The Highlander Takes the Low Road

I hated them on sight. Spoiled little bratlings.

This has nothing to do with the post (although I HATE that commercial and now have even more reasons to rail against it) My husband and I were talking the other night about statistics – how many children are kidnapped by family members versus total strangers. I totally exaggerated the number – I was very puffed up and was all “something like 95% of kidnappings happen because of a family member.” I also said that it’s more likely for kids to die in a car accident 5 miles from home than it is for them to get kidnapped. I KNOW that I’m mostly right on the kidnappings stat (more kids are kidnapped by family members) and I KNOW that more kids die in car accidents than kidnappings/murders but now I need the statistics to back me up. I don’t care if I’m wrong on the numbers, but I have no idea where to start looking – I did find the stats for kidnappings and missing kids. It wasn’t in the 90% but it was way more than the stranger kidnappings. Anyway, this all came about because we were talking about how overprotective my MIL is with her grandson (who she is raising). She’ll let him eat crap, watch tv for hours and it doesn’t matter what the kid saw the SAW movies at the age of 6 – gaining weight and hates to let him outside in a quiet, suburban neighborhood with plenty of kids and nice parents because “something could happen.” She also doesn’t like to just drop him off at the life-guard supervised pool by himself because they “don’t watch” as well as she does. She’s in her sixties and sits OUTSIDE the pool area but somehow, that makes it safer. Have i mentioned that the kid in question is 11 and doesn’t know how to do anything by himself, including make a peanut butter sandwich? Anyway, I just want to show my husband that the overprotectiveness is NOT something we want to continue with OUR kids (I’m pregnant with our first). Can someone point me in the right direction? Sorry for this long rambling comment.

When I was in school (in Germany), most children came to school by bike or bus. Those who were driven by their parents were generally regarded as wimps.

I saw a version of that commercial long ago, and I hated it on so many levels. We were just discussing connectedness with our kids on an earlier post. How the hell do you connect with your kid when he has earphones on while in your car? Of course the whole “entitled kid” thing disgusts me, and the “prestige” thing definitely does not impress me. It would be interesting to see what kind of parents would actually see this commercial and be motivated to buy that car. Ha!

I live in one of those places where you really can’t walk anywhere unless you have all the time in the world. (No bus service for preschoolers.) So I drive my kids around, but we interact in the car (which is a 2003 Saturn, for shame). If nothing else, we all sing along to the same music. I guess my kids will be embarrassed when they realize how disadvantaged they are.

Everytime I see that commercial, I think “And that kid will grow up to be a douchebag.”

Like pretty much everyone else, I really don’t like that commercial. My kids can have an opinion on my car, but they certainly aren’t going to determine what I buy. They’re also very proud of walking to school rather than getting a ride, because they see how long it takes cars to work through the drop off line and think it’s ridiculous.

As a closet Juice Newton fan, I also immediately disliked this commercial.
I also oppose driving children door to door like they are Happy Meals.

As the last day of school has passed, I can now say that our first year biking to school (not by choice, by budget cuts) has been an overwhelming success. Though they were forbidden to bike in previous years as the school declared it “too dangerous”, this year they were free to ride the 3 miles as it was now declared “safe” when the busing budget got slashed. They did it with very few mishaps and one squirrel funeral (slow down big, white SUV!) They actually do it better without me. This is a fact.

In the beginning of they year, when I biked with them to help them get the hang of it, I was pulled over by the police (high speed chase with lights- I did not come to a complete stop at a stop sign), attacked by a very large dog (though he only ripped my pants), and crashed my bike into safety fencing. I let them bike ride with friends for the rest of the year, though I am in the minority as most of the school’s parents drive door to door.

I know my kids are now more responsible. They understand gas prices and know they saved the family money and reduced their impact on the environment. They got better grades. The exercise is almost an afterthought. They play sports all year round and have endless energy. Strong quads from biking make for great soccer legs.

Do I miss the buses? Somedays. I wish they were at least an option, especially in bad weather. They are simply better for the environment than the carline of SUVs and minivans that clog traffic. But after a year of living dangerously (supposedly, as a parent), I can safety say that I’d take 100 of my kids over that brat in the Highlander commercial any day. Kids that bike to school are cool.

I will admit to 1) laughing at this commercial (my mom just bought a new highlander) and 2) putting dvd players in my headrests. But we are a military family that is going to be doing a lot of long trips (we’re talking 14-16 hours) with only one adult in the car. We’re establishing rules about when the tvs can be used. My 5 year old actually lost all her fun privileges for the afternoon yesterday because I told her she could not watch the show in the car and she turned it on anyways. I want my kids to look outside and sing with me (this is sounding so very Goofy Movie) and learn about road sides and play the alphabet game!

And why is the ten year old in the second commercial interested in girls? A child that age would be grossed out by the girls! And why is the dad letting him choose who gets to ride?

Funny. We used to walk to school all the time. When gas hit $4 a gallon in late may one year, the SUVs stayed parked and several families started walking along with us.

Most never stopped. I saw a neighbor kid, one who most enjoys the walk, complaining at his mom that she was having him get in the car because she was driving by there anyway and they were late.

Most of the kids in cars in our area wanted to walk. Why be trapped?

While not a huge fan of these commercials, I take more offense in that so many of the vans and SUVs (and some cars too, I know) have built in entertainment systems for the kids. While I often didn’t care for my parents music, when I rode with my parents growing up, I would look out the window, watch the everything go by, we’d play games, look for shapes in the clouds, people watch (when we were on the highway), I learned to entertain myself. I know that most kids do get bored after a while, and I think the entertainment systems would be great on long trips, but I’ve seen kids throw fits because they couldn’t watch (insert cartoon here) for the 5 minutes it took for the parent to drive to the store.

Part of the reason this does not bother me is I barely pay attention to commercials and we don’t see a lot of them because of no cable. So I guess I am just jaded to anything like that.

My kids don’t have a tv in the car even though my MIL bought them a DVD system for Christmas and we have yet to install it. I will only use it on LONG car trips 4+ hours. It will be removed after the car trip is over. Mine listen to kids CDs in the car to remain happy. I can block out the kids music and will sometimes even sing along. But some parents are not as tolerant of kids music as I am and I can see a need for headphones. I talk to my kids and spend all day doing stuff with them so it is not going to hurt if we don’t talk in the car on the way to an activity where I will interact with them. Kids need to learn to let their mind wander anyway and car rides can do that.

Mine are really good in the car 99% of the time. I just started out from the get go as babies letting them know I will not coddle you in the car and they know what to expect now. I won’t almost drive off the road to hand you a toy or a passy when they were babies. I won’t pull over if you fuss. We drove 10 hours on two trips without any fussing. So DVD systems are not needed but it might help too at least on long trips.

