Is the family wagon now the swagger wagon?

The New York Times recently ran a story about minivans, once mocked as uncool, now rising in popularity as automakers launch marketing campaigns aimed at convincing young parents that it’s cool to drive a minivan.  The stigma is gone. You know the stigma I’m talking about.  Words that come to mind:  boring, uncool, unhip, soccer mom …

The article got my attention, because, well: “My name is Dana and I drive a minivan.”  I didn’t want to.  I swore up and down that I never would. But then kids happened, and when I was pregnant with our third child, my husband and I realized—much to our horror—that we were in the market for a minivan. The fun, sporty Subaru Outback that we’d bought in our pre-kid days for carrying kayaks and cross-country roadtripping was about to take its last, sputtering breath. Our backs were aching from bending down to lift two kids in and out of their car seats multiple times a day, and we couldn’t quite figure out we could ever live with three car seats wedged together across a single back seat.  We had sworn that we would never, ever, not in a million years, ever buy a minivan. But, there we were, talking to a salesman at a Honda dealership, “just to check it out,” and somehow finding ourselves hypnotized by all that cargo space… room for groceries and kids and carseats and the stroller and luggage?  No way!  Needless to say, we bought the minivan, hook, line and sinker, and two years into my status as a minivan-driving mom, I have to say:

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Despite being born and raised in Detroit, I am not what you’d call a “car person.” Give me a safe, fuel efficient car that holds all my crap and doesn’t break down every few months and I’m happy.

So when my pal Jeanne passed along an invite to a Ford parenting blogger event they were having to promote an new safety innovation, I was intrigued but not expecting to be very interested. Well, I was. The innovation — inflatable seat belts for the rear seats — was actually pretty cool, despite this dude’s funny take on it (in-car pinata!). They look and perform just like regular seat belts, except they are a lot softer and sort of padded (to incorporate the air bag). They have a heavy, odd looking buckle, which locks into place like a regular seat belt. In the event of a crash, a canister of cold gas shoots through the buckle and inflates the air bag inside the belt withing 6 milliseconds, cushioning the backseat passenger and distributing crash forces more evenly across their bodies.
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