Kids do seem to require a sort of bullheadedness to keep up with.

Kids are expensive and require a lot of time of an adult's available time.
Extra money and time are required to explore green / lifestyle changes, and you usually have less available when you have kids.

For example, here are a couple of decisions I have to make frequently:

"If I spend an extra two hours today to commute by bike instead of drive, will I have time to help my kid with their homework?".
"Do I want to spend $1,000 dollars on a bike or new gadget, or do I wan't to save it to send my kids to college?"
"Do I want to spend 6 - 8 hours today riding a century, or do I want to spend the time playing with the family?"

For the typical person, family occupies the second and third area in Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, (Safety and Love/Belonging), both of which are higher priority then Problem Solving and Acceptance of facts, which is considered lowest priority on the hierarchy. Family will usually win out everytime.

I have four kids and I agree with this completely.

Before I had kids I would call my sister (who did have kids at the time) and strike up a conversation on events or politics. This was a waste of time, as my sister with a MA poly sci scarcely kept track of who the sitting president was at that point.

Oh, and global warming deniers are simply additional evidence that the US public school system is incapable of teaching science.

Did we invent cars and other efficient modes of transportation by outlawing horses; by pointing at their **** in the streets, and corrupting the water supply and saying "something must be done!"? Insofar as this post is relevant to the commuter forum, I challenge you to justify your commute with out paying homage to the innovation and modern transportation system that creates and supports the jobs and fields we work in. Denying innovation, 'restraining' use of oil for the sake of 'sustainability' denies the underlying ingenuity and freedoms that created a better future for us and will absolutely (as evidenced by the industrial revolution) lead to a clean and healthy future for our children beyond our wildest dreams. Industrialization does not = pollution.

Not all bike-commuters are not out to 'save the environment' because they understand that the environmental movement in its modern manifestations is ideologically flawed. If left un-challenged we will have no choice 'but' to ride bikes (possibly back to the caves where we'll live).

/rant over
//not liberal, conservative or libertarian
///gets really annoyed when people congratulate me for commuting because I'm 'doing my part' and 'giving back'; to whom and for what they never quite know.
////see ya'll on the road.