My poor kids are stuck listening to talk radio and NPR, with a bit of Classic Rock thrown in for good measure:) They do complain occasionally (especially about Car Talk!) but they’ll live! They have great imaginations and fulfilling conversations to get them through the rough spots! lol!

@MidCap, Most of the kids at my son’s school, also in Germany, get there by bike, foot, bus, or train. Kids who get driven are viewed as wimps, unless there’s a valid reason to be driven (e.g. being on crutches). The only time I drive my son to school is when there’s inclement weather.

My first thought on seeing those commercials was, “It would be almost impossible to drive a Highlander on narrow European streets or park one anywhere.” The second thought was, “Who in their right mind would want such a gas guzzler with gas being over $4/gallon on base and about twice as much off base?” Parents in Germany must all be uncool because none of my German friends have cars with TVs or DVD players in them.

The kid in that commercial was obnoxious, to say the least. I’d love to see him instantly lose his popularity when another kid gets a new car that’s even “cooler” than the Highlander. He would then have to ride the bus with the “losers.” That would serve him right for being such a brat.

My son can easily entertain himself on long trips without any DVDs. A German Donald Duck comic book or soccer magazine will keep him entertained for hours. He also has a Nintendo, which is good for long trips. On long trips the whole family also talks. For example, when we pass a castle ruin, we talk about what it must have been like to live in it. On a trip to Italy last year, we passed a lot of apple orchards. We all decided to imagine how we would get over the fences around the orchards to get some fresh apples without getting caught.

Weirdly enough, Lenore, a few years ago Mercedes-Benz (perhaps accidentally) ran a Euro-style ad on U.S. television for a few weeks, certainly not more than a month. It didn’t involve children, but it DID suggest one could be the proud owner of a Benz while taking public transit (in the commercial’s case, a trolley or tram) to work. I remember being struck by the novelty, but all too soon some U.S. exec realized “exceptionalist Americans” couldn’t possibly handle transport options as a reality. Perhaps some day Lenore’s seemingly far-fetched idea (kids walking to school, what a concept) may yet surface in a car commercial.

I don’t get how this is related to kids being driven to school. The kid with the singing parents says “they’ve been singing the same song for the last 3 hours.” While they *could* have been singing it at home, the implication is that he’s been sitting there in the back seat for 3 hours listening to it. So while I hate the message – that kids need TVs in the car and Highlander provides that – I don’t see it as a FRK issue.

That said, I do totally have a problem with TVs in cars. It buys into the theory that we need media all the time. Yes, yes, radio is media, too, but not as invasive as TV. Video media is so directed and there’s little to imagination involved. And while there’s a lot of long-distance commuting going on, I don’t think *most* people or kids spend so much time in their cars that they need video entertainment.

A few years ago, when my son took swimming lessons (they were only 30-minute classes, so it was not worth leaving the facility), there was another mom there with her son and they were waiting for the next class. Her son was about 4 maybe and completely disruptive (and I say that as the parent of a kid w/ ADHD). He kept going up onto the pool deck, taking people’s things, throwing toys, etc. while the mom chatted on her cell. She would interrupt her call to pull him away, but it was completely ineffective. So her big threat was that he wouldn’t get to watch TV in the car on the way home. In our community, I cannot imagine that they lived more than 20 minutes away and I just found that amazing. I want more ways to keep my son from watching TV, not more ways to encourage it!

(Okay, soap box off!)

“Just because you’re a parent doesn’t have to mean you have to be lame.” (1st clip)

How about–when you’re grown & can pay for a car your SELF, then you can get what you want. Meanwhile, the parents are in that role now, and they get to sing “Angel of the Morning” in whatever vehicle they chose all they want. Don’t like it? Do like the other kids in clip #2 and take the bus.

LRH

We will never have a TV in our car. However, on long car rides the kids do watch movies on IPods and laptops. When I started driving every summer to MA from FL I had visions of the kids seeing the country. The reality is that every year more and more of the road is lined with those high, noise blocking walls. Nothing to look at for mile after mile. There are a few landmarks we look for every year but those are mostly down on the southern part of the trip.

For the trips around town, I make CDs from my ITunes. I use a mix of songs I know my kids like and songs I like and think they will too. The kids get exposed to lots of 80’s and musical theater and a little Lady Gaga or Weird Al doesn’t kill me.

I absolutely HATE these commercials and this poor little kid is forever imprinted on my brain as a little snot. Thank you Lenore!!

I’ve been on the receiving end of the car snobbery around here. I drive a 14 year old Geo Tracker convertible that I love. It’s our only car. I have had people refuse to let me give their kid a ride (in a car seat, properly installed, with seatbelts and the roof up) because ‘it’s just not safe enough’. I’ve had people say, “You drive your kids around in that?” in some incredulous tone, like I was pulling them in a rickshaw on the expressway at rush hour. Apparently, having a tank to drive your kids around in is the only way to be a responsible parent.

We don’t have a TV in our house, no one in the family owns a smart phone, iPod, iPad, or iAnyotherdamnthing. On 24+ hour train rides, we will bring a laptop to watch a few DVDs (although last time I think the kids watched exactly 1 movie the whole time). Otherwise, we just… talk. Listen to the radio in the car (no CD player). Watch the scenery. Read books. Draw. Somehow, we all survive.

Kate, you know, reading with your kid is standard homework in NYC public schools.

Seriously, at the nieces’ school we’re supposed to read with the kid for 20 minutes a day until they’re in the second grade… then they read to themselves. (I *already* read to the girls every day, except when I fob it off on the older child because I’m busy making dinner, but this is because we are a bookish family which really, really values reading. I know your family values reading too, but… my family is the only one I know where the cosleeping debate revolves around “if we don’t have a crib, we’ll have more space for books”. Really, it’s an affliction.)

If you’re spending significant time getting from here to there (and you may well be, especially if your kid goes to school out of district or you have to do errands after school) about the only time to fit that in is when on the bus or train. And it’s about the only homework you really CAN fit in there, because anything with writing is just not gonna work.

Instead of judging this woman for reading to her kid on the train, you might consider that you don’t know why she did that. Maybe, for example, she knows that if she doesn’t fit in storytime now she definitely won’t have time at bedtime. Maybe her kid was promised this book, and would be disappointed if they didn’t have time for it. Maybe the mom had dragged along a book thinking the kid would be bored, and now, dammit, it was gonna get read no matter WHAT. Maybe it’s homework, as I said. Maybe it’s just not any of your business, and I for one would like to get back to judging people for plopping their kids in front of the TV all day because tag is dangerous, thanks.

