Unless you have a parent in the household who isn't working, life gets pretty crappy without a car. The person who doesn't work spends half the day running errands that would take 45m in a car. If both parents work, You pay 2x for diapers at CVS vs Target, spend half your evening on the bus to pick up your kid from daycare and huff groceries home for dinner, etc.
In Sydney, we have always had daycare next to home or work, in San Francisco I put the kids in a bike trailer.
The number one thing that worries me about my 9 and 12 year old getting to and from school are the cars. The 12 year old could bike to school if it were not for cars. The 9 year old walks, as did the 12 year old before starting high school and catching the bus.
Cars can be handy for carrying stuff. On the other hand I like strollers as a shopping trolly that goes all the way home.
In my family the person who does not work does not drive at all...
And disposable diapers (nappies) are cheap delivered. And you can use re-usable ones with a service that comes to your house.
Your post here is pretty hilarious.
Note that the message you were responding to started off with this:
> Unless you have a parent in the household who isn't working, life gets pretty crappy without a car.
And your response contains this:
> In my family the person who does not work does not drive at all.
It's as if the person you respond to had already accounted for your response!
I can say that the best lifestyle is to have decent public transit and cycling infrastructure available, for example for commuting to work in a nuclear city on the weekdays to avoid traffic, in conjunction with 1 car for the family to use on weekends and evenings: grocery runs, errands, weekend getaways, etc. In a city with sensible roads and limited parking, not monstrous freeways and parking lots that dominate the landscape like in Texas, so I can have an efficient hatchback or crossover and not feel like I'm going to get killed. And it's much more affordable to have one car for a family that gets shared. Growing up in TX, when my sibling and I were both over 16, we had four cars (!) in our household, which is absurd.