I’m the paternal stick figure on the minivan. I keep my hair short. I wear a smirk. I hold a book. I impress no one. And that is why I keep my stick figure to myself. Mostly I refrain from using stick figures on my car to spare all the single people of the world my beautiful life.
After all, this world is like one great Saturday night prize fight. The Family v. The Singles. And stick-figured cars are just one way to keep score.
Stick figures are all over suburbia on the backs of minivans, caravans, SUVs and hipster wagons alike. They’re the vehicular equivalent of description pages on social networking websites. They say who you are, what you like, who you’re with and what they like. It’s one part cute, on part boasting, and one part advertisement for the American Family Association.
Parents like to brag to the world about who they are, about who we are. We, as I am one, like to show off our offspring. We like to champion our collective unit. We want, we need, other people to know just how happy and lucky we are. To show off who we are is validation for all those sleepless nights, long working hours and drained bank accounts. Otherwise we’d be just shells of a human beings walking around the shopping centers of the world like zombies. And that would prove all the single people right. And we don’t want to do that.
So we stupidly wear our families on our sleeves this like badges of honor. We can not escape it. We have pictures of our family on our desks, in our wallets and sometimes on our clothes. And now we have pictures of ourselves as stick figures on our cars for all the single people to see.
Officially, they’re called Family Stickers. You’ve seen them on the road, I’m sure. There’s the father, the mother, the daughter, the son, the baby, the dog, the cat and the turtle. It’s all there for all the single people stuck in rush hour traffic to see. We are a family, a happy family and now you have to suck on our tailpipes while staring at our children. Aren’t they just the cutest things?
The stick figures suggest the passengers in said vehicle assuming said vehicle was driving to vacation with the complete family in toe. Although, most of the time these stick-figured vehicles contain only a mother with some semblance of her breed in the backseat depending on exactly when daycare, or pre-K, or school lets out.
As jaded and cynical as I wish to be about these stick figures they actually warm my heart. They suggest family. And by making this effort to highlight each member of one's family is a suggestion of a happy family.
I’m sure as shit that this display of affection fucks off any reasonable single person, or divorcee, or anyone else who still lives with their mother. You know, pissing single people off is what married are all about.
It’s not enough that our SUVs take up the best parking lots, our kids bump into you in line at Chick-fil-a, our babies ruin your nice night out at the restaurant and our strollers take up all the cargo room on the airplane. We now have to taunt others with our families at traffic lights and traffic jams. The world is built around the family. It’s what makes the world go round on Main Street. This is no secret. But we can’t just be. We have to be liked. And we have to be in your face.
A family is like a garden. It starts off with just one or two parts. In time it blossoms into a family of vines, leaves and flowers. Parents are the gardeners of the world and you know how much gardeners like to show off and share their work. Decaling an entire family on a car is the epitome is this. What’s the matter? You didn’t ask who I am? Who cares. I’m going to tell you anyway….and aren’t my kids the cutest little things?
This post was originally published in March 2010 at http://www.mypatheticblog.tumblr.com/.
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