This discussion brings back a memory from long past. I was a little tot and my parents took me car-shopping with them. I told them the red car was the one we should buy. A deal was struck, and after some time, the delivery occurred. Imagine my anticipation as I waited for the new shiny red car to drive up – and imagine my disappointment upon seeing that it was BLUE! I was SO pissed off, LOL. My parents never did get a red car, but coincidentally (?) my first car was red (well, actually maroon). Ha ha!

The other day my kids were home sick from school. As a WAHM, I had a ton of work to do, so I figured I’d have to sit them in front of a movie or two. However, I decided to play it by ear. The entire day went by, indoors, without grown-up “stimulation,” and there was not one request for screen time. Apparently the opportunity to spend the entire day imagining their own world was awesome enough.

SO glad I’m not the only one who wants to smack that kid. Metaphorically, of course, by driving him to school in a Gremlin. Or a Pinto. Something, anything that’s got tow trucks circling it like vultures.

As far as TVs in cars, I understand for long trips (to be determined by parents, but the one above who said 14+ hours certainly has a case in my book). But just back and forth to school, lessons, grocery store? No way.
And anything can be abused; I heard of a case where a parent was upset because, at a light, her children noticed the car next to them had… adult movies running and visible on the car’s screen. The question was whether there was a lawsuit; I didn’t follow it well enough to remember the outcome.

Taradlion-
I have also sung to embarrass the kids! My song of choice is “Over the Rainbow” as the Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite movies (and the kids).
I’ve told them in the past of wanting to click my heels and say there’s no place like home to escape their antics when they misbehave. The natural progression if they don’t listen is to sing that song. I have a horrible, shreiky singing voice that makes newborns cry.
They usually behave in public.

I never even make it to the TV issue for these commercials. I’m stuck on the fact that the parents driving the SUVs in these commercials usually only have one or two kids. It’s like the second you confirm that you are pregnant with your first child you MUST buy an SUV. Really? My kid does just fine in our Civic.

@Beth – I am totally with you on the no TVs in bedrooms thing. No kids for me just yet, but even my husband and I don’t keep a TV in our own bedroom. We have one TV in the living room, and once in a great while we’ll snuggle up in bed with the laptop and watch something on Netflix.

Here’s the thing though: while I didn’t have a TV in my room growing up, I did have a couple hundred books. My parents would send me to my room and I’d be perfectly content to sit there and read. But obviously my parents were not about to tell me NOT to read, so I was a pretty difficult child to punish. 😉

And regarding the Highlander commericials: I absolutely cannot stand them. That kid is awful. @courtneyeschbach said ‘Everytime I see that commercial, I think “And that kid will grow up to be a douchebag.”‘ Correction: That child already IS a douchebag.

I’m so glad nobody’s responded with, “Oh, gosh, they’re just commercials, you don’t rely on commercials to teach your kids how to act, do you?”

It’s true that a kid who’s generally being raised decently isn’t going to be ruined by a few commercials, but really, Toyota as a corporation run by human beings has a responsibility not to send *all the worst possible messages* in their commercials. There’s line between “it’s just marketing” and “do we really need to be gratuitously idiotic, obnoxious, and anti-social just to sell cars?”

If I were that little boy’s mom he would be grounded for his rudeness. I don’t believe spanking has value, but for that behavior I might make an exception.

Those commercials right there are why I don’t have cable or satelite or anything like that. We have a televion and a DVD player and tons of movies which have been vetted for not having hero characters who are insufferable brats.

Now now Maggie. It is oh so uncool and unfreerange to insist that only boys can have short hair. My boys have shaggy Zac Efron/Justin Bieber hair and it is precious! We get compliments on it all the time. Their hair is prettier than most little girls we know! I am not keeping it in a buzz cut. Hell no!

When I used to tell people our family rule for DVD use on family trips they were HORRIFIED:

IF the trip was more than 12 HOURS at a stretch then she could watch the DVD for no more than two full length movies. If it was less than 12 hours the DVD stayed packed away.

We took a portable DVD on our cross country train trip (48 hours straight on the train), and once when we drove to the Yukon (24 driving hours in two days).

Those were the ONLY two trips in her entire childhood that we used the DVD.

Now that she is 17, she can’t imagine watching something other than the “world” in a car. She’ll read, but most of the time we talk and she watches the world go by 🙂

Eh I had a tv in my bedroom starting at age 8. Guess what?! I read more books than ANY other kid I knew my whole life too. I tested at age 8 to a 10th grade reading level. After that I still had no failed a section yet and the test ran out since it was for elementary school kids! So having a tv in the room does not mean your kid won’t read or will watch too much of it.

I would watch it when I was sick in my bed instead of having to be in the living room on the couch or in my parent’s bed. I would watch movies in there and not tie up the other tvs. But I was also outside a lot. Also playing with friends a lot. Also reading by choice a lot. Also doing dance classes a lot. It did not hurt me whatsoever. I also never ONCE had to be told to do my homework my entire life. My mom brags about that one all the time. It was just a given that I would do it and I did. Tv didn’t change that.

My kids will eventually get a tv in their rooms. We probably won’t have cable though. They can watch movies in there and maybe have a video game system in there. I don’t care. If they watch it too much I will deal with it. Doubt it will be a problem though, it never was with me.

Dolly, my only car is a Saturn Ion and I have two 4yo’s too. I had them rear-facing in the backseat until they were 2.5, and only recently got them boosters. We go to dinner weekly with two adult friends, meaning 5 people regularly fit in that ion even though two are in “car seats” (which take up a lot more seat width than a butt).

When my sister heard I was adopting two kids, she said, “you’ll need to buy a minivan now.” No thank you. I’ve never felt the need or desire to own one of those.

I don’t ever want a DVD in my car. We’ve gone on trips of 12+ hours (per day) without needing electronics. A couple of times we’ve rented minivans in order to accommodate more than 5 people, and they came equipped with DVDs. I simply elected not to tell my kids about that feature.

I did use the DVD on a trip to DC. We were putting on a professional conference and I brought my kids along. They sat through the first hour, then needed something more kid-friendly to do. So I set them up in the break room with a DVD. It was a treat for them, so it helped to keep them happy for quite a while.

SKL: What Ion do you have? I have the cheapest one and the only way for the rear facing Graco Safeseats to fit in there was to have the front seats pushed so far up my boobs were on the steering wheel. That was not a safe way to drive or a comfortable way to drive. Maybe the newer ones are bigger? I have the 2004. No way another adult would fit in between them either. I am a smaller adult and I could not fit there. I can barely fit in between them now in a larger car. Its not comfortable. SO….not sure how tiny you all are but didn’t work for us.

