I applaud Christine Gardner's efforts and writing. I too struggle with the 'weird kid' syndrome as my kids are dropped off on our tandem, gas scooter, or made to ride their bikes somewhere. They say they understand, but you somehow know in your heart that they'd rather get dropped off in a too-tall purple & chrome monster truck with a boom-boom stereo, spinners, and dual tipped exhausts.

After taking my girls to see An Inconvenient Truth, I tried very hard to get my 15 year old with the learner's permit to embrace the freedom that a bicycle provides. I've been riding thousands of miles every year for most of my life, and I've tasted true freedom as a result. My memory selections are broader than most people my age. Cycling and walking are two things that help to slow life down, which ultimately, tends to extend the experience.

Cycling is my favorite sport, and I call it my religion too. I contend, there's enlightenment to be found within this experience, something I'm hopeful they'll experience someday. Most of all, I want them to understand that the rat race is just a bunch of rats (they race from red light to red light). So I ask them, why not be at peace doing something that's grouped more with athletes and planet caregivers. A way to make a difference, have fun, and improve health !

I recall a scripture that says to raise up a child in the way it should go and when it grows old it will not depart far from it... that's my goal, my hope, my dream. That my legacy will not shine through me, but through the actions of my children. What difference we could make if we all tried as hard as Christine and her family to make a difference and put on our walking, hiking, bus-riding shoes and put it where the rubber hits the road, only do it on a sidewalk. As for me and mine, we'll see you out there on our bikes, of course - JD

Wow, Christine!  This is so powerful- I wish and hope that it finds a larger audience, such as why don't you go on Oprah?  Or maybe write this for her magazine... You are being the change you wish to see and it has a ripple effect for sure.  I hear complaints all the time about environmentalists (usually professors or universities) not walking the talk and often it is about something that would be "inconvenient" due to circumstances beyond our control (our culture for one).  So, plunging into a life of inconvenience and finding its joy is a marvelous bit of yoga!

Well done, Christine.  This was a valiant experiment, for all of you, which took a lot of strength, and put you through a lot of hardship. KarenC is right: Now that you have added to all your other labors by writing this up, you should seek a still wider readership or audience.  I would have thought of the "My Turn" essay space in Newsweek.  But sure, why not Oprah?  She is in Chicago, after all, which means, I guess, she is your neighbor.

Two immense problems leap out from your account.  One is of course the more environmentalism-related one, the practical impossibility of living in most places without a car, because of the great distances between our homes and where we need to go, and barely serviceable public transportation making the connexions.

The other is, if anything, even trickier: parents having to do errands with small children.  Even if you were taking them in a car to this or that store, that would be a tough challenge.

Regarding the use of the wheel-chair elevator at the back door of public buses, here in NYC, at least here in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, in my experience, no one is particularly pleased when this happens, but also no one groans out loud that this is an unendurable inconvenience.  Certainly, I have never witnessed any overt attempt to lay guilt on the handicapped person for holding everybody up.  My guess is, most of us are pleased, in principle, that handicapped persons can be accommodated; we willing acknowledge their right to that, and are even proud to extend it to them; we only wish it could all be done more flexibly and quickly.

I have no memory of coaches with small children ever coming up on the wheel-chair elevator.  And I have no memory of big coaches that cannot be collapsed being brought on at all.

Anthropologists tell us that our species is best adapted to living in tightly networking communities, including multi-generational households; so parents should be able to go out by themselves and do their business, without the worry that their children are at home, unattended.

Somehow, though, our culture has evolved in such a way that keeping the grandparents around in order to mind the grandchildren seems not the most pleasant of options.  And that is hardly an unreasonable preference.  I mean, I even hate leaving Little White Dog alone with my parents.  It is totally unimaginable, that I should live with my parents, plus have children of my own, and expect my parents to take care of the kids.  For one thing, the kids would probably get very fat.  For another, they would probably develop some odd and objectionable tastes in music.

Still, as the anthropologists say, networking in child care, of one form or another, may be the best way to go.

Regarding churches: A mother of one of my godchildren once complained to me about the unfriendliness of the congregation at her church, Catholic, when she attends Mass with her sons, and they fuss or fidget or otherwise create a distraction.  She was angry at the hypocrisy of many Catholic clergy and layfolk, that on the one hand they are always preaching "family voices," and boasting about how "pro-life" they are, but then they are so unwelcoming of families with young children.

By the way, I am curious about your description of the gospel lesson for July 9, Mark 6:1-6 in the Catholic lectionary, and probably also in the common lectionary used by a number of mainstream Protestant denominations.  It is indeed mostly as you say: Jesus goes to "his homeland," Nazareth, and everybody knows all about him and his family, and about how he is just a carpenter, and does not have a father who can be identified, so they were "scandalized," and he could not work any miracles, save for a few healings, and was "amazed at their lack of faith."  But there is nothing about a "woman of faith" who helps him regain his power to work miracles, and nothing obviously Freudian.  Still, it is not at all impossible that the Holy Spirit has raised you up and inspired you to make an addition to the canon!  : )

All the best, to you and yours.

Two typos: in the elevator paragraph, "we willingly acknowledge"; in the Catholic-bashing paragraph, "family values."

I recently heard the author on a PBS radio show talking about her amazing story reporting that taking the bus is hard, and made even harder by trying to do it with children. I found it all to be a great example of why so many people who call themselves conservationists really have no clue!

Imagine, Christina had to take the bus for a month to understand that is was not easy. It was so self serving, spoiled suburban mother lives like the "other half" and discovers its hard. What will be next, an expose' on the hardships of sorting your own trash for recyclables.

At the end of the author's PBS interview she said "it was hard but I hope more people will try and ride the bus", I just wished that the PBS interviewer would have then asked Christina how many times she has continued to ride the bus after her courageous reporting. I am sure the answer would have been "well i did it for a WHOLE month, isn't that enough?"

Just thought I'd mention that the state is about to add two daily trains from Chicago to St. Louis via Normal, making those mini-vacation/day trips just a bit easier for the carless.

As a single guy who has seen his sister's family in motion (2 kids under 4 y.o.), I'm pretty impressed with a family with kids who relies on just one car.