choose something other than big house/big car/scheduled to within an inch of your life/kids in everything/huge fancy vacations to far flung locations/etc. If that's what you want to do, nothing I say will stop you. But you can't tell me I'm a hypocrite, or that living more sustainably is impossible, or only available to rich people, or that no one actually does it. Some of us do it. You could too, if you wanted to. You just don't want to.

My house has a 97 walk score, lady. It's not big. I don't even have a master bathroom or a garage. You are preaching to the choir. But, I'm not chastising anyone else for their choices.

I have teenagers and a dog and they play sports. Sports that require me to drive--while just about everything else (and we both WAH) I can walk too.

But, I have an SUV because I have male teenagers and we drive the car to vacation and we drive to their games in Baltimore and NC and around the beltway. Mine is a Honda, but I do have friends that have Suburbans and they have very large families--5-6 kids. But, I guess you will also judge them for their choice to have large families too.

I have a sibling that has never owned a car and lives in NYC and one that lives in a more rural area and has a big truck. Different people, different choices. But we aren't Mennonites. We do our best to economize and recycle, etc.

I think your elitist attitude also needs to be checked. Most families cannot afford my neighborhood or to live in the city. Apartments here start at $800k (my hood) and good luck getting a starter, unrenovated home at ($1.5 million), and it takes a LOOOONNNGG way outside of DC before the prices become reasonable if you are also looking for good PUBLIC schools. My sister isn't on a Metro line or a bus line. They had to drive to and from the Office until eventually she could WAH. Not everyone has that luxury.

I feel for your new neighbors with Mother frickin' Theresa moving in next door.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! We have one child and have a "large" 3 row SUV. Because I'm her Girl Scout troop leader and she's in a big car pool for school (LD school). It is also our only vehicle as we live walking distance to metro (Vienna). Don't assume you know everything about these people OP!

Blah, blah, blah. You lost me at one kid.

As a parent of one kid, most parents of multiple kids expect you to do the driving/hard work as they complain they cannot with multiple kids.

I'm a parent of one kid and no one has ever expected me to drive their kid around or take care of their kids. Also, my kid does Girl Scouts and I can only think of a handful of times where it made sense to transport them somewhere in one vehicle, and we collectively rented a vehicle for it. None of the parents of our troupe has a car big enough to transport all of them at once and no one would expect them to -- there are always multiple chaperones for any activity so there are 3-4 cars going anyway since of course no one has a car big enough for 3-4 adults and 7 girls. That's called a transport van.

Sports carpools of 3-4 kids are very, very common if your kid played a travel sport with 3 practices per week.

What if you chose sports walking distance from your home?

What if your kids didn't do travel sports that require tons of driving?

What if you chose to live somewhere with public transportation or bike paths to most things, including sports practices, or lobbied your local government to provide buses and bike paths to make that possible where you live?

Y'all act like you just woke up one day with lifestyles that require a giant SUV and a five-bedroom house on a half-acre lot 30-40 minutes from work. These are all choices. I judge your choices. You are not helpless. You are living exactly the life you want to live, it is one that relies on tons of consumption, including lots of fossil fuels, and you are part of the problem.

Don't sit there and try to convince me you have NO CHOICE in any of this. The whole point is that we all have a choice.

Spoken like a woman with very young kids, without an athletic background to boot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you cared about the environment, you'd still be living in an apartment in the city where you can walk everywhere. Hypocrite.

THIS.

Ok, not op here but I’m choosing to raise my kid in the city, in an apartment, and rarely drive because I think we all need to do our part to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

I also think giant SUVs are a pox on humanity.

So now what’s your excuse?

Do you fly on airplanes?

Aviation is the most climate-intensive form of transport.

It reminds me of when Meghan and Harry got serious sh*t for shading everyone about their lack of environmentalism and then were called out for flying in private jets everywhere.

I know this is going to totally blow you away, but some of us arguing against SUVs/giant houses/very consumption-focused lifestyles not only don't have private planes, but don't fly often. I fly maybe once a year. And some years not at all. I live in an apartment. My family owns one 10 year old car that we drive maybe once a week to go hiking and do a big grocery haul. We live in a neighborhood with public transportation and walkable services, and we support politicians and policies that make our lifestyle more accessible for more people. And we are not rich ourselves -- HHI of 140k, with one parent working part-time to maximize time with kids and also make it possible to do things like make more of our own meals, compost and buy used, do errands by walking or biking, and other choices that can be more time consuming but are, we believe, worth it.

