Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice is to stop being so judgmental. Your kids will pick up that attitude and you’re going to start to wonder fast why they have no friends.

Second, here are a few tips. 1) “travel” sports only means that coaches are getting paid, instead of parent volunteers for “rec” sports. People getting paid for their expert knowledge and labor is a good thing. 2) people live in the suburbs for many reasons and an obvious one is the need for more space. Usually people need more space because they have more than one kid.

They often have 2 kids and live as it they have half a dozen.

Do you vacation using your vehicle or by plane? Most people I know who have big vehicles use them a lot for vacations, eg Outer Banks, Deep Creek/Wisp, etc. Most people I know with smaller vehicles fly everywhere for holidays. Which do you think is better and worse for climate change?

The OP is doing nothing more than class posturing. She thinks suburban lifestyles are gauche and that she’s superior, even as she has endeavored to live a suburban lifestyle herself.

DP but we have a sedan and we rarely fly. It turns out you can drive to the Outer Banks in a sedan or station wagon. You can get a ski rack or bike rack for the top of a sedan or wagon too. We've driven to Outer Banks, Florida, Maine, Chicago... in a sedan. Did you know this is what people used to do all the time and it was fine? People with one or two kids just always drove sedans and it was not some horrible burden. Its was normal. They drove them all the way across the country.

You can try and justify it all you want by arguing that without your SUV, you'd be forced to fly to OBX (no one flies to OBX), but you just like driving a big vehicle.

Op here. Yes. We drove our Honda civic to Canada. Grandparents getting into these huge suvs? Must be some young grandparents 😆

Anonymous wrote:When the same people ramming "climate change" down our throats start walking the walk I'll consider changing my behavior but until then I'll keep driving my large white SUV. One trip in a private jet has a larger carbon footprint than a year of my driving. Get off your high horse would be my advice.

This is the reasoning of a kindergarten child. Be responsible for your own actions, bad and irresponsible behavior of other people doesn't make your own behavior any better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is giving off the same vibe as the mom in Vienna who thought everyone was "conformist" and stepford

The consensus was that Vienna is conformist and stepford

LOL, it is!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do a lot of things for the environment, but we also need to carpool. Our Subaru Outback won’t suffice much longer for the reason that we have 2 kids. We can’t car pool except to bring 1 more kid. There are not a ton of 1 kid families and those families don’t always have space in their cars for our two.

If you want to fit 3-5 kids + sports gear, you will need an SUV or minivan.

So in Europe and the rest of the world why are they able to do this without the need for a HUGE suv?

I live in Germany. I’ve also lived in Luxembourg, Belgium, and France in the last decade. Guess what.. they’re all driving SUVs and the market for American branded trucks and vans is HUGE.

No they aren't, most Europeans are baffled by giant vehicles and are very concerned about the state of the world their children will grow up in, and they live those values. They are more secure too.

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.

Hey there. Did you get your scientific knowledge from Facebook U?

Did you know the climate disaster coming as all of those Prius batteries are disposed? As they leach into the soil they change the ant colonies forever leading to more bees dying. How do you even life with yourself?!

I remember when my kids were little that many of the other moms had the huge Suburbans (SUV). It seemed many of them downsized to more normal sized SUVs as the kids got older. I think SUVs seemed more trendy than minivans for a time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice is to stop being so judgmental. Your kids will pick up that attitude and you’re going to start to wonder fast why they have no friends.

Second, here are a few tips. 1) “travel” sports only means that coaches are getting paid, instead of parent volunteers for “rec” sports. People getting paid for their expert knowledge and labor is a good thing. 2) people live in the suburbs for many reasons and an obvious one is the need for more space. Usually people need more space because they have more than one kid.

They often have 2 kids and live as it they have half a dozen.

Do you vacation using your vehicle or by plane? Most people I know who have big vehicles use them a lot for vacations, eg Outer Banks, Deep Creek/Wisp, etc. Most people I know with smaller vehicles fly everywhere for holidays. Which do you think is better and worse for climate change?

The OP is doing nothing more than class posturing. She thinks suburban lifestyles are gauche and that she’s superior, even as she has endeavored to live a suburban lifestyle herself.

DP but we have a sedan and we rarely fly. It turns out you can drive to the Outer Banks in a sedan or station wagon. You can get a ski rack or bike rack for the top of a sedan or wagon too. We've driven to Outer Banks, Florida, Maine, Chicago... in a sedan. Did you know this is what people used to do all the time and it was fine? People with one or two kids just always drove sedans and it was not some horrible burden. Its was normal. They drove them all the way across the country.

You can try and justify it all you want by arguing that without your SUV, you'd be forced to fly to OBX (no one flies to OBX), but you just like driving a big vehicle.

