alt.hn

3/30/2026 at 7:47:42 PM

Car Seats as Contraception

 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/731812

by CGMthrowaway

3/30/2026 at 8:20:02 PM

> We show that laws mandating use of child car safety seats significantly reduce birth rates, as many cars cannot fit three child seats in the back seat.

Wouldn't the real cause of the depressed birthrates be the requirement to own a car in order to have children? If you aren't a slave to your vehicle there's no problem with the available space for car seats.

by mullingitover

3/30/2026 at 9:34:39 PM

Double-buggies on public transport and more than two kids on a typical cargo cycle aren't fun either. Granted the age-span that's necessary is a little shorter than car seats.

That said, have 3 kids aged within 5 years of one another and we never had to get a double buggy. The older ones would be OK to walk (3 year olds will walk a pretty long way if you're patient) by the time the youngest got too big to be sling-carried.

It comes down to, dealing with three under-5's single-handed while out and about is pretty hectic full stop. Most places with high birth rates "solve" this by not allowing mums the expectation to be away from the house much, and/or they're multigenerational households where grandma or an aunt can be home with some of the kids.

So to your point, I think it's less the requirement to own a car, more the expectation of a kind of lifestyle which often, though not always, in turn requires one. Childcare for 2 year olds here is often upwards of $2500/month, now that's a contraceptive.

by Earw0rm

3/30/2026 at 9:23:29 PM

If you aren't a slave to your car, you likely live in a walkable area where the cost of a 4-bedroom apartment or house is going to be pretty high. I'm not saying you can't raise kids in a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment, and when I lived in apartments many families had kids in a 1-bedroom apartment, but it's very tight and many people would consider it a significant hardship for both the kids and the parents.

I would also add as a car slave that the kinds of cars large enough to fit the kinds of car seats marketed in the US are tens of thousands more than a compact or mid-size sedan, and that in a mid-size sedan having a car seat in the rear-facing configuration significantly constrains how far back you can put the passenger or driver seat. This is true even for the narrower seats that are designed for three-across seating. And worse, you might not have the latch system or an appropriate kind of seat belt on that third seat.

by throwway120385

3/30/2026 at 9:31:49 PM

> If you aren't a slave to your car, you likely live in a walkable area where the cost of a 4-bedroom apartment or house is going to be pretty high.

Or you're one of the millions of people who live in developing countries which have low cost of living and low housing costs. Coincidentally this group has very high birth rates.

by mullingitover

3/30/2026 at 9:38:44 PM

Also, socially conservative, multi-generational households (sharing labour and childcare between women relatives), less expectation for mothers of young kids to be away from the home, and a much lower expectation of what "housing" means in terms of both building quality and the amount of living space per person.

by Earw0rm

3/30/2026 at 10:18:33 PM

Who expects mothers of young kids in the US to be away from the home?

by orthoxerox

3/31/2026 at 9:47:39 AM

Work and wider social participation, and a sprawling suburban geography that has people living far from friends and family.

The alternative - small, crowded population centres where everyone knows everyone and three, even four generations live in the same household can of course be limiting, even suffocating.

But there's a reason why, for all that the 1950s autonomous nuclear family is held up as some kind of ideal by tradwife fetishists, it's also the milieu in which Valium and sleeping pills became popularised.

by Earw0rm

3/31/2026 at 12:33:18 PM

> Who expects mothers of young kids in the US to be away from the home?

Where in the USA do you live where I can support my wife and kids on one income? We'll move immediately.

by alsetmusic

3/31/2026 at 6:29:01 PM

A relative of mine bought a house in central Illinois for $90k a few years ago. She's a single mom and works as a bank teller.

There are plenty of places that can be afforded on a single income if you work in tech and can work remotely.

