Why We Are Not a 1-Car Family

We both drive older cars (because we buy used cars for cash and drive them for a long time), and Patrick's Volvo is in the shop for two weeks while they order parts and fix an issue that sprung up. This follows a time when my Audi was in the shop for two weeks after what should have been a day-long issue, but they kept on forgetting things (yes, I am looking for a new car repair place). My shop had loaners, but Patrick's (a tiny, awesome place that specializes in Volvos) does not.

So we are juggling schedules and needs and let me tell you, it's a PITA.

If we always only had one car, Beatrix would probably have to take the city bus to school, which would entail either a walk and 3 buses or a walk, 2 buses, and another walk. She would need to leave the house by 6:00am, and let me tell you, her morning routine is long enough that means she would be up before 5:00. When she's up until midnight studying, I want her to get all the sleep she can.

It also means she would have to probably take 2 buses and long walk from school to circus in the afternoon, meaning she could not do school productions and have to drop all her earlier circus classes, which are some of her advanced move-up. And then, because one of us often has a night meeting, it would mean she would have to do another long walk to take 2 buses home late at night, which by my calculations gets her home around 10:30/11:00 and has her as a teen girl traveling alone at that time of night, and then keeping her up much later doing homework. Or, I suppose, she would have to drop circus altogether, after 14 years of classes and being part of the team.

If one of us worked at a job where we were at one place all day, it might also work — but we don't, and have not had that kind of job for....well, our whole careers. We can't get up, commute in by public transportation or bike, stay there all day, and then come home. Nor does an Uber/Lyft model work; I am at usually a minimum of four places during the day so we would be talking $300-500 a week in carfare; and that's disregarding my fundamental opposition to these services, their flawed labor model, and the fact that they increase congestion and carbon footprint by driving around waiting for fares. We would probably order more online rather than stopping into shops, which I am also conflicted on.

We can scrabble together solutions for short times like this, but it means that one of us is always taking the other one somewhere, which is  huge drain on our productivity for the day. What it's meant in this round is that one or the other of us has been giving up the time we try to dedicate to ourselves, for a quick walk or a moment with a book, in order to pitch in.

Now this is not all to say that a one-car or carless option is not a great — or often the best — choice for lots of people I know, including some of the people I am closest to. And I realize that us being a two-car family comes with a lot of privilege to be even able to get there.

But what I am saying is that everyone's situation is different, and we would be well-served to remember that before commenting on how something work for us and *should* work for someone else, without taking into account that their situation might have factors we might nor have considered.