Oh no, we are those people now…
My husband, Paul has been begging me for years, since we found out we were pregnant with Lincoln, to get a minivan. I wanted to be the SUV mom, not the van mom.
SUV moms are tough and badass. Van moms… Van moms are… Well, as it turns out, all moms are tough and badass. Why is there such an aversion to minivans?
I think we moms get stuck in a “type”. I want to be the kind of mom that doesn’t yell, that runs every morning, that doesn’t allow sugar in the house. We think we have it figured out. We read all the books, the blog posts, the research, how to be the perfect mom.
Then, you’re a few years in and you pause to look around. The kids haven’t bathed in a few days (you hope its only been a few days but if you’re being honest you can’t actually remember), sometimes they refuse to wear pants (who doesn’t hike in their underwear?), there are days that we have popsicles for breakfast (I guess it is fruit juice). And you realize that all moms are tough and badass!
So, after my own little epiphany and we sold everything we owned to live a life of freedom, I let Paul talk me into buying a 2019 Honda Odyssey. And damnit, it’s freaking AWESOME!!!
I sent out the text to my friends and family… “Oh no, we are those people now”, along with a beaming picture of Paul and Sydney. And of course, I was met with outpouring love and support.
But my favorite part about this whole experience was when the dealer wanted to charge me $200 to plant 45 trees as a carbon emission offset.
“I’m a regenerative farmer, I don’t need that” I said. I’m pretty sure that he no idea what I meant but being in the middle of price negotiation I wasn’t exactly ready to get off on a tangent about how cows are actually good for carbon emission by sequestering carbon and how moving them everyday is a benefit to the cow, the grass, the farmer, and the ozone.
I really wanted to tell him that if he was that concerned about our carbon emission offsets that he should buy local food, maybe even grow his own food. That he should stop buying one use plastics and eat home cooked meals. That the protein shake I saw him down when we walked in could be “offset” with a nice, thick, nutrient dense, deep red beef steak. Or a quality pasture raised, deliciously fat, pork chop.
Instead of saying all of that to the used car salesman, I’m saying it here, to you. If you want to pay $200 to plant 45 trees in some unknown location (he literally said “I have no idea where they are planted”), then please do so! I am all for planting new trees! But please know that you do not have to give $200 to a used car salesman. You can give $200 to your local farmer where they in turn give you something of much higher quality; a good meal to share with your family.
In any event, I’ll go back to seeing cows on pasture with this amazing minivan.
Love, Livv