Examples: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/10-Regina-Dr-Paris-IL-619... https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/804-N-Walnut-St-Pontiac-I...

by stephenbez

3/31/2026 at 7:03:45 PM

Banks still have tellers?

by jacquesm

3/31/2026 at 7:48:05 PM

Or at least some customer service people who are in the branches.

by stephenbez

3/31/2026 at 12:58:23 PM

Ask single mothers.

by orthoxerox

3/31/2026 at 8:50:20 AM

The economy

by nehal3m

3/31/2026 at 12:17:52 PM

Only on very modern times would you feel the need to have that many bedrooms for 3 kids. Of course that’s because you can’t banish the kids from the house until sunset anymore

by justonceokay

3/31/2026 at 5:06:23 PM

Even two bedrooms in my city are ~$750k+

by brailsafe

3/31/2026 at 1:52:36 AM

A __3-bedroom apartment__ is considered very tight for raising kids? How many bedrooms do you need to raise kids?

by xboxnolifes

3/31/2026 at 9:26:59 AM

If you make kids share a bedroom it drastically decreases the margin for tension between children because they don't have anywhere else. That can work, of course, but it might not and too fucking late for the kids if it doesn't. That can mean physical abuse, but it can mean things like one kid loves loud music and the other wants to read quietly alone, or their sleep schedules naturally don't align well - if you were an adult house share you'd say well, we're just incompatible, it's nobody's fault, I'll move out, but kids can't do that, they are stuck with the situation their parents created and it's all they know.

My mother - I found out years after I'd left home - was worried that I resented the fact I had a small bedroom while my younger sister got a larger one - but in reality I didn't care at all, she's an artist, she makes stuff which actually exists, of course she needs space; I write software, which conveniently takes up no space, whereas if I'd had to share with her that would be extremely problematic and wouldn't have gone well. I could be in my tiny room and that was enough.

by tialaramex

3/31/2026 at 6:49:22 PM

Having grown up in a family large enough that giving each of us our own room was not even an aspiration, this point of view just doesn't make any sense to me. You learn to get along, that's what happens. You learn to respect shared spaces and accommodate other's needs. The kind of individualism you describe is a luxury, and one can live well without it.

by marssaxman

3/31/2026 at 12:41:12 PM

Some friends were able to provide separate bedrooms to their sons last year. The older one already has a man-shaped face and body (still an adolescent voice and personality, but that's sometimes how that goes). I really couldn't believe it when I found out.

I grew up privileged and had my own space, but a shared space between siblings was normalized. But going into high school with that constraint, it seems stifling. I really have to wonder what effects that lack of privacy / autonomy has on a developing mind. There are probably studies but it's not something I'm about to research.

by alsetmusic

3/31/2026 at 12:44:48 PM

sharing a room forces kids to learn to get along. giving them their own room early deprives them from that experience. loud music is not going to work in many places even if you have your own room. if siblings are so incompatible that they can't bear living together than they have bigger problems than sharing a room. physical abuse among siblings points to deeper issues that are not caused by sharing a room, nor does having separate rooms fix those issues.

by em-bee

3/31/2026 at 8:45:59 PM

giving each of our kids their own room reduced our families stress level significantly. it's not 100% necessary, but i really don't think that making kids share a room helps them get along better....

by jjcob

3/31/2026 at 9:09:08 AM

Raising one child is fine, raise two or three means sharing rooms not having a guest room (e.g. relatives can't stay easily) or an at-home office space.

It's not that you can't, it's just that it's not the standard of living most western people expect.

by tempay

3/31/2026 at 9:08:29 AM

It depends on how many kids you have, no? I did know other kids when I was growing up who shared a room with one or more siblings, but some parents want to be able to give each child their own bedroom.

So a three-bedroom apartment might not be enough if you have three kids.

by kelnos

3/30/2026 at 9:28:48 PM

Or you are poor enough you get paid to pop out more kids and it's cheaper to uber twice a month to the grocery store because you have no job for which you'd need a car nor the cash to buy it.

by mothballed

3/30/2026 at 9:09:09 PM

The research is about the falloff in family size from 2 children to 3 children.

> If you aren't a slave to your vehicle there's no problem with the available space for car seats.

The abstract says the effect is limited to households with a car.

by Aurornis

3/30/2026 at 9:39:54 PM

I think the car is a proxy/correlation for a level of wealth. If you make little enough the marginal cost of the next kid "seems" cheap because you basically make it back in state benefits in a lot of cases.

by cucumber3732842

3/31/2026 at 9:58:36 AM

"Wouldn't the real cause of the depressed birthrates be the requirement to own a car in order to have children?"

