After my wife and I learned that we would be giving our two boys twin siblings – words I still can’t type without my palms getting sweaty – we quickly became a two-car family: Alongside our trusty old 2009 Honda Accord, we now have a brand spanking new Honda Odyssey. It’s a veritable fleet; I’m basically Jay Leno.
And yes, we are living large.
Because when you have little kids and just one measly car, your options are limited. If Mom and Dad are both going somewhere, then we’re all piling in. Sorry, kids. Or if Mom and kid No. 1 are at a birthday party, then Dad and kid No. 2 are marooned at home. A one-car life is one of finitude and limitations.
Why We Wrote This
As the activities, obligations, and even kids and the cars to transport them stack up, our writer is reminded of a central truth: Sometimes less is more.
Well, goodbye to all that. In our new, glamorous two-car life, the world is our oyster: I can run to the grocery store while my wife takes the kids to the doctor; or my wife can shuttle the kids to the library while I pop on over to Home Depot to look at tiling, rub my chin thoughtfully a few times, and come no closer to making a final decision; or I can drive one boy to a birthday party at an indoor play space while she takes the other to a different birthday party at a different indoor play space.
It is thrilling.
But there’s a dark side to life in the fast lane. Having two cars is like having an iPhone on wheels: Because you can do more things, you naturally gravitate toward doing them. As a result, you pack the schedule. Rest and unstructured downtime, already scarce commodities in a young family, become scarcer.
Although the two-car life doesn’t necessarily cause the overschedulization and extra-extracurricularization of our lives (What comes first: the activities or the cars?), it definitely helps enable it.
Here in northern Virginia, where a typical grade schooler’s weekday starts with a 5 a.m. earnings call with Singapore, followed by school, debate club, travel soccer, homework, travel violin, a working dinner, weight training, and a Teams wrap-up with Seattle, we don’t really need more activities. (Yes, our kids deserve enriching activities. But there’s a line, and it doesn’t take truth serum to admit that we probably cross it more often than we’d like.)
Oh, deceitful two-car life! You promise a life of more options and, as the obligations stack up, deliver one with fewer of them.
Look, I don’t want to complain or sound ungrateful – I drive a Honda Odyssey LX in obsidian blue pearl. It’s got a moonroof.
And with twins, it’s not as if I would or could go back, anyway. Having two cars was a natural and necessary evolution for my family, as it is for many families. But the temptation to give in to hyperactivity is ever present.
What’s the antidote? Unless you up and move to a remote cabin in Maine, I’m afraid there is none.
But since becoming a two-car dad, I’ve discovered that limits can be liberating. When you know you can’t do everything, you have no obligation to try. You simply say no, and just like that, time and space open up in your day. But when you think you might be able to do everything, you press down on the gas hard … and end up frazzled or frustrated when the inevitable failure and burnout ensue.
Maybe you’ve caught me in a mawkish mood, pining for simpler times and searching for a scapegoat, but sometimes I miss those days when we were all crammed into the old Accord, little legs kicking the backs of our seats, everyone going everywhere together, simply because we had no other choice.
So, despite my recent admission to the two-car club, I’ll be doing my best to keep a one-car mentality.
