I reached in to get Maisie out of her car seat this morning and thought, “Oh my God. I’ve become one of THEM.”
By them, I mean those moms who have all sorts of crap in the back of their cars. You know the stuff… hardened raisins, bits of cereal, broken toys you hoped would keep her entertained on a long drive (ha!)
Suddenly, I remembered a story I did while I was a reporter at CBS News and the whole thing made all the more sense to me. If you’re a mom – or dad – you simply need to know about this.
Motherproof.com is a site started by a mom who wanted to buy a new car, but who couldn’t find any useful information in car reviews. Everything out there was about power trains, V8 engines, and other truly useless specs – well, useless to moms anyway. Let’s face it, when you’re a mom of a small kid, you care about whether or not you can easily wipe spit up off the seats. As your kids grow, you want to
know how many kids you can fit into your carpool or if you can stuff hockey sticks and tubas in the way back.
And so this mom, Kristin Varela, came up with the idea to start reviewing cars herself from the perspective of a mom. She called up a car company and talked them into letting her demo cars for a while with her family in tow and writing reviews specifically geared at women. After all, women are usually the ones who decide which car to buy. One car review led to another car review and to another. Eventually, Varela got other moms who had kids of different ages on board. Now, the site is bursting at the seams with all sorts of stuff you really need to know before you buy a new vehicle.
The mom-written reviews are honest and easy to read and you can find out whether or not a car would be right for your family. Are there enough latch connectors for your car seats? How often will I need to fill up? Is it fun to drive or is it just a total mom-mobile? The site even lets you search for cars by life stage. Seriously. You have a kid in diapers? In school? Filled with teen angst? The site will recommend the perfect car for you.
It’s a good thing I remembered this site. Since we’re having another baby in July, I’m wondering if perhaps we need a bigger car. Can my Murano handle two car seats, a big dog and all our crap? We’ll see when the time comes, but I have a sneaking suspicion I may be visiting motherproof.com for a bit of advice. Browsing the site sure beats wandering around the NY Car Show for hours sitting in car after car until your brain gets overloaded and your feet swell.
Too bad the site can’t do anything about all that crap encrusted on the back of my seat. Nope, removing that will take good, old-fashioned elbow grease. What is that stuff anyway? Cereal? Snot? God only knows.
