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What happens if/when you have kids. I’ve seen many people biking around Amsterdam with their kids in protective bike high seats. But this is unheard of in many

What happens if/when you have kids. I’ve seen many people biking around Amsterdam with their kids in protective bike high seats. But this is unheard of in many US cities. Minivans are the usual solution. Would you teach them to take public transport or try to live within walking distance of everything? Obvs doesn’t apply if u don’t plan on it, but curious if anyone has found a solution in US cities.

asveikau 8y ago
I live in San Francisco and have kids. We walk a lot and my older one is a big fan of muni. I really dislike taking the car out.
- mc32 8y ago
  With MUNI and BART you always have to make sure you and whoever is with you wash their hands after you get off. They are constantly filthy and you never know who sat in the seat you're in before you, but knowing the kinds of people who hop on, you know the potential for pathogens is considerable. Of course, hygiene is important any place, but specially the city. Now, on the other hand, maybe it does strengthen your immunity... but it's also not fun getting sick cuz you forgot about washing after MUNI. Kids are prone to go from dirty surface to face without thinking. At least in Japan, while vomit in the late evenings is an issue, you know those systems get washed --not so for MUNI.
  - asveikau 8y ago
    I do stress hand washing and being careful and observant about what you touch but I do believe you are overstating the risk.
goodells 8y ago
Anecdotally, I am in Madison, WI and it would be feasible with kids in the right neighborhood here. Lots of bikes have little carriages for small children.
- DougN7 8y ago
  I doubt it’s feasible year round.
  - mkempe 8y ago
    It is in Boulder, Colorado. The bike paths are generally cleared of snow separately and before the roads.
    - analog31 8y ago
      Madison WI is that way too. I'm a year-round bike commuter here. Studded tires keep me shiny-side-up. But I'm torn about pushing winter cycling on people. I realize that if it's miserable for somebody, then they're not going to do it. I happen to love cycling and bikes, so the idea of riding during the winter just means more chances to ride under different conditions, and a chance to tinker with one more bike. In terms of ditching the car altogether, that's a toss up. For most families, to understand their commuting situation, you have to draw the triangle from the two parents jobs to school or day care, possibly different schools if they have more than one kid. For a while, my daily commute was a labyrinth involving dropping people off at different locations before turning the minivan around and heading for work. But today, everybody takes a bus or rides their bikes. Our high school has basically no student parking. Cars are part of our transportation mix, but we try to minimize their use. At one point it had been so long since I drove to work, that I forgot about a big construction project, and got lost.
  - zip1234 8y ago
    They also make bikes with wide tires now that perform admirably in snow. With the right gear, it's not too bad unless you are trying to ride through a foot of snow.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  I grew up in Rockford IL. Pretty sure you have an issue between September and May.
  - 8y ago
couchand 8y ago
I'm a parent to a one-and-a-half year old in New York City, and I grew up in a mid-sized midwestern city. I'm obviously biased, but I think we've got it much better off here. A block and a half away is one of the best playgrounds in the city, and three blocks the other direction is another fine playground. Both of them are packed with kids at all hours of the day. When we go visit family in the midwest, we make a point to take walks and visit the neighborhood playgrounds. We're almost always the only people there. Of course people have their yards so nobody needs the playground... I think something is lost. Walk a few blocks in any direction from our house and you'll see tons of wonderful daycares, family-friendly restaurants, and other parents' necessities, most of them locally owned and operated by another member of the community. We travel all around the city, we take the train. My son passes the time on the ride charming the other passengers and subway surfing. It's much more civilized than strapping him into a car seat and not looking at him for an hour every day. I'll grant you that New York City is something of an outlier as far as American cities go.
- eysquared 8y ago
  I live in Seattle with a 2 year old and one more on the way. I can't believe I ever considered leaving the city to have kids. I can walk to a coffee shop 3 blocks away without taking 15 minutes to strap my kid in a car seat and the amount of parks we have access to in a short walk in incredible. We take the bus to the zoo and aquarium and my son loves seeing all the people and looking out the window. Being out and about means I feel a real sense of community and have really gotten to know my neighbors. When we see our friends from the suburbs its amazing how cooped up they are, how unlikely they are to leave the house, and how unattached they feel from their surroundings. Its too easy for them to play in their basement or yard. Staying in the city has given me and my family a much higher quality of life.
  - ryanhuff 8y ago
