I’m NOT a Minivan Mom

Imagine your neighbor just put in a beautiful, inground pool complete with a volleyball net, slide, diving board and beautiful landscaping. You admire the pool from afar and think it is very nice, but swimming is just not your thing. It’s the same for me with minivans.

Please know that I mean no disrespect to the minivan-loving-Mamas out there. I think minivans are really nice, and I have borrowed one on occasion from my brother and sister-in-law when we had to transport a group of people from point A to point B. Many people I know own them and sing their praises. It works great for them. They enjoy the comfort, the built-in electronics and likely the safety that they feel while in one.

But, they’re just not for me.

Why you ask? Well, I think it might have something to do with the size of the vehicle. All my life, I have driven smaller sedan-style cars, and it was what I was comfortable with until that fateful day my beloved Volkswagen Passat stopped working (user error, if I’m being honest). I was forced to make a decision on a new vehicle, one I wasn’t prepared to make.

At the time, I was literally stuck. I had gone on a road trip with my first child and my 9-year-old greyhound. Thankfully, I was near family who rescued me and gave me refuge (props to Uncle Jim and Aunt Kathy) but I was nowhere near home. You see, at the time, home was over 300 miles away. On this same day, my husband was working out of town even further away, so he hopped a flight the next morning, grabbed a rental car at the airport and met me at the car dealership.

On a chilly March afternoon, when I was asked what type of vehicle I was looking for, I froze. My husband had been angling for me to get a bigger car. We already had a 75lb dog, one human child and knew another was in the plan. He wanted us to be safe and he felt a bigger vehicle, higher off the ground, was the answer. I kind of agreed, but I refused the idea of a minivan. A past conversation a friend and I had began to replay in my head. I remembered the friend jokingly saying just after my wedding:

Well now that you are married, you’ll soon be driving a minivan.” I looked at him and said, “Nope. Not me.” 

So, when I was finally jarred back to reality, I replied, “Well, I really loved my Passat, but I think I might be up for something a tad bit bigger that is higher off the ground. BUT, NO MINIVANS.” My cousin, who was our salesperson, looked at me and said, “Are you sure?” He himself had a growing family and the same concerns about safety, so I knew he was coming from a good place. “Yes,” I said, “I’m sure. I will compromise with test driving a small to midsize SUV, but that is as far as I will go.”

And that was as far as we needed to go. The minute I sat in that midsize SUV, I knew it was the one for me. It had everything I was looking for and seven years later, it is still serving my family well.