Yes. The one-time setup costs for "properly" raising kids are probably around $30k. All the kids stuff is extra expensive (in the west) and for the kids seats you need a large car (in the west) and there's social stigma against kids sharing a room (in the west), so you also need a larger apartment.

by fxtentacle

3/31/2026 at 12:21:32 PM

Kid stuff is free if your time is worth nothing. There’s always another child outgrowing their car seats and toys and clothes and cribs and games.

by justonceokay

3/31/2026 at 4:08:09 PM

Can confirm, the "stuff" costs basically nothing in the scheme of things and nearly all of it can be had used. A bunch of it's also not really all that necessary. Clothes and toys can all be had for very little, without even that much time investment, folks are drowning in this stuff and lots of it just gets thrown away.

The real money goes to:

1) Healthcare (in the US).

2) Childcare or foregone wages.

3) School/housing location (same thing; either tuition, or spending 20+% more for the same amount & quality of house in a nicer school district [and the ongoing cost of servicing the extra mortgage on that]; you can skip this, but if you can at all afford it, you'll not feel like it's optional)

4) Space. Larger housing and larger cars. You can skip this kind of (larger car is less-optional if you have more than three kids) but at significant cost to QOL.

by genthree

3/31/2026 at 2:31:29 PM

Have you ever tried taking kids on public transit? God forbid you try to take 3 with you.

by delfinom

3/31/2026 at 10:05:45 AM

While I believe this article to be correct, Germany is an interesting counter-example:

Germany first introduced mandatory child car seat laws on April 1, 1993. [1]

That year, fertility was at 1.28 kids per woman. Since then, it has increased to 1.62.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindersitz

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/deu/ger...

by fxtentacle

3/31/2026 at 1:31:21 PM

You can’t compare those numbers because the population in 1993 and today comprises different groups who are materially different in terms of fertility rate. Last year, the fertility rate for women with German citizenship was 1.23.

The other major change is that in 1990, you had a reunification of east and west germany. Fertility rates in East Germany were low before reunification and collapsed right after reunification. But they recovered from the early 1990s to the late 2000s. So the 1993 aggregate average is artificially low. In neighboring France, the fertility rate in 1993 was 1.7.

by rayiner

3/31/2026 at 12:46:35 PM

Could be as if you live in a city in Germany you don't necessarily need a car?

But I would be surprised if car seats are the main driver here in any case.

by fnands

3/31/2026 at 5:04:53 PM

Certainly not as much as the U.S or Canada, but not as little as Tokyo or Netherlands. I found various cities easy to navigate without one, but they seemed oddly car-centric as well. Berlin is very car and very public transportation somehow

by brailsafe

3/31/2026 at 2:28:38 PM

Those who have children can’t afford a car.

by nslsm

3/31/2026 at 8:05:02 AM

Wow, talk about the law of unintended effects!

Without going into the specifics of car seats, I do think we overemphasize safety. The article mentions saving 57 children. How much are 57 lives worth? The answer is not infinite - a life has a numeric value, ask any insurance company.

Every safety regulation ought to pass a cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis. Few of them do.

by bradley13

3/31/2026 at 7:18:35 PM

Actually most federal agencies do conduct a cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis when considering new safety regulations. The statistical value of a human life is around $10M. The problem is that they don't consider second-order effects as a "cost" within that framework. And realistically there's no way for regulators to estimate those effects.

https://journalistsresource.org/economics/value-statistical-...

by nradov

3/31/2026 at 9:23:23 AM

> Every safety regulation ought to pass a cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis. Few of them do.

I think that's the already the ultimate test for any regulation to pass, as it's up against a huge industry trying to prevent costs of compliance.

Of course, the calculation is not to put a price on a human and then compare this against the cost provided by e.g. a car-company.

When you've lost someone in a car-accident it's not much condolence to know that e.g. an airbag could have saved him/her but "back in 2026 it was deregulated because the car-companies have proven that there's no economic benefit to include them"

I know the economy is always important, but human society also shouldn't be taken for granted.

by rickdeckard

3/31/2026 at 10:14:22 AM

>I think that's the already the ultimate test for any regulation to pass, as it's up against a huge industry trying to prevent costs of compliance.

I think it mostly cancels out since the pro regulation side is inevitably bolstered by those who'll sell more shit if alternative goods get worse for the money and those who make a buck on the compliance process.

>When you've lost someone in a car-accident it's not much condolence to know that e.g. an airbag could have saved him/her but "back in 2026 it was deregulated because the car-companies have proven that there's no economic benefit to include them"

What if it turns out that at the societal level that letting airbags, abs, traction control, etc, etc, etc, be optional is actually better because it puts more people into cheaper newer cars that benefit from other safety engineering even if they don't have airbags and all the expensive electronic stuff?