You can market cars to kids if you want but they aren’t the ones with the means to buy the car and I don’t know any parent – wealthy or otherwise – that would consider buying a car because some bratty kid thought it was cool on a commercial or because their own kid thought that they would be wimpy in a .

On the subject of TV in the car, I wouldn’t buy a car because it had one and I wouldn’t say no to a good deal on a car because it had one. I, as the parent and driver, have total control over whether or not it would be watched so just having it available wouldn’t change anything for our family.

That said, we do own a portable DVD player and for my son, who gets very carsick, it is a lifesaver. He doesn’t have the option to ‘watch the world go by’ since it causes him to be sick. We only take it on long car trips as he can usually stomach the driving if it’s short or he’s either riding in the front seat (or driving himself now that he’s old enough) but these are not (or have not previously) been options for him on long trips.

We don’t really know the reasons behind why people are doing something and isn’t free-range about families being able to choose the best way of life for themselves without the pressure of society making those choices for them? If that means a TV in the car to ease someone’s illness or no TV in the car so everyone can sing along to show tunes, then that should be the choice of the family. I personally think families should make choices limiting technology and television but until I intimately know the situation, I try not to judge.

Well, I agree you don’t need to go for the big vehicle for the second child, but for the third you definitely do, especially now that mandatory car seat age in most states is now 8. We had to get a minivan when #3 was on the way, because #1 was short of her 4th birthday (back in the stone age when you could let them out of the carseat and into a seatbelt only booster at 4) and there was no way in Newtonian physics that three carseats were going to fit into a Horizon (yeah, I said it was the stone age!)

Kate: Well for one thing you have to buy more hotel rooms if you don’t get the whole trip done in one day. We don’t have money for that. Like when we go to the beach or Disney World which both are 10 hours, there is really not much money left over for extra hotel rooms for a night or extra activities, restaurants etc. We just need to get there.

I know better than to not stop every 2 to 3 hours and let them pee and stretch their legs. That is part of the reason why they are good. I am not one of those parents that try to make good time and ignore their kids needs. My Dad on the other hand…..he never would stop so I could pee and he just wanted to stay on the road. We try to stop at McDonalds or playgrounds to let them run about a bit for like 15 minutes every 3 hours.

I actually don’t think this ad is aimed at kids at all. I think it’s aimed at the kind of parents, plentiful in the present generation, who want to be their kids’ friends rather than their parents, who want desperately to be thought of as cool by their own children and their children’s friends, who would be shamed by a label of lame. The commercial says to parents, not to kids, “Buy this car, and your kids will think you’re cool!” It’s the classical peer pressure method of advertising; it’s just that, before this generation, no parent would ever have considered a child to be his or her peer.

I think the worst part of the commercial is that it encourages parents to alienate the kids from the family. “Get in the car, put on the headphones, watch the DVD, don’t talk to your parents or have anything to do with your family.” I know that long family drives can be a chore, but when the kids are trapped in the car with the parents for hours and can’t walk away, that’s a good time for a little communication.

Cynthia-the principal at our elementary school in NE tried that, and a bunch of us called the school and told her where they could stick it. They have cross walks, and the school crossing only has 1 cross street-the other one dead ends at a parking lot. I live in a city of 250,000, not exactly a country hamlet, but I must be a little sheltered. What kind of mentally deficient principal would say something like that?

Dolly, Do you have a free place to stay while on vacation? If not, then you are not actually paying for an additional hotel room. A week long vacation is a week long. If it takes you an extra day to get there, you are simply paying to stay in a hotel in Georgia instead of Disneyworld.

I have a coworker who judges me for allowing my son to ride the bus. He loves waiting with the kids in the morning and he reads on the way home. Ugh.

Dolly, curious as to why your kids dont take the bus? I used to take the city bus on days that i didnt want tp walk.

Take the bus where? They are not in school yet. We will walk to our elementary school. They may or may not take the bus to high school or middle school depending on several factors that cannot be known as this time. I was not always able to ride the bus myself growing up. I did in elementary school. When I hit middle and high school we moved to a shady neighborhood and I got harassed daily on the bus plus kids got into fist fights daily regularly on the bus which meant it had to turn around and go back to school making me late to get home and late to my after school activities. So my mom drove me and then I got my own car and drove myself.

I would like to hope my boys will have their own car and drive themselves when they are 16. It is a short drive. Or if the walking trail ever gets built they have been talking about they can bike or ride on that. Or I will drive them or they will ride with friends. Or the bus.

For middle school it will be bus or me driving them.

Those commercials are undoubtedly evil, but they *did* inspire me and my husband the to start singing “Angel of the Morning” to our kids when they start getting obnoxious. (We only know the first four lines of the chorus, and the threat of listening to us sing those four lines repeatedly is usually potent enough to make them stop doing whatever we want them to stop doing, at least for a little while!)

Uly: I think its awesome you read on the train and with your kids. I always keep books in our car too in case we get somewhere early and need to kill a few minutes. I always have a book on me or at least try to. You never know when you might get stuck at a doctor’s office FOREVER and need something to read!!!

I didn’t really get the complaint about a mom reading to her kid either. Isn’t reading to your kid a good thing?

Defending parents who drive their kids in this area is that sometimes it is overkill and not needed. Sometimes though they are factors involved. We have suburban sprawl with no city buses out here in the country. No sidewalks either. Schools can be very far from your actual house. So it would be bus or car. Depending on what activities your kids are in they may have to stay late after school or come early before school when the buses don’t run. So then a parent has to drive or they car pool or drive themselves. I had dance shortly after school got out and had to hurry home.

I think people that live in big urban cities with public transportation don’t realize that. There is no subway here. No buses in our neighborhood, No train. Just cars and if you want you can be a redneck and ride your horse, tractor or 4 wheeler around.

That is one big complaint I have about where I live. I would walk more if they had more sidewalks.

Dolly, to answer your question, I have a 2003 Saturn Ion. Knowing I would have to fit two car seats in the back plus try to leave space for an adult butt, I shopped for seats that were relatively narrow. I put them next to each other, one on the right side and one in the middle. I could not have driven safely if I had a rear-facing seat behind the driver’s seat. I did have to shove the passenger seat pretty far forward, but I figured the passenger (if any) could suck it up until I turned the kids around. Because the seats were jammed next to each other, there was just enough space for a reasonably slim adult butt to sit behind the driver’s seat. I sat that way through an 8-hour drive, so it was not too bad.

Now the girls have booster seats, and I thought this would give us more butt space, but alas, no. The 5th person now has to sit very snugly between the two high-back boosters. However, at least those sitting in front can adjust the seats any way we want them.

