Freshly minted father David Tracy has realized that one day, he’ll likely need to carry his baby in his dream BMW i3. Give a kid enough time, and they’ll make your car look like a fast food, vomit, and candy bomb went off, sending disgusting stuff into every nook and cranny.
How do you become a parent and keep a nice car looking good? David plans on using huge seat covers, floor mats, and PPF to reduce the chances of damage. Our readers have great advice. Electric Truckaloo (formerly Stig’s Chamorro Cousin):
As the owner/operator of 2 of these things (children – I only have 1 i3), please allow me to give you unsolicited car-related parenting tips:
1) Always have the kid on the passenger side in the rear. Assuming most of your trips with da baby will be with one parent, this will dramatically limit the number of seatback kicks you will experience. Just push the pass. seat all the way forwards.
2) Goo is the enemy. Children are wonderful and awesome and filthy and sticky and disgusting. They eventually grow out of it, to an extent. Protect the seats, even though the leather will help. We have a no-sticky-food rule. But vomiting will happen.
2.5) So much vomiting. Oh my god.
3) Never leave a used diaper in the car “because you’ll get it out later”. Ever. This should be self-explanatory. But if not, I … will not explain further.
4) Honestly the biggest issue we’ve had in the i3 is people tossing “stuff” onto the countertop in front of the center display, which is made of very shatterable glass. So don’t throw stuff up there, which you will feel compelled to do because you will be tired, the baby will be vomiting, your partner will be wondering where the hell you are, and you are tired. Also, you’ll be tired.
Ostronomer:
My experience was that the kids=destruction is overblown, BUT just like modern cars, it’s a good idea to consider your emissions:
– Rear-facing child seats are effective at containing backfires.
– Even unexpected emission from the intake can be contained with the addition of fuzzy/fluffy outwear.
– Regardless of the condition of your catalytic converter you may notice odd smells from time to time. – Rolling down the window is an effective fix until you can find a safe place to pull over.
– Noise was the worst emission. Wish someone would invent a muffler for that.
– Pay attention to fuel: Cheerios in Snack-Traps and water in sippy cups kept things running smooth.
– Detailing services can fix almost anything, like the time this high-octane drink from Starbucks soaked into the seat fabric. I thought I’d have to sell the car, but a couple hundred bucks later it was fine!!
Others couldn’t help themselves. StillNotATony:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
DT thinks he can protect anything he owns from a child bent on destruction. (Wipes eyes from tears of laughter and a little from the memories of the havoc my four kids wrought)
You sweet summer child…
Permanentwaif:
Haha. It’s ok new dad we all go through this. What are those five stages of grief again? It starts with denial and ends with a clapped out but still awesome vomit and shit coated mad max ride.
Richard Clayton:
In a job interview, I was once asked, “Are you a perfectionist?”. I answered, “No, but I used to be.” “Why did you change?” “I had children.”
Finally, Matt reported that Subaru might be slowing down its EV plans. Fasterlivingmagazine knows why:
“Economic uncertainty” is just Subaru’s way of saying that they can’t figure out how to get electric motors to blow head gaskets yet.
Have a great evening, everyone!
Top Photo: David Tracy
The only answer to keeping your car clean from kids, keep them in your wife’s car. If you must drive them in your car, you must obtain an additional vehicle in the form of a POS beater that you DGAF about. Don’t worry about having this extra beater, in time, it will become the car that your teenagers will learn to drive in and destroy. I speak from experience.
Just wanted to comment on the kids and cars issue:
Teach them early that cars are treasured investments that should be taken care of.
We always shook our heads with wander when we witnessed others kids using cars as Jungle Jims. My kids knew our cars were special from watching us take care of them.
Yay, a COTD! I’m going to eat a cupcake in celebration and then wipe my seats with the leftover icing.
what David really needs, is a nice used minivan.. practical, inexpensive, and the kid(s) can kick the snot into it all day with no heartburn for Dad..
I believe there’s a well-used Dodge Caravan in Germany. Whether it’s up for sale is unknown.
Honestly, just get a cargo bike.
No matter how filthy the kids are, you can always hose down a bicycle. This keeps the car clean.
Also, turn the kids upside down before installing them in the car. This will empty their pockets from everything they haver put there such as sandbox sand, small animals, chocolats, …
Good stuff!
Richard Clayton, you’re hired. Welcome to the team. LOL
Agreed. Perfect take on parenthood.
there’s that old joke..
1) Happy kids
2) Clean house/car
3) Sanity
pick two…
🙂
I’d be happy just to have one of those sometimes.
Buy a wrecked i3’s interior and replace yours with it whilst das kinder is a wrecking ball. Store the original ‘black gold’ interior for when the child starts to conform.
Step 1: Don’t have kids
Step 2: Have even nicer cars with the extra windfall that the non-existent kids also can’t ruin.
Ding, ding, ding – we have a winner!
Being the “fun uncle” with the cool cars is waaaay better. Wind the little darling up and give it BACK to it’s parents to deal with. I made it my mission in life to get my nephew as hyper as possible before giving him back to my brother. Payback can be fun!