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. [b]My first car in high school was a Prius. [i] 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.

I never had a car in HS or college. You seem wasteful to me.

Anonymous wrote:This is giving off the same vibe as the mom in Vienna who thought everyone was "conformist" and stepford

The consensus was that Vienna is conformist and stepford

I am sure they are shattered. Maybe it's time to grow up, OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice is to stop being so judgmental. Your kids will pick up that attitude and you’re going to start to wonder fast why they have no friends.

Second, here are a few tips. 1) “travel” sports only means that coaches are getting paid, instead of parent volunteers for “rec” sports. People getting paid for their expert knowledge and labor is a good thing. 2) people live in the suburbs for many reasons and an obvious one is the need for more space. Usually people need more space because they have more than one kid.

They often have 2 kids and live as it they have half a dozen.

Travel sports means they are staying in hotel mores, eating take out, flying. It's not necessary. A 6 year old doesn't need to drive to Ohio so they can play soccer with another 6-year-old. They can do that locally.

Travel soccer for that age, at least in northern Virginia, is actually local. They may go to Maryland once or twice a season but usually stick to the area because there are plenty of kids to play!

But aside from that, we have a midsize SUV because we are usually toting a grandparent or two with us to kid events. OP isn’t that saving resources vs having them drive separately? We used to have a sedan but then ended up taking two cars.

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.

It's a fashion statement of sorts for them -- part of the "uniform" to fit in. Sometimes they are black, though. It's completely over the top and in most cases unnecessary but it's one of the "must haves" so they all have them.

More like a fashion victim.

Yeah, the bottle blondes sporting Lululemon in the giant suvs. It's just so weirdly flashy and conformist at the same time.

It's so the other moms will like them and accept them.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care about the SUV’s specifically but yes these types of people are why I don’t really have good friends. I can’t relate to them at all - we are friendly acquaintances and that’s it.

I feel the same about the ski trips out west, home remodels, country clubs, private schools, etc. It’s just never ending for many of these families and I feel like an alien visiting a foreign land I don’t understand. And I’ve been here 15 years.

'

NP. Not going to read page after page of this. Re: the post above (figuring that's you, OP? Well, this applies to anyone who wrote that):

Why let them take up THIS much of your mental real estate after 15 years? I'm asking that seriously and without snark, to be clear. You've lived where you live for a long time. Unless your kids are also in private school with their kids, where do you encounter these women? How much do you interact with them? Why are they looming large enough in your mind that you're posting about them on a random Tuesday? Think about that bigger picture, PP. Where are you going that you see and hear them talk about ski trips, home remodells, country clubs etc.? I dont' get how it is you have that level of interaction if you're not friends, unless you share....what exactly? Kids at the same school, or in the same activity, or they're at your gym and you overhear them, maybe?

Find places to be and engaging things to do which matter to you, and stop giving them even an inch of your mental real estate. Think of it that way: You have only so much space in your head; don't cede an inch of it to anyone who isn't an actual friend and don't waste your time pondering why people you dislike, or don't "get," are the way they are. Get proactive and fill that headspace with other things.

If you still feel like "an alien visiting a foreign land" after that, in all seriousness, consider if there's more going on with you. That feeling is about you as much as, if not more than, it is about where you live. And again, not sure why these people are on your radar this much, after so long.

Anonymous wrote:I drive an SUV because it's safer and I couldn't care less about what some neighborhood busybody thought about it.

It's safer FOR YOU. It's actually more dangerous for everyone else.

https://slate.com/business/2022/11/suv-size-truck-bloat-pedestrian-deaths.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice is to stop being so judgmental. Your kids will pick up that attitude and you’re going to start to wonder fast why they have no friends.

Second, here are a few tips. 1) “travel” sports only means that coaches are getting paid, instead of parent volunteers for “rec” sports. People getting paid for their expert knowledge and labor is a good thing. 2) people live in the suburbs for many reasons and an obvious one is the need for more space. Usually people need more space because they have more than one kid.

They often have 2 kids and live as it they have half a dozen.

Do you vacation using your vehicle or by plane? Most people I know who have big vehicles use them a lot for vacations, eg Outer Banks, Deep Creek/Wisp, etc. Most people I know with smaller vehicles fly everywhere for holidays. Which do you think is better and worse for climate change?

The OP is doing nothing more than class posturing. She thinks suburban lifestyles are gauche and that she’s superior, even as she has endeavored to live a suburban lifestyle herself.

Some suburban lifestyles are more flashy and wasteful and she's pointing that out. Nothing wrong with that. We teach our kids to reduce, recycle but here we are making fun of someone who is pointing out people who don't care.