driving the patriarchy bus

OINK OINK & YEE-HAW

Every so often, it’s refreshing to become a person you despise.

I grew up with parents who lamented the constant rise of SUVs on the roads. They drove an orange VW Thing (no windows! no doors!) and later, a junkyard treasure, the early ‘90s Subaru DL. I understand my parents’ disgust: it’s crass and greedy to buy a car that farts fine particulate matter and roars and sits up high.

This is the story of how I came to own such a car; how I became a woman whose shadow side is a thirst for masculine enormity, garish consumerism and POWER. When I start our Chevy Suburban and the engine roars under my bare legs, I do get a thrill & the urge to throw back my head and shout MANIFEST DESTINY! 🇺🇸🧨

I blame my mother

At any given time there are no fewer than three small Ziploc bags rinsed, turned inside out, and propped across our kitchen counter. There’s one now, hanging from the drippy spigot; another balanced on the glass soap dispenser and a third tenting a brown banana stem in the fruit bowl. Christopher will shake out Pirate’s Booty dust and ask how many more times we have to use the Ziploc before we can throw it away. I remind him about the floating island made of plastic. (Texas-sized—importantly.) 

My parents were anti single-use and, naturally, suspicious of gas guzzlers. Mom was especially annoyed by the argument: “I just want my kids to be safe!” which seemed to portend a dominance-based race to the bottom. “If everybody stopped driving them we’d all be safe!” was her retort. She carried a pen and paper in her purse and would chastise people for bad parking jobs at the grocery store, and funny, it was always the SUVs. I remember the cheerful, bubble-shaped exclamation point that punctuated her OINK OINK!, slipped under a windshield wiper. Once, she had no paper, so she used red, Chanel lipstick. OINK OINK smeared across the glass. This is my feminist heritage.

I blame my husband

Our kids mostly wear hand-me-downs, which makes them look like a mess of scarecrows. They go to school with holes in their khaki knees and wool pilling in their armpits. Clyde has been wearing someone’s Halloween costume bomber jacket for two years straight. The zipper broke long before it came our way. But how could I throw away such a thing of value? I can’t even part with a thrice-washed sandwich baggie.

I have reused and recycled. I have tried to train my children into the quiet snobbery from which I came—bigger is NOT better. It can be inelegant; boorish; so obvious. Don’t announce your status with a car! Or even with intact clothing. You’re better than that. But those are material things. When it comes to kids, I am a maximalist. How ‘bout another! And another! During every pregnancy, Christopher has looked at me and said: “We’ll need a bigger car,” and I’ve rolled my eyes like he was the problem. Men! Cars! So obvious.

When I took the three boys to see ‘Barbie’ last July, a zillion weeks pregnant with my fourth son, I almost died when Ken looked at the black Suburban and sighed with longing. See!!! I knew it. Suburban = Toxic Masculinity. I renewed my vow that we’d never get such a vehicle. I wished Christopher was there to see Gerwig skewer the men and cars trope, but unfortunately, he was working to cover the expenses of a new baby.

I blame myself

After Christmas this year, we went to Florida. We had that baby, plus his car seat. Somehow, until that moment, we’d never gone anywhere all together and so, when the taxi arrived and we had mere hours to catch our flight and we realized we couldn’t stuff the suitcases and the kids and the grown ups into a Toyota Hylander, Christopher looked at me and said, basically: See?! Well shoot, when I accidentally had four children, I did not consider what it would mean to get them places. We scrambled for a car-service-seven-seater and that one-hour ride cost almost a thousand dollars. We couldn’t afford not to upgrade.

I pushed for a minivan, which seemed like the humblest, least conspicuous option. We tested one out. Other than his displeasure at driving a shiny egg, Christopher was concerned there wouldn’t be room in the back for Frankie, our enormous dog. (She was also my idea. “Idea” being a nice word for dramatic insistence.) I pretended he wasn’t right.

We explained to the Toyota dealer that we often visit my mom, an hour away. We take all four boys, obviously, and the dog, often a guest, and also groceries, bikes and at least one tote bag of worn-out clothes. The dealer looked at us and laughed and said: “We don’t have a car big enough for you. You need to go domestic.” I flashed back to the scene where Ken discovers the patriarchy in the skyscrapers and the cops on horseback and the giant, American flag billboard behind Bill Clinton’s face and yes… that black-tinted Suburban for the bad guys at Mattel.