LRH…First of all THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH A CHILD BEING DRIVEN TO SCHOOL! Maybe some children LIKE being driven to school. And no, there’s nothing wrong walking, riding the bus, etc. Not all parents who drive their children to school are helipcopter parents. Also there’s a difference between letting a child watch TV if they want to, and making them watch TV. And it is possible for a family to bond by watching TV. I know, because my family does. It’s good to let your children play outside, but you shouldn’t force them to play outside. That’s as bad forcing your children to play inside. Young people should be given as much choice as possible, because they are humans with their own intersests and opinions, not clones if their parents. If you try to “make” your kids do anything, they will, as much as possible, try to do what they want anyway. “Free range” should mean a child being given choices, not forced to fit their parents’ ideal.

Oh man. Popcorn AND potato chips, I think, for this thread. I thought I’d have to wait half a month to see fireworks.

As far as “there is nothing wrong with a kid being driven to school (because they might like that)”, I have… I have no idea where to start replying to that.

I have to agree with Prydence about there being nothing wrong with driving a child to school, but ONLY UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES. The area where I live is a year-round outdoor sports resort. There always seems to be a child who is on crutches due to a sports injury. That’s a valid reason for driving a child to school. Another would be heavy rain or hail. But kids here who have no physical problems are viewed as wimps or lazy slugs if they’re driven to school in good weather. My son was on crutches from a sprained ankle last month. He couldn’t wait to be off of his crutches so that he could ride his bike to school with his friends.

Free range is not necessarily about giving kids choices about everything. If I gave my son a choice about what he wanted to eat, he’d have Gummi Bears and cola for every meal. If he had a choice between doing homework and playing with his Nintendo, the Nintendo would win every time. To me free range means letting kids do the same things that I did as a kid: play outdoors, go places on their own either on foot or by bike or public transportation, have some basic self-help skills (e.g. cooking simple things), stay home for short periods of time and watch younger siblings, and solve problems on their own without adult intervention. Free range parenting is also parenting without instilling fear of every stranger in your child. We free-range parents teach our kids the difference between good and bad strangers and give our kids the tools to deal with “bad” strangers. As a free-range parent, I believe that most adults are good people and willing to help a child in need. I know that when it’s time for my son to go off to university, he will be well-prepared for the world that awaits him.

Oops, I meant writing about them in my blog. That’s what I get for hitting the post button without proofreading.

SKL: That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. We tried to put them on the right and left sides and realized that it was not comfortable or safe for the front seats to be pushed up that high. So we had to switch cars and I drove them in my husband’s Seabring till we got a Crown Vic given to us by his grandparents. The trunk of the Ion would hardly fit the stroller either. It never crossed my mind when buying the car seats that they would not fit. I figured any car seat would fit in any car. I learned that was not the truth the hard way!

“The idea is this—a child being driven to school ties up the parents’ time unnecessarily if the child is old enough to walk, bicycle, or if the bus system can do it instead.”

However, many times it’s more convenient for the parents to drive their kids to school. The bus in my neighborhood comes almost an hour before school starts, requiring us to get up and ready earlier than I want to. It also means that my child is spending a considerable amount of time at school in the morning before classes start (it is a low income school district that structures the day this way so the kids that need to can eat breakfast at school before the day starts). I have to leave for work about the time that school starts. It is much less of a tie-up of my time to drive her. At 5, I don’t feel comfortable letting her walk a mile, navigating a hospital and a very busy 5 lane road by herself so walking is not yet an option but may be in later years.

I agree, shame on Toyota. To think, there are grown adults sitting around a corporate conference table saying, “yeah, great idea!!”

Gross.

“It’s good to let your children play outside, but you shouldn’t force them to play outside.”

What do you mean by “force”? Beat them and then push them out with a cattle prod? I don’t “force,” but I most certainly require. Just as I require them to limit sweets, take their vitamins, go to school, and do their chores. I don’t believe free range means leaving your child free to make ANY choice in ANY circumstance. Free rangers may want to give their children more responsibility than average, but we do recognize they are still in training for adulthood.

Here is how I “force” my children to play outside: “That’s enough Wii time, go outside and play.” “NOOOOOO!” “Yes, go outside now, or you won’t get to play Wii tomorrow.” And then they’re outside. And what do you know, they have fun.

I believe in giving my kids a range of choice, but free range to me does not mean letting them repeatedly choose unhealthy options on my watch. It means letting them “free range” outside the house — i.e wander around, take some risks on the playground, take on responsibilities (like making their own breakfast even while quite young) in the house, etc. It doesn’t mean — you make all your own choices at age 7, even if that choice is three Twinkies and three hours of television in the afternoon.

Now, when it comes to TV, I pretty much do let them make their own choices in terms of quantity, because they self-regulate well. If one of them would choose to just sit in front of the TV for over two hours straight, however, I would not let them choose that. I don’t let them freely choose their shows, either — I give them a RANGE of options (i.e. — I put a bunch of approved shows on the Netflix list — watch whatever you want from that list whenever you want, provided you don’t watch too much in one day).

I don’t think there is anything wrong with a kid being driven to school, provided they are not within walking distance, or the walking route is unguarded at very high-traffic crossings, or there is no school bus. Even if there is a school bus, in some circumstances, if there are problems on the bus (i.e. bullying) or it takes an excessively long and time consuming route that means inconvenient timing for the parents or too much wasted time for the kid, I can understand parents driving the kids.

Well, it’s certainly not the sort of vehicle I would buy (or even want to be seen driving). I thought that the first commercial was kind of funny with the other parents singing so badly off key. It really was painful.

I think that a lot of people commenting on here are being very silly. What, exactly, is a family supposed to do on a long car trip? When I was that age, I would have loved to have had a television in the car. As I recall from my youth, we mostly rode in silence. Mom would usually fall asleep and dad would drive and change the radio to the next country music station as we drove out of range of the previous one. I think that people have all of these romantic notions about what things are supposed to be like, and then are disappointed when these ideas don’t quite work out.

Eldo, if you have more than one kid, the kids will interact during a car ride. I agree that if you only have one kid on a long drive, it could get boring, especially if the kid gets car-sick when he reads. Even then, the parents could get a little creative and suggest something for the kid to do with his brain – such as find out how many different kinds of trees or colors of leaves or types of wildlife he can spot. Ultimately it’s up to the parent, but I think what bugs people is not the fact of a DVD in a car, but the attitude that kids NEED that because their brains have no idea what to do without constant man-made stimulation.