This sort of stuff wherein one tries to anchor the discussion around whole lives (or some other easy to measure thing that makes for good appeals to emotion) and hand wave away anything else is a huge part of the problem.

by cucumber3732842

3/31/2026 at 11:35:00 AM

I agree, that's exactly the societal question:

The core purpose of regulation is to create better lives for society as a whole.

Human lives being lost is usually considered negative for a society, but just a number in economics for insurances, car-companies, etc.

It's an annoying hindrance for companies to be forced into contributing to the well-being of society, they prefer to decide on that by themselves.

Meanwhile, governments suck at communication with their citizens, and their message is drowned by companies who do marketing every day. So the growing assumption also fueled by companies is that we could have much better stuff if the market wouldn't be regulated.

And yeah, there is surely regulation which should be reviewed, but I don't believe this should be done by putting a price on a human life.

I don't think we would have bike helmets on the street and seatbelts in cars if they wouldn't have been required by regulation, driving down the cost of development and production and making them available for everybody. Even vice-versa: If I'm involved in a car-accident, I would also want the OTHER party to have a seatbelt or a helmet.

Looking how "disruptive companies" find ways to do stupid shit because it's not properly regulated (e.g. skipping mechanical door-handles in car-backseats, creating "digital markets" without equal competition,...) tells me that ESPECIALLY these days empowering regulators to make good decisions and communicate better on them would be more important than having "cheaper newer cars".

But that's just my view...

by rickdeckard

3/31/2026 at 8:43:29 AM

> Without going into the specifics of car seats, I do think we overemphasize safety. The article mentions saving 57 children. How much are 57 lives worth? The answer is not infinite - a life has a numeric value, ask any insurance company.

Sure, the value of 57 lives isn't infinite, but this particular comparison is a totally absurd one to make. Births and deaths are completely morally independent, it's not as if those 57 lives could be substituted using the surplus of births.

> Every safety regulation ought to pass a cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis. Few of them do.

Actually I'm pretty sure that is in fact how safety regulations work.

Nonetheless, the concept of a "cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis" is paradoxical. Values are intrinsically subjective, hence we have democracy.

by computably

3/31/2026 at 10:42:36 AM

>Actually I'm pretty sure that is in fact how safety regulations work.

Of course the number "check out". Industry regulations are typically ghost written by some combination of industry groups, lobbying groups and academia. Who funds those? The industry either being regulated or industry that stands to benefit if some other industry is regulated.

80-100yr ago if you were inclined to screech about fire safety you'd have been citing numbers funded by the.... wait for it.... asbestos industry.

>hence we have democracy.

Democracy is a system for ensuring stable-ish power transfers by giving the people some semblance of control over the process and little more.

by cucumber3732842

3/31/2026 at 8:23:10 AM

> Every safety regulation ought to pass a cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis. Few of them do.

This probably won't happen (at least in open) because there's a risk people will start asking for a cost/benefit analysis for everything. Laws that enable mass surveillance, immigration regulations, military spending, wars, political system.

by m000

3/31/2026 at 3:38:53 PM

Cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis is an abdication of moral reasoning and responsibility. There is no such thing as an abstract life, only concrete realizations. What if the victim of an avoidable fatality is the one person who had they survived had the skills/insight/vision to literally save humanity from extinction?

I can accept an argument that there are societal tradeoffs that we must make that involve the sacrifice of human lives (obviously we should not try to remove risk to the extent that we live in sterile protective bubbles), but we should be honest about what we are doing and not hide behind some phony numbers that mask the fact that money, and hence numerical value, isn't an imaginary construct and that lives are fungible under this value system.

I further think that if we have an honest conversation instead of hiding behind quantitative analysis, we may actually have a productive dialogue about risk tradeoff and accountability. Perhaps if there is a wide gap between the bean counters and the bleeding hearts, there is a third possibility that needs to be explored.

by thefaux

3/31/2026 at 8:16:11 AM

It is a mixture of misguided moralizing and math illiteracy as numbers become big. Same category: trying to get to zero traffic deaths.

by MrBuddyCasino

3/30/2026 at 9:49:40 PM

As a parent of 2 a big reason we won’t have a third is the massive step up in transportation costs. Having to get a third car seat would require us to go from our Kia to a minivan. And then there is the cost of the car seat alone.

