Re: [pf] Moms and cars

by Sharon Flesher

15 December 2000 23:20 UTC

I also saw this today on the carfree list. (Subscribe:
CarFree-subscribe@onelist.com if you're interested). One of the list
members, unsympathetic to the "soccer mom as victim" angle, responded with
the following:

<See http://www.roadkillbill.com/r3.html for another
perspective.

<According to studies in England, the most common cause of
death among children walking to school (over 40%) is being
hit by a car driven by someone taking another child to
school.

<According to the New York Times, pollution levels ten times
those measured in the air along a roadway have been measured
inside automobiles using the same roadway.  Perhaps we
should file a class action suit on behalf of soccer mom
offspring everywhere for child abuse.>

I'm personally more sympathetic than this to the "soccer moms", mostly
because I believe most of them have never considered the possibility of an
alternative. And even if they did, like this AlterNet article stated,
walkable communities are increasingly domains of the affluent (although many
"soccer moms" in their SUVs could afford this option).

As I dropped off Leah at preschool Tuesday, one of the SUV moms commented,
"You must live close by to be able to walk to school." I responded that we
lived about a mile away. She was astonished: "Your daughter can walk that
far?!" Yes, although when the streets aren't covered with snow and sand, I
usually pull her in the bike trailer; in bad weather we come part of the way
by bus. The SUV mom said her daughter, who is slightly older and bigger than
Leah, will not even walk from the parking lot to the school -- she has to be
carried. The mom wondered if perhaps her leg muscles were not adequately
developed. I *wanted* to respond that children can't develop muscles they
never have an opportunity to use, but I'm so d*mn civil. Sometimes I wonder
if I should just challenge people a little more, even at the risk of
offending them.

Sharon Flesher
CarSharing Traverse, Inc.
Traverse City, Mich.
sflesher@traverse.net

"Be the change you wish to see." M.K. Gandhi


----- Original Message -----
From: Fitzsimmons, Diane <dcfitzsimmons@ou.edu>
To: <positive-futures@igc.topica.com>
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2000 5:02 PM
Subject: [pf] Moms and cars


> Received through another list.  The full column is at
> http://www.alternet.org/beta/print.html?StoryID=10224
>
>
> Sprawl: Soccer Moms' Public Enemy #1
> Linda Baker, AlterNet
> December 14, 2000
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I hate to drive. I'm also the mother of two young children, ages three and
> five. A few years ago, if you'd asked me what the former had to do with
the
> latter, I'd probably have responded, grumpily, that I wasn't looking
forward
> to shuttling my kids to music lessons,            soccer practice and
> friends' houses five days a week. Only recently have I realized how
> inextricably connected driving and motherhood really are. And in the
> process, something personal -- chauffeuring my kids around town -- has
> become something political:           understanding the deleterious
effects
> of an automobile centered society on women, children and the institutions
> that sustain them.
>
> According to a study released last year by the Washington D.C.-based
Surface
> Transportation Policy Project (STPP), spread out development caused
mothers
> with school aged children to spend more than an hour a day driving.
Whether
> they work or not,           women with kids now make as many as five car
> trips a day, 20 percent more than the average for all women and 21 percent
> more than the average man.