Personally I have two daughters who are very close in age, so they do not need any help keeping their minds busy. Sometimes it’s good medicine to force them to sit next to each other for a long time. (They have it better than I did as a kid, with 4 kids fighting over the space in the back seat, who gets the window seat, bla bla bla.)

You go, kid. Revenge is sweet. For all those times your stroller got pushed by a parent yakking on the mobile phone – instead of to you. For all the BS created by all the adults who should have but didn’t know better. For the fact that you created none of this, but will sure be punished for it in your young sweet life. For the fact that perfect strangers can hate and despise you for the superficial reasons they don’t want to admit, understanding nothing about the nature of your heart. For their not realizing that as a human being, you are as easy to manipulate as they are…and the consequences of that are perfectly understandable from a distance, and impossible to recognize from within a domestic swamp. For the prison stripes of suburbia and the fact that “for the sake of the kids, honey” has very little to do with your sake, at all.

Dolly, the question isn’t whether or not I’ve ever been in “the country” or “suburban sprawl” – two terms that to me seem to mean different things, so I’m not sure which YOU mean.

You can go “Oh, don’t you know there’s no public transportation here at all???” all you want, my observation is not that there is and you don’t know it (I mean, that’d be great, but I doubt you know so little about your own area), it’s that there should be. There should be sidewalks! There should be accessible buses! There should be bike lanes, and there should be options! You shouldn’t have to live without choices!

And the fact that there isn’t is a problem. You shouldn’t have to move to have basic, basic amenities.

Tuppence, I don’t read because I’m “scared” of the train, nor the other people on it. I read because the train is flipping boring. Well, unless we’re above ground, but typically we’re not. That’s why it’s the SUBway, after all. And, you know, there’s nothing wrong – morally or otherwise – with wanting to entertain myself on a train ride, even for a short trip.

And my objection to the post wasn’t that I think everybody should read on the train to their kids. What do I care? It’s that reading to your kids, at any time of day, isn’t a bad thing that we should outright condemn, especially when this comes with assumptions – both on your part and the OP’s – about the motivations involved, motivations you have NO way of knowing unless you’ve suddenly become a mindreader.

Uly: I agree there should be sidewalks and bike paths etc. I am with a group trying to turn an old railroad into a walking/bike path that would make it easy to walk to high school they are zoned for and even other places. Big shock, the government is fighting it. With large areas there is no way they could put sidewalks in everywhere out here. The nicer subdivisions have them. Ours doesn’t but has wide streets and grass to walk in and little traffic so its fine. The main roads however have ditches on both sides and no sidewalks and off leash dogs that will run or growl at you (Hubby walked to Walmart one day and it took almost all day and 2 dogs tried to attack him).

Till all that stuff happens in this area, people will continue to drive. It is just a given everyone here has a car and drives everywhere. Before we had kids we did walk a lot because we lived near stuff and we almost got run over a lot too and honked at and looked at like we were crazy. Just because NO ONE walks around here! It is considered odd. Part of the reason because we are not pedestrian friendly anywhere but downtown and party because of how spread apart everything is. We just happened to live right behind some shops on a main road. Now we don’t.

Others pointed out very good reasons why a parent might drive a kid to school. There are valid reasons for doing so that don’t make you a wuss or lazy or helicopter.

The highschool that my daughter attends is a 35 mintues ‘yellow bus’ righ, OR a 30-45 minute city bus ride (plus the wak to the stop, and depending on the time of year – service being reduced when University isn’t in), OR it is a 30 minutes walk, OR it is a 10 minute drive/taxi ride… though you have to add wait time to the taxi!

I will drive her to school on two conditions: 1. I have a car that day. I don’t own one, but do rent when I need one for work, and 2. She wants to be at school at the time I’m leaving the house. Mostly she walks, or if the transit schedule lines up reasonably, will she’ll take that if it is snowing or raining. If she is running late she will pay (herslef) for a cab… if she can get one.

Free Range to me means that she knows ALL of her options and is capable of deciding which one fits her needs best that day. AND that she is capable of using all of them independantly.

For me it is about teaching her to make rational decisions about her choices. Sometimes that means restricting the choices until she learns that she is competant to do things different ways (see DVD restrictions above), but it sure doesn’t mean dictating which choice is “right” or “wrong” on any particular day.

As someone who has lived all over the country, and has ridden any number of subways, I have this to say: I haven’t found riding them inherently interesting since I was a child. Same for riding the bus, which I do every day to and from work. I read because I like to read, and that time would be boring otherwise.

Now, that doesn’t mean I refuse to interact with other people. I’ve had conversations with strangers on the subway (yes! the one in New York! OMG!), and the bus I used to ride had a community of riders who, due to personal inclination and bus design, rode up front and talked on the way into work.

But when I read, I’m not avoiding you, I’m entertaining myself, because I don’t expect you to do that for me. If it turns out that we want to talk, that’s great, and I put the book away.

Meanwhile, this is the funniest thread I’ve read on this blog in years. Sign me up for popcorn, and I’ll bring nachos.

Did all the kids who got a ride home from their friend’s dad make sure to call their parents and inform them who they were going with so that their parents could perform an extensive back ground check on the driver? And we should notify the police because an adult male just allowed an unaccompanied underage girl into his vehicle. (Yes, I am being sarcastic.)

I don’t agree that there should be sidewalks and frequent bus access everywhere. It would not be cost-effective to extend either to every remote place. (There are alternatives, e.g., a commuity-based mini-bus operating similar to a car-pool, that would make sense if multiple people needed to go the same way at the same time.) And also, some people choose to live in the boonies so they don’t have to see and hear the trappings of urban life, believe it or not.

But if you lived in the boonies and believed in free-range kids, don’t you think your kids would have other opportunities besides walking/being bused to school to exercise their free-range privileges?

Ugh, I hate typos, or the like.

When I mentioned the school & said we’re about 100 yards away, I meant from the highway the bus travels down & makes its normal stop at. If nothing else, when our 4 year-old starts going to school & is picked up by the bus, to be sure it will be ok for her to just up & run to the bus herself vs me having to escort her everytime (although I probably will the 1st few times initially).

Assuming one of us is home when the bus brings her home, it would certainly be ok for her to walk that 100 yards down the dirth path to our home. I would be upset if they have some dumb rule about an adult having to be waiting for her there when we’re all of 100 yards away & 1 of only 3 houses anywhere nearby.

But being in the woods? Totally loving it & the kids love being allowed to enjoy sticks & dirt and tire swings free of worry.

