“Well, since I am as big a Soccer Mom as anyone, I think I need to chime in here. Yes, my mother didn’t have an SUV when she was taking care of us in the 1970s. She used to pack four or five of us kids in the back of her Ford Maverick. You know what? The car seat laws are much stricter now. And the car seats are much bigger. And the kids are required by law to sit in them until they are much older. There is no way you could fit even one of today’s car seats in my mother’s old Ford Maverick. I wouldn’t want to try. Kids are much safer in today’s cars, with today’s car seats, than they were when I was a kid. You say yesterday’s kids thrived? I’ll let you check on the car accident statistics, the survival rates, etc., and then you can get back to me on that.
In the meantime, I will continue to schlep my kids and my kids’ friends around in my Honda Oddysey minivan, with the three huge car seats inside.”
Let me know about the child car fatalities if anyone out there can. But why can’t we relax the car seat laws and size down the car seats? Jeez. Meanwhile, we’re financing Islamist terrorism and hurting the environment for the sake of … the kids. Groan. The nanny-state and the gas-guzzling state: about as good a description of Bush conservatism as any, I suppose.
P.S. Do I sound like I had a great vacation?
The Dish 