In my three and a half years of being a mom, I’ve said the Mean Girls quote, “I’m not, like, a regular mom; I’m a cool mom,” more than once. I think most of us want to be that “cool mom,” so after having our second daughter, when my husband said, “So, should we get a minivan?” I imagined myself driving one and checked my “cool mom” status at the door.
Currently, the idea of buying a minivan versus a Chevy Tahoe is like choosing between eating a salad and a piece of pizza. I want the pizza, but I know I should probably eat the salad.
Where did the lame minivan/soccer mom stigma come from?
I should be saying, “Here, take my money,” to anything that makes my life easier. Minivans are the portrait of practical. Some even come with a built-in vacuum. If your kids live for car snacks like mine, then the number of crumbs settled on the backseat’s floor borders on offensive. That vacuum would come in handy, yet I still think of minivans as automatically stripping their drivers of their “cool mom” status and moving them into the “boring soccer mom” category.
Why in my 30s, with two kids and a husband, do I care about looking “lame?”
My days of cute purses are on pause so I can wear my easy-to-wipe-down, full-of-pockets backpack that’s hiked up high on my back so I can run after my toddler. My shoes are obviously Nikes for all that running, while my infant is bouncing around on my chest in her Ergo 360 carrier. My life is basically an ad for a minivan, already: practicality meets comfort. Minivan time!
There is a part of me resisting the complete transformation into a “mom.”
All moms face an identity crisis at some point. In my mind, driving a Tahoe will protect the “cool” part of my image. It’s something my husband thinks is completely weird – it’s just a car, after all, but it represents more than that for me.
My girls have become my life, and I would not change it for the world, but I’ve finally realized it’s not selfish to have a little something just for me (cue my mom guilt, which could be a whole other post). Writing for this website has become my “thing,” but could driving a Tahoe instead of the minivan help, too? It’s too soon to tell, but the discussion on whether to pull the trigger on the minivan is looming.
Let’s be honest, in a few years, with how fast technology is changing, I could be driving a spaceship. My car-dancing to country music will probably embarrass my girls no matter what I’m driving, and losing my “cool mom” status will not have anything to do with the car.