LRH
Blackberry 8310

SKL: Exactly! My kids really get some free range experience when they go to my mom’s house out in the middle of nowhere. They see wild animals. They run free on the property without worrying about a car running them over. They are out in nature. They get to ride the neighbors’ Gator vehicle all over. That is something that a lot of kids never get. They never get to just run outside with no cars or houses or buildings. Totally worth the having to drive if you need to go somewhere.

We moved to the boonies when I was 12, and while we were relatively free-range in the city, we had even more freedom in the boonies. The big fear in the city was that if we wandered into the wrong area, someone might not like our skin color, or the fact that we might have something they didn’t, and we could be attacked. (FTR, this was not an unreasonable concern.) Out in the boonies (at least our boonies), there was a lot less tension between races or other demographics. Yes, some communities tended to hang together, but there were no barriers or nastiness (on either side) and certainly no violence like where we came from. And also, beyond about a mile in any direction, there was hardly anyone to contend with besides benign critters and overgrown foliage. We were literally allowed to go wherever we wanted without informing our parents, provided we were home by curfew. We walked or biked miles and miles in every direction.

We’ve been seeing a lot of fox activity around here lately. Not sure about letting my 4yos play outside in/near the woods without me nearby, but only because of the critter factor.

LRH, teach your kids about deer paths. My brother was taking me out in the woods when he was 10 and I was about 5, maybe a year younger than that. We would look for deer paths and follow them. They tended to lead to water, and we could always backtrack. We also learned that streams flow downhill, and downhill tends to lead eventually to a town. My parents did do some walking with us – my mom was a biology teacher and wanted specimens for class, which was totally awesome.

By the time I was 10, I was roaming all over the place with my step siblings in all weather. We knew how to check the ice, and what to do if we fell through a snow bank into a hidden stream – run like hell for home so you wouldn’t get frostbite. The worst thing that ever happened was my step brother getting stuck in a snowbank a couple miles from home and we had to get the parents to help get him out with boots. The best was finding old dump sites and digging for old bottles and such.

At worst, go through the woods with two cans of paint and paint some trees on one side with a splash of paint one color, and on the other with the other other color. That way they know what direction they are going and can head toward home. (Which is how many trail systems work.)

I wish I lived where there were woods so my oldest could take out the youngers. But we are in a desert area, so no much luck there. I guess I need to take them to the sand dunes.

I’d like to show a counterpoint from the other side of the Pacific – this ad screened in Australia and New Zealand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_R9XhRPaNA

awwws that commercial with the babies driving the car is precious! How cute are they!?

“I hope I never make an important decision solely to alleviate the embarrassment of my child. I want to be motivated my ration and logic and the wellbeing of my child.”

You know, any parent with a brain would think that if their kid thinks the way the kid does in those commercials, they should probably go out and buy the ugliest beater they can find, put on embarrassing bumper stickers, and then buckle down to dealing with whatever it is that has their child’s priorities and sense of family so screwed up. Then when they’ve dealt with the fact that the kid’s values were screwed up, maybe they can get a nicer car. 😉 Of course, any parent that takes that approach wouldn’t be the parent who sits there smiling while the kid acts like the car belongs to him and sells seats for personal gain.

Sky wrote: Here is how I “force” my children to play outside: “That’s enough Wii time, go outside and play.” “NOOOOOO!” “Yes, go outside now, or you won’t get to play Wii tomorrow.” And then they’re outside. And what do you know, they have fun.

We have two boys, 9 & 10. They are both “solid,” you could say; they love food and tend to gain weight. They are also obsessed with riding, rolling, and ramping on wheels of all sorts. When we blended our family, my husband and I made different sorts of vows to each other.

“I do solemnly swear, no matter how much whining from the kids, social pressure from their friends, or purchasing cues from society we get, we will have neither a TV nor a gaming system, portable or otherwise, in our home.”

So we don’t. They get it at their “other” homes, friends’ homes. Nearly all parents think having video games is unavoidable. It’s not. It’s like smoking: don’t start. The kids whined a bit in the beginning, but half-heartedly. Since there isn’t much to do indoors on nice days, they head outside. I don’t have to cajole them. On crappy days, there’s a room for roughhousing, but you’d be surprised how easily even crappy days can be gone outside in.

With any sort of wretched excess, be it toys, food, stuff, cars or “supervision,” I say it is parents avoiding conflict, either within themselves or within their families, and caving in to the fear of not belonging. Consumerism thrives on this fear most of all.

We simply won’t cave. The kids are relying on us.

Nancy Disgrace (cute name, btw) – I do see it. My kids watch almost no TV, but they do get screen time and exposure to other families’ standards at preschool. Today the Sunday School teacher had given the kids a second (significant) handout of candy as I went to pick up the kids. This was after the kids were already sugared up (donuts, juice, etc). And my eldest 4yo, who weighs maybe 27 lbs, is very sensitive to sugar.

I told my girls to hand over the candy packages to me. My eldest held hers out of the way and demanded with eyebrow raised, “but what are you going to do with it?” My response: “Excuse me, I think I am the mother here and you are the daughter. Hand me the candy.” Which she did.

The attitude obviously comes from somewhere, because I am certain I haven’t taught my kids to believe they have veto power over what I do and say. Granted, the sugar makes my kid a little obnoxious, but that idea came from somewhere.

Someone gave us the Disney film “Tangled” and I let my kids watch it. They definitely learned some lovely rudeness from that. Since then, I’m trying to help them notice how their thinking is affected by what they see, and also declared that they won’t be watching Tangled again until I’m convinced they understand respect.

My kids also compare what other kids are allowed to do. “But __ is allowed to chew gum.” My response: “I’m not __’s mother, but I am your mother.”

Sometimes I feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle when it comes to respect and politeness. It frankly isn’t all that common in their age group. Some of their classmates still throw long, shrieking fits when they dont get their way, or completely ignore their parents/teachers’ commands, and their parents/teachers act like there’s nothing unusual about that. Personally I think 4 is too old for the “just ignore it” tactic, but I’m in the minority on that, it seems.

Well, Dolly, I don’t know, maybe the fact that my kids are adopted made them take it differently. If you look at the dialogue from that perspective (“you took me from my real mother bla bla bla”) you can see how it could stir some emotions.

And no, I don’t agree that it is OK to tell off one’s mother in that way, even if you think she is as wrong as can be. Sometimes my kids catch me being wrong, but they are not entitled to spew that kind of nonsense at me, no way no how. I understand this is just a fairy tale and all that, and yeah, a kidnapper isn’t actually your mother, but a four-year-old brain processes things differently.

Honestly, I think “modern” kids’ films generally suck because the producers forget how kids think. Or more likely, they don’t care.