I would not have five cars and summer and winter homes on a relatively modest salary if I had dropped a million per on a raising a couple of kids. As I told a coworker when he marveled that I could afford having new cars only two years apart at the same time – “my BMW cost ONE year at a private college, and my Abarth cost ONE year at a state college”. He had three girls who were all going to overlap in college…
But if you must – my parents NEVER let us eat or drink in the car. And being Gen-X, my brother an I were rarely in the car as small children to start with.
I just realised, Delmar’s ‘fun uncle’ will be Jason. Imagine how excited the kid will be every time they get to hang out with weird uncle Torch 🙂
The Changli is the PERFECT kid toy car!
I’m older than Torch, and I’d still love to have him as my fun uncle.
Good advice for avoiding babysitting recruitment is to teach the children something exciting.
Blacksmithing, rocketry, pyrotechnics, trebuchet construction on a budget, racing, rappelling.
A fun creative time!
Pro tip: a tabletop trebuchet quite capable of bombarding the dog with frozen peas can be easily constructed from corrugated cardboard, a take-out chopstick, a paper clip, yarn or thread, and a scrap of fabric. I think I taped a coupe nickels to the end as counterweight.
wasabi peas fly better than frozen for some reason—but the dog will not appreciate them.
Trebuchets on wheels are in use for inner city warfare.
I always thought they would be effective for that.
My experience with the little 12” arm wooden trebuchet on wheels kit is that you’re gonna want to chock those wheels >really< well.
Just flinging marbles had mine jolting back&forth—and that diminished the distance the ammo would go.
Wanted to make the 6’ arm pvc golf/tennis ball one as I figured I could secure it to the roof rack of my Subaru GL wagon. Never did because I got enough attention from the authorities as was. Taking that up on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the early 2000s probably would have resulted in terrorism charges anyway.
They researched trebuchets and if you get the geometry right, they transfer more power to the projectile rolling back and forth.
There are both setups on videos using them for actual combat.
I don’t know if weight of the rig is a factor though.
The steel ones in Syria are often very light.
Some can toss artillery though.
Huh. Well, I obviously have some catching up to do: I built that kit likely a decade before the war in Syria started.
There have always been medieval fans.
The Romero film Knightriders came out of that.
I’ve seen a wooden trebuchet built on a suspension, with a trailer hitch.
My reaction was Why didn’t I think of that?
There’s a PBS docko on the science of rolling trebuchets vs fixed.
I think you’ll love the modern trebuchet videos.
I’ve seen them built as small car trailers!
I like the cut of your jib!
It’s an accurate take… but I wouldn’t trade my kids for all the vacation houses and cars in the world.
Ok… maybe for a Synchro Westfalia Vanagon with a Subaru conversion.
And an extra set of head gaskets.
I have a bad feeling my brother would be that type of uncle if I ever had kids. The fun uncle who would give them one of every Red 40 food item he could find.
It really was excellent payback – my brother is nine years younger than I am, and was the absolute scourge of my teen years – a comprehensively destructive little asshole at the best of times. He hasn’t really improved with age either. Thankfully the kid is not like him at all. Said kid is now 26 – I try not to think about how old that makes me.
I so loved the “I used to be a perfectionist joke!”
I already had a no messy food in the car rule as an adult, and no food in general unless it can be avoided, so extending that rule to children was easy.
The amount of rubbish, dirt and sand the car accumulates is somewhat bothersome, but probably more so because my partner seems immune to it being in the car.
David is gonna fucking enjoy being buzzed by a motorcycle while his kid’s napping, I just know it.
And it’s gonna be Mercedes on the bike.
Mid Boomer-era person here. When I was a kid, nobody’s cars had food, etc, all over the back seat. There were no drive throughs and the once or twice a year we ate at a place like A&W we weren’t allowed to make a mess. We didn’t have ready snacks or water on hand if the car; we had to wait to get home and meal time. There was no such thing as a water bottle, though I did have a canteen for Boy Scout camping. Heck, we would have been laughed out of school if we had a backpack.
Our parents weren’t afraid that we’d starve in the car and, by golly, we didn’t.
Earlyish Gen-X child of Boomers here – this. Very much this. I do not understand modern parenting at all. Modern families seem to be communes, with everybody getting a say, and everyone’s every whim and feeling taken into consideration. Back then families were the military, and the command structure was not to be trifled with.
And yet, trifle we did! Oh, did we trifle!
My brother certainly did. I did not. Beatings had no affect on that kid, at all. I was made of more tender stuff – and I am a lot smarter too. No brain, no pain is true I guess?
When were there not drive throughs?
Believe it or not, drive throughs are fairly new. They existed in the ’70’s, but were a novelty for the most part.
Did you know that most fast food joints didn’t accept credit cards until the mid-90’s? Did you know that well into the ’80s, women couldn’t get credit without the approval of her father/husband? Try being a divorced mother of 2 in the ’70s and no landlord would let you sign a lease.
The good ol’ day weren’t always good.