Then there is the time cost of wrangling kids in an out of them. My toddler can easily make it 15 minutes to buckle her in just on her own. A third would mean easily 5 minutes of to get everyone buckled in and only if they are cooperative.

by rimbo789

3/30/2026 at 9:59:46 PM

As a father of four (2+2: third one was born after 8 years since the second one), I thought all the trouble in the world would come and go, but what'll stay is us having a second life with kids when older ones get all independent teenagers. And we are not 40 yet.

The transportation costs are annoying, but worth it.

by oleganza

3/30/2026 at 9:59:06 PM

Yep, there is like two brands that specialize in three across.

A lot of new parents haven't yet realized that a carseat is wider than the average adult. Meaning that cramped middle seat isn't getting a third seat without very careful consideration and the right vehicle.

by Someone1234

3/31/2026 at 5:10:08 PM

Diono and Clek, for those who are curious.

It's coming to mainstream seats though. Graco has had the Slimfit3 LX out for a couple years now; we had 6 (3-across in a Toyota Corolla and Honda Fit) and they worked great except for the kids not really liking them. Britax has the Poplar and One4Life Slim; Chicco apparently added the Fit3x when I wasn't looking.

by nostrademons

3/31/2026 at 1:31:14 PM

A Honda Odyssey can fit three car seats across in the middle row. A Jeep Wrangler 4 door can fit three car seats across in the back seat.

by tohnjitor

3/30/2026 at 10:30:49 PM

Daycare is like 3000eur/month for 3+ years. You can probably lease a double decker for that money

by yread

3/31/2026 at 6:47:28 AM

I guess that's how it is in America. If you are lucky enough to live in the Nordics, you pay far, far less, sometimes nothing at all. I don't think anywhere near 3000 a month for 3 kids is normal in most of other EU either.

So, over here car seats may be a much bigger factor than daycare costs.

by reeredfdfdf

3/31/2026 at 9:31:13 AM

3000 eur/month/kid is in the Netherlands. You do get state support (~50% so it's still expensive) if both parents work enough hours.

by yread

3/31/2026 at 10:55:18 AM

that's crazy, state kindergarten cost like 50-60EUR here in Czechia, private ones start around 400EUR

by Markoff

3/31/2026 at 11:44:00 AM

Jo, holt zemský ráj to napohled

by yread

3/31/2026 at 6:04:06 AM

[dead]

by monero-xmr

3/31/2026 at 3:24:59 AM

Really? I fit 3 seats in a Hyundai i30. Not a big or fuel-hungry car.

by magarnicle

3/31/2026 at 9:05:42 AM

It’s this everywhere: the constant fear of not raising children perfectly in every aspect puts downward pressure on a family’s desire (and perceived ability) to have more children.

by piker

3/31/2026 at 5:34:10 PM

I don't think it is about raising children perfectly. I think people knowadays are more educated about negative psychological impact to children and therefore there is a change in parenting style which takes more effort. More quality time, no corporal punishment, more understanding and kindness and so on. The effort to raise children therefore has increased (fear based parentingis rather low effort). I think it is for the good. Those who are able to make that commitment raise the kids. (I dont say that negative styles don't exist, but society in general has improved on parenting styles)

by ivell

3/30/2026 at 9:31:45 PM

I had a Mazda 3 hatchback, fun little car with stick shift, when our second child arrived. It was not possible to fit in a second rear-facing car seat behind driver AND have the driver seat be in any acceptable position for me or my wife, there was just no space left in front. We researched the seats and ultimately it was easier to get a bigger car than mess with it, so we got a Volvo XC70 that had plenty of space. Once the kids could face forward, the typical Graco style seats were too wide and the middle rear passenger seat was not usable, so we invested into 2 narrow-profile seats that left the middle seat more useful. I can't remember the brand anymore, but it took a lot of research to find the narrow ones and they weren't cheap.

