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Comment by drtillberg | Hacker News Reader

For families with 3 children, the child car seat requirement generally pushes them into a minivan because you can't install car seats 3 to a row, so you need an extra row. And then you still max out at 1 friend instead of 3, because even a minivan won't seat more than 4 child car seats.

It's also not magic getting your children into a car seat. It takes time, the angles are awkward, and when parked on a busy road it often exposes parents to traffic. I've only heard of 1 fatal accident through where a parent was struck by a car (sideswiped) while fiddling with a car seat.

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I have 3 children and a minivan. We bought the minivan not strictly because 3 carseats won't fit across the 2nd row of most reasonably large cars (there's a niche market for narrow carseats, see Diono brand) but because:

  1. with 3 kids we have to transport a whole lot of stuff when we travel and minivans have more weatherproof storage space than most other vehicles
  2. a minivan is super functional for transporting things which aren't humans (it's effectively an 8 foot covered bed pickup with the rear seats removed). I brought a twin sized box spring home from the store inside the van *WITH* 2 kids in the middle row this past weekend, try that in most SUVs.
  3. the sliding doors are SOOOO much nicer to use in tight parking spots for loading/unloading
  4. minivans get as good or better fuel economy as compared to larger SUVs
  5. minivans cost less than many SUVs to own and operate

I have a crazy theory that car sizes (and prices) are what are limiting the number of children people have.

It would be ridiculous to try to transport a five child family these days.

The USA is economically oppressive to larger families in many ways like this.

I would go with lack of parental leave, decreasing income security, stagnating wages, student loan debt, enormous healthcare expenses, and need for dual income households as well as being in school for longer periods of time to secure good jobs over car sizes and prices.

Not to mention minivans exist and aren’t that expensive compared to cars.

Well you can buy a suburban and an eight passenger minivan.. they do still sell 15 passenger vans as well....

I often do three car seats in a row across the back of midsized cars like the Toyota Corolla. It's very tight, but it works.

(You do need relatively compact seats; I'm using the cheapest Walmart seat)

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