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On Car Seats as Contraception

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Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#101

Post by pwinnski »

fps wrote: post #18

There are plenty of narrow car seats that will fit 3 across in any car. I ran 3 Diono Radians in the back seat of a second gen Prius and there was plenty of space. Car seats and cars are the least expensive part of raising young children.

When I was in market 22 years ago, I'm not sure whether these existed, but if so, nobody at the several different retailers I talked to, nor the local fire department, knew about them. I'm glad to hear that at least one option exists today, although given the pride with which they market their seats, I'm not sure "plenty" is accurate?

Car seats are minor over the long haul, for sure, but they're often the first expense parents face. Especially, as is the focus of this article, parents of two children, who presumably already have many of the non-consumable items they need.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#102

Post by pwinnski »

whiddershins wrote: post #55
greesil wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's car seats that are affecting fertility, and definitely couldn't be the cost of raising a child. /s

You can provide a better quality of life than any child had 100 years ago, for very little money. So why exactly would money be the limiting factor?

I'm not sure anybody ever makes any decision on the basis of a century ago. It certainly never crosses my mind.

I think only: can I afford this? What will I need to give up to afford this? Is it worth it?

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#103

Post by DiggyJohnson »

strangattractor wrote: post #89
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so much vitriol in this statement. The declining birthrate is not as obviously a good thing as you make it out to be, and not everyone shares your cynicism on the state and fate of humanity. Comments like these don’t add much value, but sure do inject a lot of negativity into these discussions of family and society.

Binary thinking. The question is not whether there are downsides to a declining birthrate (there are) but whether there are even larger downsides to over population (pollution, resource depletion, destruction of other species). Musk's solution is simply find another planet to trash. You simply choose to fiddle as the Earth burns - literally.

No, I simply choose to treat the decisions of others that I disagree with a bit more respect and candor than you do. You are too comfortable with lecturing other individuals, and I doubt you’d communicate like this with a stranger in person.

Especially when the thing you’re criticizing is biologically hardwired result of two people that love one another and want to share a life together.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#104

Post by fps »

pwinnski wrote: post #101
fps wrote: post #18

There are plenty of narrow car seats that will fit 3 across in any car. I ran 3 Diono Radians in the back seat of a second gen Prius and there was plenty of space. Car seats and cars are the least expensive part of raising young children.

When I was in market 22 years ago, I'm not sure whether these existed, but if so, nobody at the several different retailers I talked to, nor the local fire department, knew about them. I'm glad to hear that at least one option exists today, although given the pride with which they market their seats, I'm not sure "plenty" is accurate? Car seats are minor over the long haul, for sure, but they're often the first expen…

We have google now, and lots and lots of parenting blogs. Googling "3 across car seats" shows that Britax, Chicco and Graco, the big 3 in car seats, all make several extra narrow car seats for packing kids in to smaller cars. Diono was the first to focus on narrow seats, but there's a whole aisle at most retailers for them.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#105

Post by fps »

pwinnski wrote: post #100
germinalphrase wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automakers could simple install three additional carseat anchors in the rear seats.

It's not an issue of lacking anchors, in my experience. It's that there doesn't exist (AFAIK) a car wide enough to accommodate three carseats side-by-side. Carseats are very wide.

The average slim carseat is 17" wide. Not just any car seat, but a slim one. It's a whole category of seats. That means 3 side-by-side car seats require 51" of rear hip and rear shoulder room, which is really very doable. In modern cars, your choices include a Subaru Impreza, a Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sentra, Ford Focus, BMW 3 series, Audi a4.. I could go on, but basically every manufacturer's smallest car.

Yes, you can't fit 3 of Graco's convertable car seat/stroller/play place/activity centers into a typical sedan, but if you plan ahead you can do it easily.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#106

Post by collegeburner »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #4
superchroma wrote: post #2

Quoted post unavailable.