    I suspect when your kids become older, your life will become more dictated by your kids activities that you don’t control as much. Sports practices and games, school, etc. These will be unlikely be centered around walking distance from home. And, then, I will welcome you back to the fold of parent indenturedness. :)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vkareh 8y ago
I live in the Midwest and have 3 young kids. We do have a minivan, but more and more we refuse to drive when we can almost as easily walk to parks, farmers market, library, museums, etc. Our oldest can easily walk for a few miles, and we have a stroller for the younger ones. After getting our weekly farmers market loot into the stroller, one of the younger ones walks part of the way, and the other one gets worn in a carrier. We do this year round: snow, rain, or sunshine.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
I drive with my toddler about once a month, to the pediatrician office or something. We live in downtown Bellevue, so we don’t need to drive to hit the park, mall, or grocery store
ef4 8y ago
It's precisely because I have kids that I prioritize a walkable place. Because kids can't drive! So in car-dependent places, they have no autonomy until they're nearly adults. I think it's much more healthy for them to slowly and steadily expand their autonomy, rather than a sudden discontinuous break when they learn to drive. The same argument applies in reverse to old people too. In places with good transit and walkability they can stay independent and active longer, with no sudden loss of freedom when they can no longer safely drive vehicles at high speed. Walking and transit are both overwhelmingly safer than cars (most things are). When kids are small you just push them in a stroller. Once they're too big for a stroller, they're big enough to walk everywhere that you can walk. It's really not that complicated. Suburban kids who never walk anywhere may whine about needing to walk two miles, but my kids have been doing that since before they could walk unassisted, it's perfectly normal to them. I do also have a Dutch-style cargo bike which we use a lot around our neighborhood. It's wonderful.
- dionidium 8y ago
  > It's precisely because I have kids that I prioritize a walkable place. Because kids can't drive! This point is tragically under-appreciated. Kids who live in car-dependent suburbs are in a very real sense alienated from the larger society. A twelve-year-old should be able to visit the library, stop by the park, grab a sandwich at a lunch counter, mail a letter, and wander back home all by themselves in an afternoon. It's no wonder so many kids feel isolated and alone. They are!
  - djrogers 8y ago
    I grew up in a suburb, and am raising my kids in a suburb, and all of that is completely doable. You don’t need a car to get around a suburb...
    - dionidium 8y ago
      "Suburb" is a pretty generic term. My hometown has older, inner-ring suburbs that are built more or less on a street grid, with local shops, connections to transit, and walkable corridors. It also has far-flung, residential-only, cul-de-sac communities where literally nothing is within safe walking distance. [0] We call both "suburbs," but they're very different places. [0] What would somebody who lives here walk to, for example: https://goo.gl/maps/nX5ttfsYJBq https://goo.gl/maps/nX5ttfsYJBq
davidw 8y ago
Here's how it worked out for me in Italy, with a 3 and a 6 year old: "the right tool for the job". In our immediate vicinity we had everything we needed, day to day: the kids' schools, a grocery store, cafes, a bakery, pizza shop, and a tram stop. All of this was walkable. The tram stop was what we'd use to go downtown. There is no parking there, and parking is a hassle, and the tram runs frequently, so it was an easy choice. Lastly, we also had a car, to go for a hike outside town, or go on a trip or something, but many weeks it would just sit there. Most American couples, even without kids, have two that get used all the time. We lived in a 6-unit building, without much yard, but would frequently go to the park with the kids. As the quote goes, "kids don't need a big yard to play, they need other kids". Back here in the US, they don't use our yard much, but miss having other kids to play with on a spur of the moment basis.
vladgiverts 8y ago
This is part of the reason I moved with my wife and two kids to The Netherlands. My girls were 5 and 8 at the time. Almost everyone here rides bikes here in a city of 350k (Utrecht). We don’t own a car and either ride our bikes or walk everywhere. If we’re going to another city we take the trains. My older daughter goes to school on here own bike 1 mike away and goes over to friends houses on her own. Decent used bikes here are 50-100eu and bike shops are in every little neighborhood. The city is amazingly quiet despite being notably more dense than San Francisco (where we’re from). All of us love the freedom of not dealing with cars and everything that implies. We could never move back to a “car culture” city again.
- tjr225 8y ago
  I love the USA, but I hate the car culture. The two really do seem inextricable.
jacobolus 8y ago
I have a 2-year-old in San Francisco. We walk or take transit everywhere. (I also don’t use a stroller, so the kid is either walking for himself or riding on my shoulders, or occasionally riding in a wagon to the grocery store 2 blocks away.) My wife bikes to work. We have a car but it is mostly only used for trips to Costco and road trips; we could certainly get by with occasional rentals/taxis, but the car is occasionally convenient. At some point in the nearish future I will probably put some kind of kid seat on the back of my bike.
yosito 8y ago
Personally don't plan on having kids. And if I did, hopefully won't be raising them in the US.