And none of this have contributed to us not wanting more than 2 children. That wasn't going to happen regardless of any car seats. People not wanting to have more than a 1 or 2 kids has so many other, more important reasons, I very much doubt that car seat size has much to do with it.

by danielodievich

3/31/2026 at 9:19:29 AM

You're not really arguing against the paper; the study showed a lower birth probability of only 0.73% in places with car seat laws. That suggests that yes, sometimes it does deter parents from having a third kid, but most of the time it does not. And the paper doesn't say that the third car seat issue is the only consideration parents might use to dissuade them from a third child.

by kelnos

3/31/2026 at 6:21:44 AM

> People not wanting to have more than a 1 or 2 kids has so many other, more important reasons, I very much doubt that car seat size has much to do with it.

Yes and no. It is a bunch of little and big things that add up to that decision.

It is interesting to see how much the car seat issue adds to the decision making.

by wodenokoto

3/31/2026 at 3:14:07 PM

Car seats have also deterred me from a few trips, short and long. They're a hassle to get an uber and store at destination (say a sporting event), and they are a nightmare to lug around airports and add to the effective travel time by if you end up checking them in as luggage (and then waiting for them at the carousel).

by mguerville

3/31/2026 at 3:35:27 PM

Traveling with kids in car seats via any method other than one’s own vehicle is almost not worth the hassle. I always rent a car and car seat on the other end, or purchase a car seat for family to put in their car for us. I’ve also purchased strollers to stash with the same family. I’d rather buy all this than lug it through airports for “free.”

by freeAgent

3/31/2026 at 3:25:01 PM

Last sporting event I went to I was able to check my car seat at the stroller check, the workers didn't bat an eye :)

by dylanowen

3/31/2026 at 2:47:37 PM

I've mentioned this in another thread when the topic came up, but this has other effects like availability of backup childcare.

With kids, unbelievably, needing some form of car seat until the age of 8~12.. you are limited in who can help with pickup/dropoff/after school programs to someone who borrows your car or is doing so often enough to buy the correct sized car seats for each of your kids. The upper limit being 12 is pretty wild considering we then let them drive at 16.

Oddly of course in the US, if your kid is taking the school bus they are entirely unbelted and without a safety seat from the age of.. 5.

As an uncle to multiple kids under 10, I end up only spending time with them in their own home or when they are brought over.

Contrast that with my upbringing spending time with cousins/aunts/neighbors being driven around by whoever I was staying with for the afternoon.

by steveBK123

3/31/2026 at 3:15:30 PM

People are putting 12 year olds in car seats!?

by Ir0nMan

3/31/2026 at 3:57:25 PM

I've observed that a whole lot of people absolutely do not keep putting kids in car seats once they're about the height & weight of a petite adult (us included).

So the guidelines say one thing, but I'd be surprised if a majority of parents are still putting their kids in them even by age 10, let alone 12.

by genthree

3/31/2026 at 3:30:37 PM

In CA AB-435 is written to apply a 5-point fit test to anyone under 16.

by sollewitt

3/31/2026 at 6:05:14 PM

Is that not just further formalizing "Use a car seat until the kid is big enough that you would expect seat belts to function properly"?

by BobaFloutist

3/31/2026 at 9:09:01 AM

I remember the day I measured my youngest, find they didn't need a seat anymore and drove it straight to the rubbish tip. It was pure elation. I could fold the seats down in 10 seconds to carry stuff. I could fold them back up and put a kid straight in. Awesome

by jimnotgym

3/31/2026 at 12:19:09 PM

I believe it's a factor, but not the dominant one.

Me and my SO were considering a third for a brief moment, but it was the amount of living space and our age (35+ for the mother) that ultimately made us decide against it.

I was totally in for getting a new vehicle BTW.

Interestingly I have two siblings and we had a serious and expected downgrade as a family in living space just when I started attending grade school - a smaller apartment than mine currently.

As for the car seats the regulations came in when my younger sister was in 3rd grade or so, so he just decided to wing it without the seats.

Families of 5+ have very few options in terms of cars, among them the Peugeot 5008 - reviled both by reviewers and owners alike.

by Tade0

3/30/2026 at 9:34:37 PM

(Have 3yo and 1yo, another one the way, goal is 4)

I have often thought that car seats are one of the major drags of modern parenting. This study apparently (I don't have time to read it, too busy with kids lmao!) confirms my suspicions.

It is unfortunate that every policy change around them is trading some amount of convenience for every smaller risk eliminations. It is essentially impossible to say perfectly rational things like "I think children should be put in this slightly riskier type of car seat for convenience reasons."