I know peopel are going to responds stuff like "well I guess we can't all be perfect like you" but I'm NOT perfect and don't think I am. I'm just tired of people on this thread acting like actually living these values is impossible or miserable. We have a wonderful life, we and our kids are very happy, we don't want for anything. It's actually possible to choose something other than big house/big car/scheduled to within an inch of your life/kids in everything/huge fancy vacations to far flung locations/etc. If that's what you want to do, nothing I say will stop you. But you can't tell me I'm a hypocrite, or that living more sustainably is impossible, or only available to rich people, or that no one actually does it. Some of us do it. You could too, if you wanted to. You just don't want to.

My house has a 97 walk score, lady. It's not big. I don't even have a master bathroom or a garage. You are preaching to the choir. But, I'm not chastising anyone else for their choices.

I have teenagers and a dog and they play sports. Sports that require me to drive--while just about everything else (and we both WAH) I can walk too.

But, I have an SUV because I have male teenagers and we drive the car to vacation and we drive to their games in Baltimore and NC and around the beltway. Mine is a Honda, but I do have friends that have Suburbans and they have very large families--5-6 kids. But, I guess you will also judge them for their choice to have large families too.

I have a sibling that has never owned a car and lives in NYC and one that lives in a more rural area and has a big truck. Different people, different choices. But we aren't Mennonites. We do our best to economize and recycle, etc.

I think your elitist attitude also needs to be checked. Most families cannot afford my neighborhood or to live in the city. Apartments here start at $800k (my hood) and good luck getting a starter, unrenovated home at ($1.5 million), and it takes a LOOOONNNGG way outside of DC before the prices become reasonable if you are also looking for good PUBLIC schools. My sister isn't on a Metro line or a bus line. They had to drive to and from the Office until eventually she could WAH. Not everyone has that luxury.

I feel for your new neighbors with Mother frickin' Theresa moving in next door.

And she (MT) is acting like she's poor on $140k, btw. That doesn't even qualify her kids for any finacial aid in college because she is making more than 90% of families in the entire USA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! We have one child and have a "large" 3 row SUV. Because I'm her Girl Scout troop leader and she's in a big car pool for school (LD school). It is also our only vehicle as we live walking distance to metro (Vienna). Don't assume you know everything about these people OP!

Blah, blah, blah. You lost me at one kid.

As a parent of one kid, most parents of multiple kids expect you to do the driving/hard work as they complain they cannot with multiple kids.

I'm a parent of one kid and no one has ever expected me to drive their kid around or take care of their kids. Also, my kid does Girl Scouts and I can only think of a handful of times where it made sense to transport them somewhere in one vehicle, and we collectively rented a vehicle for it. None of the parents of our troupe has a car big enough to transport all of them at once and no one would expect them to -- there are always multiple chaperones for any activity so there are 3-4 cars going anyway since of course no one has a car big enough for 3-4 adults and 7 girls. That's called a transport van.

Sports carpools of 3-4 kids are very, very common if your kid played a travel sport with 3 practices per week.

What if you chose sports walking distance from your home?

What if your kids didn't do travel sports that require tons of driving?

What if you chose to live somewhere with public transportation or bike paths to most things, including sports practices, or lobbied your local government to provide buses and bike paths to make that possible where you live?

Y'all act like you just woke up one day with lifestyles that require a giant SUV and a five-bedroom house on a half-acre lot 30-40 minutes from work. These are all choices. I judge your choices. You are not helpless. You are living exactly the life you want to live, it is one that relies on tons of consumption, including lots of fossil fuels, and you are part of the problem.

Don't sit there and try to convince me you have NO CHOICE in any of this. The whole point is that we all have a choice.

Most sports are not by ones home. We don't do travel sports but we have sports 4-6 days a week, plus other activities. And, we have a 1000 square foot house. What size is yours? What cars do you drive and how many miles do you put on? Its funny how some just when they are far worse with their big houses and miles on their cars.