asveikau 8y ago

I live in San Francisco and have kids. We walk a lot and my older one is a big fan of muni. I really dislike taking the car out.

mc32 8y ago
With MUNI and BART you always have to make sure you and whoever is with you wash their hands after you get off. They are constantly filthy and you never know who sat in the seat you're in before you, but knowing the kinds of people who hop on, you know the potential for pathogens is considerable. Of course, hygiene is important any place, but specially the city. Now, on the other hand, maybe it does strengthen your immunity... but it's also not fun getting sick cuz you forgot about washing after MUNI. Kids are prone to go from dirty surface to face without thinking. At least in Japan, while vomit in the late evenings is an issue, you know those systems get washed --not so for MUNI.
- asveikau 8y ago
  I do stress hand washing and being careful and observant about what you touch but I do believe you are overstating the risk.

goodells 8y ago

Anecdotally, I am in Madison, WI and it would be feasible with kids in the right neighborhood here. Lots of bikes have little carriages for small children.

DougN7 8y ago
I doubt it’s feasible year round.
- mkempe 8y ago
  It is in Boulder, Colorado. The bike paths are generally cleared of snow separately and before the roads.
  - analog31 8y ago
    Madison WI is that way too. I'm a year-round bike commuter here. Studded tires keep me shiny-side-up. But I'm torn about pushing winter cycling on people. I realize that if it's miserable for somebody, then they're not going to do it. I happen to love cycling and bikes, so the idea of riding during the winter just means more chances to ride under different conditions, and a chance to tinker with one more bike. In terms of ditching the car altogether, that's a toss up. For most families, to understand their commuting situation, you have to draw the triangle from the two parents jobs to school or day care, possibly different schools if they have more than one kid. For a while, my daily commute was a labyrinth involving dropping people off at different locations before turning the minivan around and heading for work. But today, everybody takes a bus or rides their bikes. Our high school has basically no student parking. Cars are part of our transportation mix, but we try to minimize their use. At one point it had been so long since I drove to work, that I forgot about a big construction project, and got lost.
- zip1234 8y ago
  They also make bikes with wide tires now that perform admirably in snow. With the right gear, it's not too bad unless you are trying to ride through a foot of snow.
EpicEng 8y ago
I grew up in Rockford IL. Pretty sure you have an issue between September and May.
- 8y ago

couchand 8y ago

I'm a parent to a one-and-a-half year old in New York City, and I grew up in a mid-sized midwestern city. I'm obviously biased, but I think we've got it much better off here. A block and a half away is one of the best playgrounds in the city, and three blocks the other direction is another fine playground. Both of them are packed with kids at all hours of the day. When we go visit family in the midwest, we make a point to take walks and visit the neighborhood playgrounds. We're almost always the only people there. Of course people have their yards so nobody needs the playground... I think something is lost. Walk a few blocks in any direction from our house and you'll see tons of wonderful daycares, family-friendly restaurants, and other parents' necessities, most of them locally owned and operated by another member of the community. We travel all around the city, we take the train. My son passes the time on the ride charming the other passengers and subway surfing. It's much more civilized than strapping him into a car seat and not looking at him for an hour every day. I'll grant you that New York City is something of an outlier as far as American cities go.

eysquared 8y ago
I live in Seattle with a 2 year old and one more on the way. I can't believe I ever considered leaving the city to have kids. I can walk to a coffee shop 3 blocks away without taking 15 minutes to strap my kid in a car seat and the amount of parks we have access to in a short walk in incredible. We take the bus to the zoo and aquarium and my son loves seeing all the people and looking out the window. Being out and about means I feel a real sense of community and have really gotten to know my neighbors. When we see our friends from the suburbs its amazing how cooped up they are, how unlikely they are to leave the house, and how unattached they feel from their surroundings. Its too easy for them to play in their basement or yard. Staying in the city has given me and my family a much higher quality of life.
- ryanhuff 8y ago
  I suspect when your kids become older, your life will become more dictated by your kids activities that you don’t control as much. Sports practices and games, school, etc. These will be unlikely be centered around walking distance from home. And, then, I will welcome you back to the fold of parent indenturedness. :)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

vkareh 8y ago

I live in the Midwest and have 3 young kids. We do have a minivan, but more and more we refuse to drive when we can almost as easily walk to parks, farmers market, library, museums, etc. Our oldest can easily walk for a few miles, and we have a stroller for the younger ones. After getting our weekly farmers market loot into the stroller, one of the younger ones walks part of the way, and the other one gets worn in a carrier. We do this year round: snow, rain, or sunshine.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