Even if laws are relaxed, there is the peer/manufacturer pressure. As a real example, I think it is pretty annoying to have my three year old facing backwards. It would be somewhat more dangerous to have them facing forwards, but a substantial improvement in quality of life for me and for the child. The manufacturers compete based on max weight that they support/allow/claim for rear facing, something like 45 pounds. So a family member such as a spouse allegedly has decided that the child ABSOLUTELY needs to be rear facing until they reach that weight. That may not happen until age five! By this time there may be manufacturers inching up to 60 pounds rear facing.

The only possible relief I can envision is that computers become so proficient at driving our cars that there are essentially no accidents. Then we may be allowed to sit unbuckled holding our children!

by aaronax

3/30/2026 at 10:01:00 PM

My child moved to front facing at around 2 or maybe 2.5 at the oldest (had to go back and lock at old pictures to confirm, she’s 12 now). Parents who obsess over things like keeping their kid rear facing until 5 or in a booster seat until 12 are just neurotic, IMHO. They’re probably the same ones who won’t let them ride their bikes around the neighborhood unsupervised or walk/ride the bus to or from school.

by sgerenser

3/30/2026 at 10:38:19 PM

My wife's argument to keep them rear-facing as long as possible is that it's closer to laying down and it helps them sleep.

by bombcar

3/31/2026 at 6:51:45 AM

Ehhhhh, what's your problem with booster seats? Those are just to get the shoulders into the design zone as needed for the typical 3-point seat belt.

It's based on size (shoulder height measured in sitting position) not age.

I think some 5-point seat belts allow a much wider design zone so won't need boosters by the time the children outgrow the front-facing bucket seat.

by namibj

3/31/2026 at 12:01:15 PM

Kids want to get out of them into adult seats as soon as they can. Actual comfort not relevant.

by manwe150

3/31/2026 at 3:27:15 AM

Built-in 5-point harnesses in the back seats would be safer than car seats and far easier, but there is a whole industry working against that idea.

by magarnicle

3/31/2026 at 9:55:49 AM

Assuming the kids would be facing forward, wouldn't that require a helmet and a HANS device as well?

by hbs18

3/31/2026 at 9:17:44 AM

> The only possible relief I can envision is that computers become so proficient at driving our cars that there are essentially no accidents. Then we may be allowed to sit unbuckled holding our children!

Laws are about control[ling citizens]. Politicians are not willing to give up control.

by aleph_minus_one

3/30/2026 at 9:38:53 PM

I had a vehicle with no back seats when my child was in a car seat. It was great because I could attend to them while driving. Since there were no back seats they could not cite me as it was an exception to the law.

I'm not convinced it's actually safer to have kids in the back. Sure they're safer in an accident, but when I drove another car with rear seats I found myself constantly looking back to deal with the child thus more likely to cause an accident. Yes maybe you should just neglect your child while driving, but they will exact penance if you do so, by non-stop screaming so loud you can't hear emergency vehicles or other possible road hazards.

by mothballed

3/30/2026 at 9:47:51 PM

This common sense mindset would invalidate so many 'safety' laws and I'm all for it.

Studies make so many invalid assumptions (and usually don't even state them) to force the data / statistics to fit clean a/b or null testing.

But to put a dent in the status quo, we really need a greenlight to just dump however many kids in the back again, no matter the number of kids or seatbelts.

And before anyone gut reacts to this- ask yourself why doing that with schoolbuses still isn't a problem?

by beerandt

3/31/2026 at 1:14:56 AM

> why doing that with schoolbuses still isn't a problem?

Because school buses are very large and heavy and the passengers are high off the roadway. Buses also need to stop at all railroad tracks.

by celeritascelery

3/30/2026 at 9:52:31 PM

Probably for the same reason government trucks aren't required to have emissions controls on them, at the end of the day the King will do whatever they like and reason backwards why it applies to the subjects but not the crown.

by mothballed

3/30/2026 at 9:59:32 PM

> I'm not convinced it's actually safer to have kids in the back.

I thought that a major reason for placing children in back seat was because of the air bags in the front seat representing a danger to them when they deploy.

