Perils of Carless Parenting
I'll drive your kid, you drive mine.
How we still play in the favour economy.
By Alan Thein Durning
Published: January 2, 2007

When my family decided in March not to replace our Volvo for at least a
year, we were mostly thinking about the practical implications. We were
thinking about pollution, of course, but also about dollars and safety and
bus routes and walking distances.

What has become evident a few months into this adventure is just how much
our cars equate not just to money saved or spent but also to cultural
currency. Even while we're saving bundles of cold hard cash on gas,
insurance and upkeep, hidden costs have emerged in a social barter system
that, like much of our culture, is car-centric.

We quickly collided with the face of the car economy: other parents.

The thing about parenting is that it's best done in groups, so you can share
with others. This sharing operates largely on the gift economy. That is,
parents do favours for each other. The most routine favour they give -- the
currency of parenting -- is the ride: I give your kid a ride to practice;
you give mine a ride home. You bring your kid over to play; I drive her home
again.

The swapping of rides is a convenience and a practicality, of course. But
it's also a form of community building. In fact, anthropologists regard the
reciprocal doing of favours as not just a form of community building but as
the essence of community building...

------------------

Full article: 
http://www.theyyee.ca/

That last sentence particularly strikes me. The inability to give as much as
we'd like - in the manner our consumer-driven society expects - was there in
many of the stories in WISE's book and comes up frequently in my discussions
with other people in poverty.

Ocean, WISE Coordinator
http://www.wise-bc.org/

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