Stop making something as wonderful as children into an -ist. While you may be correct that we have too many people, calling humans who want to or do reproduce--we are not unique in our biological needs to do just that--"natalists" is just a short hop to demonization or worse. Or have you already made that hop, perhaps?

its a way of legitimizing their position. they're trying to turn normal people into "ists" to make it seem like it's not the default position.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#107

Post by pwinnski »

fps wrote: post #105
pwinnski wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an issue of lacking anchors, in my experience. It's that there doesn't exist (AFAIK) a car wide enough to accommodate three carseats side-by-side. Carseats are very wide.

The average slim carseat is 17" wide. Not just any car seat, but a slim one. It's a whole category of seats. That means 3 side-by-side car seats require 51" of rear hip and rear shoulder room, which is really very doable. In modern cars, your choices include a Subaru Impreza, a Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sentra, Ford Focus, BMW 3 series, Audi a4.. I could go on, but basically every manufacturer's smallest car. Y…

Okay, this is a new category of product that didn't exist when I first shopped for carseats.

I suppose now the primary issue is that one might have to plan ahead and buy slim carseats from the beginning, since as I recall it, the process was: buy a baby seat, turn it around, then buy a bigger seat passing the baby seat down for the next one, turn that one around, then buy a second bigger seat, and... that's the point of issue unless one planned ahead--or plans to buy all-new seats.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#108

Post by D13Fd »

btilly wrote: post #63
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without even jumping into the detail of the study, for most toddlers under 3 year old with an average height, a three point seatbelt would have the chest strap crossing at neck height. Irrespective of statistics, common sense would dictate that using your neck region to restrain any human at multiple G's impact, is most definitely not a good idea.

Booster seats exist to solve exactly that problem, and are much more reasonable on their width. The problem comes when you have multiple small children that need an actual fixed car seat.

This is a really not that much of a problem unless you have a compact sedan. I have 4 kids. You can fit 3 car seats in the back/middle row of many cars. They make narrow seats for this purpose.

In my experience it’s harder to find a good narrow booster than a narrow five-point-harness car seat. The problem is that boosters don’t have their own belts and can block the seat belt path if seat spacing is tight.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#109

Post by D13Fd »

mguerville wrote: post #28
burlesona wrote: post #16

This resonates with me. It’s beyond tedious to get the kids in and out of the car seats all the time, and needing to buy a larger car to fit more than two kids gave me significant pause. We eventually decided to have more kids, and the positives far outweigh the negatives for us, but to this day the hassle of loading and unloading the car to go places is the single biggest negative experience of raising children. It…

With one single child I barely notice, but thinking about it it does probably take 2-3 minutes so your 5-10 minutes estimates is probably spot on for multiple kids. Living in a midwestern city and relying on street parking I do dread the loading/unloading in the winter, has there been any attempt at improving this product category on the speed of use dimension?

Mine were able to buckle themselves by at 2.5 or so. It’s not that hard. So even having 4 kids under 6, I rarely had to deal with buckling more than one at a time.

Plus IMO 30 seconds is a better estimate than 2-3 minutes unless they are fighting you or somewhere hard to reach. It’s one check buck and two leg buckles.

I will say that installing car seats is an absolute pain of a task.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#110

Post by D13Fd »

forty wrote: post #79
burlesona wrote: post #16

This resonates with me. It’s beyond tedious to get the kids in and out of the car seats all the time, and needing to buy a larger car to fit more than two kids gave me significant pause. We eventually decided to have more kids, and the positives far outweigh the negatives for us, but to this day the hassle of loading and unloading the car to go places is the single biggest negative experience of raising children. It…

I don't know how old your kids are, but mine are 3 & 5 and they can seat and buckle on their own, so that extra time doesn't last for too long at least (seats are mostly annoying when I need to transfer the seats to another car and then back to mine)

Agreed. I’m starting to think the people who are complaining don’t actually have multiple kids.
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