I drive with my toddler about once a month, to the pediatrician office or something. We live in downtown Bellevue, so we don’t need to drive to hit the park, mall, or grocery store

ef4 8y ago

It's precisely because I have kids that I prioritize a walkable place. Because kids can't drive! So in car-dependent places, they have no autonomy until they're nearly adults. I think it's much more healthy for them to slowly and steadily expand their autonomy, rather than a sudden discontinuous break when they learn to drive. The same argument applies in reverse to old people too. In places with good transit and walkability they can stay independent and active longer, with no sudden loss of freedom when they can no longer safely drive vehicles at high speed. Walking and transit are both overwhelmingly safer than cars (most things are). When kids are small you just push them in a stroller. Once they're too big for a stroller, they're big enough to walk everywhere that you can walk. It's really not that complicated. Suburban kids who never walk anywhere may whine about needing to walk two miles, but my kids have been doing that since before they could walk unassisted, it's perfectly normal to them. I do also have a Dutch-style cargo bike which we use a lot around our neighborhood. It's wonderful.

dionidium 8y ago
> It's precisely because I have kids that I prioritize a walkable place. Because kids can't drive! This point is tragically under-appreciated. Kids who live in car-dependent suburbs are in a very real sense alienated from the larger society. A twelve-year-old should be able to visit the library, stop by the park, grab a sandwich at a lunch counter, mail a letter, and wander back home all by themselves in an afternoon. It's no wonder so many kids feel isolated and alone. They are!
- djrogers 8y ago
  I grew up in a suburb, and am raising my kids in a suburb, and all of that is completely doable. You don’t need a car to get around a suburb...
  - dionidium 8y ago
    "Suburb" is a pretty generic term. My hometown has older, inner-ring suburbs that are built more or less on a street grid, with local shops, connections to transit, and walkable corridors. It also has far-flung, residential-only, cul-de-sac communities where literally nothing is within safe walking distance. [0] We call both "suburbs," but they're very different places. [0] What would somebody who lives here walk to, for example: https://goo.gl/maps/nX5ttfsYJBq https://goo.gl/maps/nX5ttfsYJBq

davidw 8y ago

Here's how it worked out for me in Italy, with a 3 and a 6 year old: "the right tool for the job". In our immediate vicinity we had everything we needed, day to day: the kids' schools, a grocery store, cafes, a bakery, pizza shop, and a tram stop. All of this was walkable. The tram stop was what we'd use to go downtown. There is no parking there, and parking is a hassle, and the tram runs frequently, so it was an easy choice. Lastly, we also had a car, to go for a hike outside town, or go on a trip or something, but many weeks it would just sit there. Most American couples, even without kids, have two that get used all the time. We lived in a 6-unit building, without much yard, but would frequently go to the park with the kids. As the quote goes, "kids don't need a big yard to play, they need other kids". Back here in the US, they don't use our yard much, but miss having other kids to play with on a spur of the moment basis.

vladgiverts 8y ago

This is part of the reason I moved with my wife and two kids to The Netherlands. My girls were 5 and 8 at the time. Almost everyone here rides bikes here in a city of 350k (Utrecht). We don’t own a car and either ride our bikes or walk everywhere. If we’re going to another city we take the trains. My older daughter goes to school on here own bike 1 mike away and goes over to friends houses on her own. Decent used bikes here are 50-100eu and bike shops are in every little neighborhood. The city is amazingly quiet despite being notably more dense than San Francisco (where we’re from). All of us love the freedom of not dealing with cars and everything that implies. We could never move back to a “car culture” city again.

tjr225 8y ago
I love the USA, but I hate the car culture. The two really do seem inextricable.

jacobolus 8y ago

I have a 2-year-old in San Francisco. We walk or take transit everywhere. (I also don’t use a stroller, so the kid is either walking for himself or riding on my shoulders, or occasionally riding in a wagon to the grocery store 2 blocks away.) My wife bikes to work. We have a car but it is mostly only used for trips to Costco and road trips; we could certainly get by with occasional rentals/taxis, but the car is occasionally convenient. At some point in the nearish future I will probably put some kind of kid seat on the back of my bike.

yosito 8y ago

Personally don't plan on having kids. And if I did, hopefully won't be raising them in the US.