As an adoptive mom, I have noticed that a very high percentage of favorite kids’ books and movies are about orphans, or kids who for whatever reason were not raised by their parents. From Heidi to Harry Potter. About 2.5% of American kids have been adopted. While orphans / adoptees make great heroes, people need to be cognizant of the fact that actual adoptees will tend to see themselves in those stories, at least to some extent. For all the sensitivities we’ve developed with respect to gay people, slow learners, people of color, etc., we seem to be behind when it comes to adoptees.

Hi, I’ve been following your blog awhile. I don’t know if I like it or not – some of the stuff you take on I’d rather hide from. Remember the valentines cards (from the 70’s) that had one card with a ostrich with his head in the sand . . . that’s me. So when I read this blog – I found it interesting because of a recent event. We moved to a rural town of 1,000 about 15 years ago. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the bus picked my kids up daily (10 miles out of town) Recently, I visited the city I’m originally from and waited for my business appt in the parking lot of an Elementary school and witnessed first hand the long line of cars going in (one kid in the back) the school parking lot and a harried, tired, wired-in parent leaving the parking lot. I thought I was watching an episode of a cartoon. I think my lucky stars I don’t live in the city. My kids would be complaining that I’m “weird” for making them ride the bus or ride a bike to school

I have fond memories of my half hour walk to school each day. Crunching ice under foot when it was cold or climbing a tree (we even named her) in the cherry orchard through which we passed. Our school was appropriately named Cherry Hill. Now-a-days I doubt any kid going to that school knows there house is built where a huge cherry orchard use to be.

Oh, the good old days.

This has just bought back a memory from my childhood. My father using a hand crank to start the car and my sister slipping down in the back seat in case any of her friends saw her. You think singing parents are embarrasing? Try that on for size! I’m “only” 45 by the way, not 102. Not sure what sort of car that must have been.

On the rare occasion I drive my kids to school ( it is on the way to my train station and is a special treat) I always laugh at the High School kid who lives across the street from the High School Middle School campus – honestly – across the street – and he stands there and waits for the bus to pick him up, drive 100 ft, make a left and drop him off.

I hate that ad.

My kids would join us in singing… or at least keep quiet as they roll their eyes… (depends on their moods and the song, I suppose). We like each others’ company. Sad, but true. My 7 year old and I sang, “Oh, oh, oh, Ice cold milk and an Oreo cookie” (if you remember that old ad…) on the way home from karate. Fun times. 😉 Remember that ad?

Hi Dolly et al,
I’ve been watching all your comments with interest. Know it happened 130 years or so ago, but when you talk about long car journeys, I can’t help thinking of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her sisters, in one of the books – can’t remember if it’s Little House on the Prairie, or The Shores of Silver Lake (might even be the Plum Creek one) where she writes about Kansas being one big circle, that day after day for months (or so it seemed to a child) they couldn’t get out of the circle that was the Kansas Prairie. No tvs for them, and no complaining either, LOL! Just sore, sore bottoms from the wagon seats. Personally have no tvs in our cars, but I’m not in the US, and could imagine that if I had to drive my kids for days across country I might look at getting one….certainly would in Australia, if I lived there – once you’ve seen the first 5000 kangaroos and gum trees, the scenery gets rather boring, LOL! In NZ the scenery changes every few minutes – though I’m sure visitors would get sick of our sheep and cows!- unless you have to cross the Canterbury Plains, where you might just want to keep a shotgun handy – very much like Laura’s Kansas!

Living in Australia things are fairly spread out.
Most of my highschool was made up of boarders, my first boyfriend took 12hrs to get home. Many others took two or three days. And these are 11yos! Entertainment for some of it would be appreciated by all.

As far as driving long distances? Between work and house is over 100kms – IF Im working at home station, otherwise it can easily be up to 400kms.
To get ‘home’ is an 800km trip. With one 24hr truck stop halfway, no motels, nowhere I really want to stop for a long time. Better to just keep swapping drivers. Or be extra viligant in being awake if Im driving by myself.
Not ideal, but thats the issue we have living in a country with long distances.
We recently did 2000kms in two days to get to a wedding (three drivers, although two were on restricted licenses so that was slow going). No children, but the adults had mobile phones and gameboys (no radio, some horrible person broke my antennae just before we left).

On the plus side, most country Aussies are well versed in long distance driving.

Nicole: You are right. Carpooling with the new car seat restrictions and the massive size of the car seats has become something very difficult to do. I cannot drive any of my kids friends around with my kids. Not in our sedan. I might be able to fit one more kid in there, but it would be tight. Depending on size of the kid and the car seat, it might not be doable. A lot of my mom friends have full cars with just their kids inside. I have wanted to take my friend’s kids off their hands for awhile or do sleepovers or carpool but it is not possible unless one of us has a suburban or some kind of giant car with tons of seats and seatbelts in the back.

Once the kids are out of boosters all together it gets easier because they can ride in the front seat at that point and that frees up more room. Still technically if you only do one person per seatbelt as you are supposed to do at most I can only fit three extra kids in my car and that would be with two sitting in the front bench seat next to me. Not an ideal situation. They tell you to keep kids out of the front seats now because of the air bags knocking them out or in some cases decapitating kids.

It’s nice that you all live in areas where there are not drug and violence problems on the school bus. Not everyone is so lucky.

And the fights started in elementary school. The drugs–middle. The explicit talk about sex–elementary. (First girl to get pregnant in my school–5th grade!)

School buses were for the kids whose parent didn’t or wouldn’t arrange some other form of transportation.

My parents both walked to their elementary school. I couldn’t because it was across a 5-lane road and past a really bad neighborhood. The 5th grade campus would have been a 1.5h walk, the middle school about 2 -2.5 hours. We moved when I was in high school. The 9th grade campus was only 45 minutes from home. In elementary, I was in aftercare. In middle, I was at the same campus where my mother worked. So high school was the first time I had to get home by bus or by walking. I walked unless it was raining. Among other things, I didn’t like being groped. The 10th-12 grade campus was only a mile from home, and I walked until I had access to a car.

You folks are also mostly from the North. You don’t have 100 degree days starting in February, and the temp when school lets out isn’t more often over 90 than below it. I loved using my grandfather’s car. I wasn’t so bathed with sweat I had to take a shower as soon as I got home.

As far as the educational quality went, it was better than just about any school I’ve seen of heard of before or since. Our teams would go head to hear with the east coast boarding schools–and win. 🙂 We just also had a large high poverty population in the same schools who chose not to avail themselves of the opportunities that were available.to them.

I would NOT LIKE my beautiful blond daughter being kidnapped,
raped, and left for dead! So yes she will get a ride. Or maybe the police,
Could patrol the school routes, instead of getting their free cups of
Coffee in groups of 4_6?