Yesterday, a reader asked us what vehicle he should get to transport his three shiny new children around. His one big caveat was that he couldn’t spend his budget on a minivan — he’d “discussed” it already, and ruled it “a no go.”
A sect of us on this side of the screen blatantly ignored that caveat, telling him to buy the damn minivan, and it seems you all agreed — if you need to transport your whole family, there’s only one vehicle truly built for the job. BiffMagnetude, however, agreed most convincingly:
Parenting is a struggle, particularly in those early few years. No matter how good those things are, they’ll also be sleepless and dirty and smelly and messy. Your crossover conceptions are likely based on new cars, but you know the reality of your minivan memories. They’re full of cheerios in the air vents, crumbs in the carpet, CDs of childrens’ music in the disc changer. That’s not the reality of minivans, though: It’s the reality of kids.
No matter what car you put kids in, it’ll end up a Kid Car, with all the accoutrement that entails. It’ll be filthy, it’ll smell weird, and you may not much enjoy your time spent behind its steering wheel. None of that, though, is inherent to the vehicle itself — a minivan fills up with Goldfish just as bad as a crossover, station wagon, SUV, or sedan. If anything, the minivan saves you from some of the worst of it, by sheer virtue of positioning the rear seats so far behind your olfactory receptors.
Congratulations, BiffMagnetude, on your COTD win. More people really should just get the right car for their purposes — the damn minivan. Ideally yellow, but we won’t be sticklers for that.