I don’t even buy, I lease on a per ride basis. After I get off, my Chauffeur drops of my friends wherever they’re going and then parks it somewhere. All I know is the next time I need one a new one rolls up, often with a different Chauffeur.

KL, the number of people out there with three small children in car seats is a fraction of SUV owners. Like a teeny, tiny fraction. Having three under that age is really unusual.

But when we took our two teenaged girls — plus a spare — to see Iron Man on Friday, we had to take my F-150, because five adults — adults meaning: bigger than Mary-Kate Olsen — won’t fit in Mrs Pico’s little Mustang.

If we go shopping for more than a couple day’s worth of groceries for five — and frequently six — people, we’re not going to get everything in a little Cooper Mini. You could say, well, buy less food at one time, but then you wind up making more trips to the supermarket, thus burning any gas you saved with the toy car.

Not everybody is single, and not everybody has only two mouths to feed, and not everybody lives in walking distance of everything they need. People buy vehicles to suit their needs, for the most part.

I take it you’re not a fan? I also assume you’ve never bothered to read any of Ms Kate’s contributions, right?…

I don’t know Ms Kate IRL, but around here she’s got the right combination of sense, snark, and sensitivity to bullshit. Her comments are greatly appreciated by most of us…

And why the fuck should I care about what your BIL thinks? Does he own New Hampshire or something?

“Self-important reality bubble”…pot, kettle, fucking black. Typical fuming from yet another Pseudoliberalis massachusettensis who’s been called on her bullshit and doesn’t like it one bit.

It used to make a lot of economic sense to live in the ‘burbs and commute to the city–someone with kids, for example, could get good schools and daycare but have an urban job with better health insurance or something like that. No one has to have kids (let alone seven) or buy a McMansion, but the people who are really feeling the crunch now probably aren’t the people who would’ve been doing anyway.

I’m shedding no tears for the parents making six figures a year who are now having to contemplate changing Timmy’s karate lessons from private to group because their Land Rover costs too much to fill. It’s the people who made the best choice for them at the time–finding a way to get by that was the best available at the time–who are now being hit the hardest, and who are now without the resources to make a change. Moving is EXPENSIVE–I should know, this is the first summer in four years I haven’t moved across state lines–and requires resources. Not everyone has the resources to make the best choices *now.* They’re stuck in a bad situation that’s getting worse.

The people are most impacted by the economy are the people who have the least agency to make their own choices in the first place. Again.

There are a lot of things I’d like to label as a “choice” and treat as value-neutral (sexual orientation comes to mind). But as long as it’s not value neutral (and burning through limited resources at the expense of every isn’t), “choice, not need” is an argument that gets people up in arms.

All the more if mixed up with the “people who believe they need flat-screen TVs McMansions”.

So I think this argument, while not entirely without merit, won’t be much use in changing anyone’s mind.

Plus, as I said, my main beef with the “lifestyle choice” argument is that it makes structural pressure invisible. And it’s hard to change something that has been made invisible.

MJ_, on car seats: My impression is that the seats have become larger, and the interiour of cars has become more crowded. My old VW Passat felt twice as roomy as the latest models, despite newer models taking up more space on the outside.

Tyro: Personally, I think turning down the termostat to 60 or 55 is absolute madness

I’m not home 10 to 15 hours a day, so I set the heating to 12°C (lowest setting, a little under 55°F) if it’s freezing outside, and do not turn it on at all if it’s not freezing. When I come home and I plan to be awake for 3 more hours, I put it to 20°C in the living roommand put on two T-shirts until the room is heated up. As all the relevant pipes are running indoors, no trouble with that at all. (As you might have guessed, I have a pretty high tolerance for cold. It’s the heat I cannot stand.) Do I understand it correctly that many houses or flats do not have the tech necessary to heat only one room? I have heard that being the case in some modern building designs — it seems a strange kind of “progress” to me.

I grew up in a FUCKING TRAILER. I live in a WORKING CLASS SUBURB where we could afford a home on a single income and only have one car.

Maybe I should ask my BIL, a retired airforce sgt. who lives up beyond the flat lands, what he thinks of the likes of your asswipe self moving into his state?

Oh, but that might break your self important reality bubble, now wouldn’t it. I’m sure he’d be very very mean to your widdle masshole self.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/popup?id=1566549

Secondly, I own an SUV that we bought in 2000. We bought it because we had 3 kids, 2 in car seats and it hurt my back having to bend over time & time again to put kids in & out of carseats. It was much easier to get them in & out of a car that was higher.

We also picked our SUV because we hauled around a lot of things for and with our kids including, but not limited to, soccer equipment, chairs, strollers, car equipment, and toys. A double stroller fits much better in the back of an SUV.

On top of those considerations, our SUV (it’s a Hyundai) gets comparable gas mileage (about 30 mpg) to most cars, and the car payments, when we had them, were cheaper than most cars we looked at. In other words, we bought an SUV because the pros outweighed any cons. And we still run that car because it’s cheaper–even if gas were $5 a gallon–than buying/leasing/renting another car.

Third, early in this thread, there was a lot of anti-kid rhetoric. I don’t mind people not having children if they choose not to do so. But you’ll probably be happy that other people decided to have those kids when you need somebody to pay for Social Security, provide your geriatric care or wipe your ass and feed you mush in the nursing home.

Finally, I live in the same town I grew up in (Fort Worth, TX). I’ve worked all over the Metroplex, including Dallas, and I can assure you that there are times when it isn’t a “choice” to commute more than an hour to work. Public transportation here is unworkable and it’s unlikely that anything will be in place before my children are collecting retirement. Why? Because there are still places where people don’t want public transportation (like Arlington, the largest suburb in America without public transportation). One of the wonderful things about a democracy is that people don’t have to agree with the choices of their neighbors.

Nobody In Particular, you seem to be venting a great deal of diffuse rage. Stop channeling me! :D

One of the dirty little secrets of we on the progressive left is that we have waaaaaaaaaay more right-wing-style preachers and morality mandaters than we care to admit; the only difference is that they are secularist scolds rather than religious ones.

Tyro: I can actually deal with the thermostat that low. I’ll admit that I use an electric space heater upstairs to supplement the gas heat; it’s more cost-effective than heating the whole house to a decent temperature. But I’m also, uh, fairly “well-padded,” and I have no aversion to wearing shoes, sweaters, and even a hat in the house.

What I couldn’t deal with is the summer heat in most of the country. When it gets hot here, I run a pair of late-model window A/Cs, one upstairs in my bedroom and the other downstairs in the kitchen (can’t afford central right now), on a fairly low setting. Then I draw the curtains and the light-blocking blinds and walk around in my undies.

“Move to a more temperate climate”? I’ve lived in New England my whole life. My family is around here, and a lot of my friends, too. I don’t understand the “just pick up and move” mentality. I guess a lot of Americans never grew roots. Not to mention that moving takes money.

As for “owning your own choices,” someone else nailed it upthread: So many of our choices are limited by the political realities of the modern United States. A lot of the smugness I see in this thread over people’s “choices” reminds me of wingnuts who claim they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps while they whinge about “welfare queens.” Both parties prefer to look at everything in terms of individual choices, rather than societal forces. Which is why I put “liberal” in sneer quotes in my previous comment.