Need More Quality Family Time? Get in the Car!
Another page from the book of Tell Us Something We Don’t Know: parents spend a lot of time in the car with their kids!
SC Johnson (makers of handy things to have in the car with kids, like
Ziploc bags and, uh, Ziploc bags) created this semi-suspect survey to
make us feel better about the time we spend driving around with our
kids. For one thing, it’s like a part-time job – 90
percent of parents and guardians report spending up to 20 hours per
week in their car with their children. Yikes! So that’s
where the time goes!
Most of that, the survey reported, was spent
in going to doctor/dentist appointment and restaurants, and of course,
schools. I personally have spent over 2000 hours in the past 7
years in the car with my kids. (ohhh, I think I’m getting
carsick. Pass me a Ziploc bag, willya?)
So what do
we do with all that time? It looks like it’s being wasted, either
that or we’re multi-tasking, as mostly there’s a lot of listening to
music going on, and of course eating (which seems to be a major player
in my car, judging by the state of the seats and the floor in the Cheerio Zone back), IMing, and DVD-watching.
So I say let’s take back our
cars, let’s take back our time with our kids, and let’s invent something to
do with them while driving that doesn’t involve license plates,
Twenty Questions, or anything that sounds remotely like E-I-E-I-O. Any ideas? How do you pass the time in your car
with your kids?