I don’t know how many, but there were places in Memphis catering to eating in cars very far back.
A favorite was the Jungle as it apparently had lots of greenery.
Everyone I’ve ever known that talks about those days mentions that one.
1940s, maybe earlier.
I never tried to use a credit card most places, but when a burger and shake didn’t cost $25, I would have felt stupid using a card anyway.
I can’t remember the last time I went to any fast food places.
Bad food, bad prices. Can’t wait.
As for landlords, they’re still nuts.
I had friends, double income, knew they would move so specifically did not want to buy, then hassle with selling it.
They were turned down by everyone.
One guy wanted 10 years of medical records.
Told their income was too low.
So they bought a house with cash.
Drive-Ins – Where a carhop came to your car, took your order and brought a tray of food – drinks were served in glasses and mugs (A&W Frosty Rootbeer mugs!) – that clipped to your car door/window – which was then removed when you paid. These existed since the 20’s/30s – and grew in popularity to their height in the 50’s/60’s.
Drive-Thru – Where you place your order from your car to a voice in a speaker, then you drive up to the window where you paid, were given your food – drinks were in single-use paper cups – and you drove away. These came into wide use in the late 70’s into the 80s.
Rather different things.
I wasn’t there for the early stuff, so can’t say how the food thing worked.
Drive-ins in Memphis still get most of their business from people that get their food and drive off.
They get paid the same either way.
Never really thought about it, but Krystal may be the oldest modern type drive thru that is still operating there.
White Castle some places.
Went there with Sheryl Crowe once.
She was offered any place in town to eat.
She wanted White Castle.
“One guy wanted 10 years of medical records.”
I don’t think that one’s even legal, but few prospective tenants would call them on it.
It’s very illegal and bizarre.
If over qualified renters get treated that way, imagine what it’s like for the average person!
With our first kid someone gave us those rubber and vinyl seat covers designed to go under car seats. It was an absolute lifesaver and I bought more as I had more kids. They caught so much food, puke, boogers, and other stuff I don’t want to mention all with the convenience of being removed and hosed off and keeping the seats clean underneath. I finally threw them away a few months ago, but only because my tween kids refuse to sit on them sans car seats (they absolutely still need them, though, the filthy little gremlins).
Also, the used diaper thing is absolutely on-point. I made that mistake once and only once, and the memory of it still makes me want to vomit over a decade later.
I’m probably 15-20 years older than you? My kid, er son is now 30 and married. He and his wife are expecting (their first).
Did they still have the Diaper Genie when you were dealing with that at home? We ended up feeling it was the best gift received at the baby shower. Man, I hope they still have it now for my son and DIL’s sake!
I read through the comments pretty early PST when there were already ~100 and I was still groggy. So, I’m not sure what the used diaper thing is referring to. But it sounds disturbing.
They’re referring to leaving a dirty diaper in the car for a day.
Unfortunately, you’re probably only a little older than me, as I had kids later in life and your son is just a tad older than my nieces and nephews. Diaper Genie was a thing and we were gifted one and enjoyed it, but it stayed at the house and wasn’t much help when we were out and about. As IRegertNothing, Esq. notes, forgetting a dirty diaper in a hot car is the topic of discussion (and a mistake one never forgets).
OMG… that was a mistake we never made.
A mobile Diaper Genie is maybe something we should patent.
I don’t understand how folks’ kids vomit so much. I can count on one hand how many times my daughter vomited and she’s nearly 6.
That being said, your interior WILL get covered in snack foods.
I also put a towel under all my child seats to protect the leather seats in my cars.
Except the w126. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t damage MB tex if you tried.
You are very brave to summon the karma of the vomit gods in this way. Motion-sickness vomiting may start for your 6-year-old at any moment!
MBtex is the cockroach of upholstery.
My son did, once. Thankfully in a rental car that we did our best to clean up and spray a ton of Fabreze around.
The rental car company did not come after me for additional charges.
There was a reason our parents and grandparents had cars with vinyl seats and rubber floor matts.
It wasn’t necessarily because they were cheap.
It is such a 180 for David to go from his conditions in the north to how he is now in sunny California, but think the meter is going a little too far from spaghetti shower to pristine BMW, thankfully the fates are stepping in with parenthood to dial it back some.
Reality hits you fast the first time your baby drops a dump so massive that it shoots out of their diaper and up their back and into their hair. And as my handle suggests I’ve never doubted my decision to have a kid. Watching her grow from a baby to the feisty preteen she is today has been the best part of my life by far.
We called those Major Poop Events. I can look back at it now and somehow find humor in having to clean the car seat and the thoughts of throwing away the onesies, but at the time, yeah, that was nasty.
I once crossed a room, dove and caught a poo with my hand when my toddler daughter spontaneously decided to drop one in someone’s house. The witnesses were fortunately all also parents, so they focused more on my reaction time than the complete and utter collapse of dignity. Je n’regrette rien.
I think of parenthood as tempering. Many of us started rigid and brittle. The fires (some literal) of parenthood allow us to maintain our edge, while still having some flexibility.