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> You can Uber/Lyft whenever it’s too difficult to walk. Not with kids you can't, because then you need car seats. Things like the Ride Safer Vests help a bit
by bzbarsky 10y ago
> You can Uber/Lyft whenever it’s too difficult to walk.
Not with kids you can't, because then you need car seats. Things like the Ride Safer Vests help a bit, but now you're having to lug those around. And if your kids are small enough, they must be in a rear-facing seat no matter what.
In practice, this means that for a family with more than one child there's a multi-year period when Uber/Lyft/taxis are basically non-viable. With one child, you may be able to limit this period to a year or two (e.g. in California the rear-facing seat requirement goes up through age 2).
- TheCoelacanth 10y agoEven if you have one car for a family that size, that's still less than a typical middle-class American family that would have one for each adult.
- bzbarsky 10y agoWhile true, it's also not uncommon for one parent to take the kids somewhere and the other to pick them up. It may be possible to do that with one car or it may not depending on geography and where the adults need to be before/after having the kids in the car. Simple concrete example that is quite common: one parent takes the toddler to daycare and then heads to work and works later than the other parent. The other parent starts work earlier and picks up the toddler on the way home from work. This can work with one car if their jobs are located close enough that they can switch which one has the car. But if not, this is really hard to do without two cars.