Ever wish your car was a little bit more kid friendly?
Kristin Varela doesn't just wish it. She's making it happen. The founder and editor-in-chief of Motherproof.com sat down with Babble to cover cars, kids and how her team of moms is making over Detriot for the good of parentkind.
Varela says she was getting "mommy Jell-O brain" from being home with two kids just around the time she realized it was time to go out and buy a new car. With a child in nursery school, she was looking to start a neighborhood carpool - but her two girls' carseats took up too much space in the backseat of her Subaru to make it practical.
"With two young children, the last thing I wanted to do was drive to 10 different dealerships and look at cars," Varela recalls. So she did what we all do - she went online. Only to find reviews that were family-specific for cars were few and far between. So she did her research, and Motherproof was born.
The site is now five years old and features not just cars reviews by Varela and her team of mothers but family car news, from tips on the accessories to buy and those to skip to tips on travel. And when we're talking reviews, we mean real life, "are we there yet" test drives with the kids. Varela and the other Motherproof moms keep each car for two weeks, driving it as though it IS the family car.
"Goldfish are crushed into the carpet, and cups are dumped over onto the upholstery," Varela admitted with a laugh. "It's real life mom car driving."
They'll drive any car, anywhere - from Mini Coopers to the minivan made for the prototypical soccer mom, because parents aren't one size fits all - and neither are drivers. Which is what's made Detroit listen up. Market research puts mothers' spending on cars at $83 billion a year. Moms influence eighty-five percent of all car buying choices. And dads want kid-friendly cars too - just ask the spouses/partners of some of Motherproof's writers . . . or their sons.
Adding to the success of the site are the Motherproof families. None of the parents are associated with the Motor City, nor are they professional writers - just parents with experience being parents. And they take their kids, spouses and days of driving into account in their reviews - nothing else. So they can be brutally honest, Varela says, and when they are, they pass their advice on to Detroit where she says several of the carmakers are inputting their findings into changes on future models.
When adult fingers get a mauling trying to slip into the crack in the backseat to hook a latch hook in for a carseat, Varela's crew lets the car manufacturers know parents don't want a knuckle busting. When the wireless headsets paired with the backseat DVD player are too big for kids' heads, she shoots them a line. Better still, they share it with all of us . . . so we don't have to drag two point five kids to ten dealerships looking for the right car to fit our needs.
Sound like the dream gig? Varela's looking for more moms to sign up to have a free car show up in her driveway every two weeks, so check out Motherproof.com and find out how to get your gripes and must-haves in front of the bigwigs in Detroit.
Related Posts:
