Car ownership through the parenting journey and beyond

Abstract

Attachments to private cars are as complex as they are problematic. They reflect legacies of urban form, and culturally inculcated appreciations of autonomous mobility. To challenge the car system, deeper understandings of the complexity of private car ownership and use are required.

Analysing data from interviews with 26 parents of children aged 18–25 in Australia, this paper adds to emergent understandings of the complexity of car ownership as a biographical construct. The paper positions the car in the mobility biographies of parents experiencing freedom from the direct responsibility of children. Deploying concepts from mobility biographies, accounting for the impact of mode-choice inertia, and using parenting culture studies as an explanatory theoretical frame, the paper interrogates the assumed association between parenting and private cars by asking: what happens to the car in families now that it is no longer ‘needed’ to transport children?

The analysis paints a picture of parents who are seeking independence from their caring role yet yearning to remain relevant to their children’s lives. And the car is listed as a material object necessary in pursuit of both projects. Reflecting understandings of habit and inertia, parents have become accustomed to the freedom of car-ownership, and devised new pursuits around this assumption. Echoing the concept of intensive parenting, parents displayed a deep sense of ongoing love for children, with the car a material expression of ways to remain present in their children’s lives.

Theoretically and conceptually, the study demonstrates the value of coupling mobility biographical approaches with other understandings of the emotional, cultural and material landscapes surrounding life events. From the practical perspective of designing policies to transition towards sustainable transport systems, the value of this study is its demonstration of the complexity of attachments to private car use through different life-stages.