Funny thing about that patriarchy product placement, though… Chevy shows up all over ‘Barbie.’ Almost like the whole film is a commercial! And Chevy certainly thinks so. Here’s some language from the company’s website:

The Barbie 2023 Movie … spins a tale about how, with enough self-belief, childhood ambitions may come true, fueled by timeless Chevrolet models. A powerful reminder that choosing one’s own direction, accelerating change, and having huge dreams are the keys to reaching our full potential, creating a lovely fusion of Barbie and Chevy magic!

I guess even Gerwig took a ride. You know what? Get it, girl.

Test Drive

The Chevy rep, let’s call him Gary, seemed aggressively disinterested in selling us a car. When we arrived at the gigantic, heavily air-conditioned dealership, he met us at the door—because it was near the coffee maker—and when we told him we were in the market for a large automobile he rolled his eyes like… ugh. He wheezed and limped to his desk and sat down to complain about our country falling to pieces. Put it this way: Gary’s not saving Ziplocs. 

We asked if they had a navy model in stock. He said they had only one and it was gray. He had it pulled around. The car was navy and when I pointed this out, Gary said, “It’s gray.” Looking up at the car, my head began to spin. I told him gray would be fine for a test drive. I climbed aboard.

Have you ever driven a Suburban? You are eighteen feet off the ground. You are regal and you are deft. For such a lug, it drives really tight: turns easily; doesn’t feel wide. I’d worried about maneuvering something so enormous—it was my most practical argument in favor of the mini-van—but when I found myself in a position of power, so far above everyone, well… those nerves cleared right up.

New car smell

We bought the Suburban. The gray one that’s blue. I had to go back the next day to fetch it with the kids and when Gary pulled it up, I rattled some quick commands:

“Pick your noses right now,” I said. “I don’t want any boogers in the new car. Get them out. Also the farts.” We stuck our fingers up our nostrils until they were barren. We flexed our stomachs. Gary laughed. By then he’d guessed my left-leaning politics, but we exchanged a kindred glance: the kids are alright. Emptied of our immediate, human foulness, the boys and I slipped into the pure, black expanse. My eyes rolled into the back of my head from the truck’s intoxicating perfume.

For weeks, I forgot it wasn’t appropriate to play Action Bronson’s Easy Rider and run red lights. I drove with the windows down, the wind hitting my face. I burned with pride and aliveness. When you start the Suburban, everybody in the neighborhood hears it roar. I fucking love machines! I found myself thinking…often. I fell in love with whatever engineer designed the side-console so deep and straightforward—yet filled with hidden doors for all your little secrets. Waiting in traffic, I imagined monster-trucking up and over the queue. I named the car Bessie because she is so solid to me, a nursing mom. Our children are, indeed, safer inside her. All mother’s milk and methane. American-made, baby. 

I explained away my environmentalist’s shame. At least nobody had to know about Bessie and me. I mean, so many people drive trucks where we live. There’s a kind of gentleman farmer aesthetic around here—just last week I saw a dad I know driving a Silverado, wearing a straw hat and smoking a corn cob pipe. I’m not so flamboyant; I figured I might still ride in anonymity—no stickers on Bessie’s bumper. Plus, we traded our other car for an EV to offset her flatulence. The EV is quiet and mild-mannered—perfect for all local errands. We named him Stu.

Vanity

About a month into my love affair, Max ran into the kitchen and told me I’d wrecked Bessie’s backside. I raced out, as if checking on an injured child. The scenarios flashed in my head—was Bessie so large, so shock-absorbent that I’d hit a wall and not realized it? But what about the overhead cameras that guide me with such precision, allowing me to nest into spaces with 1/4” margins? The ex-cop/ crossing guard at school actually claps while I reverse. I have never felt so proud.

I scanned for another minute and saw no damage. But I did notice the kids had all gathered around, giggling. Christopher stared at me like C’mon. And then I saw it—the vanity plate they’d ordered and installed, proclaiming my love, my identity as the driver of the patriarchy bus.

IVBOYMOM

“Somebody in New York already has 4BOYMOM,” Christopher told me. There went my anonymity. And not only am I visible, I’m a moving billboard for our masculine bonanza.

***

This Chevy has reminded me how many things can be true at once: I love the Earth, and also a big truck. This one is gray…but also navy. I can find a right-wing car dealer deeply lovable, even as I raise my sons with different values. My boys can unabashedly produce farts and boogers AND ALSO be tender-hearted, good-humored and generous. Hopefully, they’ll learn to hold their complexities lightly.

Sometimes a boy is just a boy and a truck is just a truck. But honestly, I’ve got a good feeling about this generation… I do think they’re the patriarchy’s last stop.

OINK OINK & YEE-HAW (& Happy Father’s Day, too!),

Isabel