Environmentalism and parenting

[pegkerr]

I have friended the bikepirates community. It's been interesting: this is (I gather) a rather younger group--I feel like quite the old fart, being in my forties and all. I joined to pick up information about this bicycling thang, but there is an attitude vibe there, too, which can be a bit rough to take.

For example, someone made a post here advertising a new community, carfreepirates. Which is cool. One of the commenters, however, said something that sticks in my craw:

FYI - there used to be a non_drivers community, but it dissappeared for mysterious reasons.

I've joined up, since I'm car free and sometimes I need a little morale boost, since no one *with* a car, really gets it, even though they also don't understand how I can stay in such good shape and I'm not stressed out and road raged all the time.

I replied:

I HAVE to have a car since I have kids to transport, and there is no bus to where I need to go. I could hardly balance both of them (and their karate sparring gear) on my handlebars.

But I ride my bicycle to work.

For what it's worth, I wasn't the only person to challenge the original commenter. I feel as though I'm doing my part by starting to bicycle. But I've seen this before, this smug dismissal of my selfishness for driving a big car (I have an old jeep with 140,000+ miles). We all hear environmentalists railing against people who drive SUVs. Yes, I guess I'm defensive about it. And yet, really, with two kids that I'm taking four times a week to karate class (with huge duffel bags stuffed with sparring equipment) what else can I do?

I want to reduce my environmental footprint. But please consider: when you're a parent, and you have to get kids to activities and back and forth from day care, bussing usually doesn't work. And bicycling is not an option either.

Bottom line: Please don't assume I'm selfish because I drive a car. I drive a car because I'm a parent.

But I'm also an environmentalist because I'm a parent.

Edited to add: Today is a classic example. I drove today. Why? Because of the snow (argh)? No. Because Delia has a doctor's appointment. I have to leave work, drive to her school to pick her up, drive her to the doctor, and then get her home. This trip would be absolutely impossible by either mass transit or bicycle.

And *snerk* Someone has replied to the original poster (who headed the post with the tagline "Every car a murder, every bike a love affair"): "How do you think all those bike parts get to the shops? It's not magic, that's for sure."

Comments

[serenya-loreden.livejournal.com]

I live in the Chicago suburbs, and I chose *which* suburb based on the fact that I could take the train to work (I don't work downtown, so had to be on the 'right' line). This means I only drive a few miles a day, and my car is 93 camry with 150000+ miles on it. Unfortunately, my husband's new job is *not* on our train line, which means he is back to a long commute; we did buy a Scion, which gets really good mileage, for him though.

My parents, who are environmentally concious, still ended up with an Pilot SUV and a minivan. The SUV was because they have a home in the mountains, and their cars weren't handling the drive; the minivan was because they have 4 grandkids who are all still in child seats, whom they often end up schlepping around. The requirements for childseats make it next to impossible to have standard cars with young children really -- when the entire family is together you're looking at 8 adults and 4 kids -- a minimum of 3 cars to go anywhere.

[naomikritzer]

The requirements for childseats make it next to impossible to have standard cars with young children really

This is another thing that a lot of people without kids don't understand.

All kids today are put in carseats until they are in late elementary school. It's no longer okay to let a kid ride shotgun, or to cram four in the back seat and have them share seat belts, or pile a slumber party's worth of girls into the back of a station wagon. I have only two kids, but having a minivan means that we can offer rides to friends, we can carpool, we can take more than just our nuclear family when we go on an outing. We can put our family into a standard sedan but no extra people will fit.