(But maybe kids don't trigger the weight needed to activate the passenger side air bag anymore?)

by drdec

3/31/2026 at 12:13:52 AM

You can also usually just turn off the passenger-side airbag. I know there's been a button on every car I've owned to do so, for when you've got something heavy in the front seat that isn't a passenger.

by SAI_Peregrinus

3/31/2026 at 9:27:09 AM

I've never had a car where you could disable the passenger-side airbag. We did have a car like that in the 90s, but it didn't come that way from the factory: my mother had a mostly-irrational fear of them (she was on the shorter side, but not so short that it could actually be a danger for her if it deployed), so we somehow got an aftermarket mod that let her disable it when she was riding in that seat.

Of course, she drove that car often enough too; not sure why she felt having the driver-side airbag enabled all the time was safe, but not the passenger-side airbag. (Mom was... often inconsistent with how she reacted to her fears.)

by kelnos

3/31/2026 at 1:44:55 PM

Some newer vehicles will automatically disable the front passenger airbag if there is nothing in the seat or if there is weight in the seat but less weight than a typical adult.

Pickup trucks without a backseat have long had the ability to manually disable the passenger airbag.

by tohnjitor

3/30/2026 at 9:16:46 PM

It's definitely possible to put 3 car seats across in the back seat of pretty much any car available in the American market. The appropriate narrow seats just aren't very popular or well known...

by bryanlarsen

3/30/2026 at 9:26:12 PM

I didn't come across those narrow seats when we looked into solution for fitting two kids and an adult (grandma) in the back row.

So we went for (especially in Europe) rather limited subset of cars where all 3 of the 2nd row seats are proper sized, with Isofix on each of them.

Usually same makes/models that offer the option of additional 2 seats in the 3rd row.

by techcode

3/30/2026 at 9:22:42 PM

Even the supposed narrow ones can be a pain in the arse to actually get in the back.

Every family I see with at least 2 kids has a minivan, so maybe we can discuss if minivans are causal.

by bombcar

3/30/2026 at 10:04:10 PM

I didn’t need the minivan until the third kid appeared. I would have stayed with a sedan as long as possible.

by regus

3/30/2026 at 10:20:54 PM

We ran the sedan through 3 but really should have moved to the minivan much earlier; they're just much more practical for almost everything.

by bombcar

3/30/2026 at 10:01:41 PM

Only for some North American models. The narrow seats are mandatory to even try but even then some cars are 3-4 inches too narrow door to door.

by Someone1234

3/31/2026 at 9:10:51 AM

My wife and I are DINKs. We drive a smallish CUV. Her cousin drove it, fell in love, and bought the same car.

It’s really a perfect allrounder - looks nice, is luxurious, more than enough space for us, even drives like a sports car (or at least as close to a CUV can hope to).

Then said cousin had a baby. People around him scolded him for not selling the car for something much bigger - like a Kia Telluride or a Honda Pilot. But he is doing just fine.

by decafninja

3/31/2026 at 12:53:30 PM

People around him scolded him

that's one of the bigger problems in todays society. people acting like they know better and judging others for doing things differently.

by em-bee

3/31/2026 at 6:49:25 PM

Same as it's always been.

"Small town" attitudes; grandmothers judging young mothers; elders complaining about youth...

by IAmBroom

3/31/2026 at 2:35:06 PM

Because it would make their bad financial decisions feel bad in this situation :3

by delfinom

3/31/2026 at 2:34:33 PM

I know someone who had one child and then spent the pandemic finding a car and buying an overpriced, and significantly oversized Escalade. He of course detailed his struggles, especially financial the entire time to us wonder what the fuck was going on. Apparently the whole pressure was from his and his wife's entire extended family.

Jfc my parents raised me and my brother out of a fucking Buick sedan. Modern Americans are spoiled as fuck.

by delfinom

3/31/2026 at 5:45:39 PM

> We estimate that these laws prevented fatalities of 57 children in car crashes in 2017 but reduced total births by 8,000 that year

These two options are not equivalent. I will take 8,000 3rd children not being born over 57 kids dying in car crashes every time.

by JonathanRaines

3/31/2026 at 3:26:03 PM

car seats are one of the reasons I'm glad I don't have a car... don't need a car seat on the bus or train!

by cozzyd

3/31/2026 at 1:33:13 AM

Is this really true in 2026? Even 10 year old cars are simply big now, and not that expensive. I could believe it in 1990 maybe.

I have 3 babies (ages 0, 2, 4 when we started) in a 2016 Subaru Outback for 1.5 years now and it's been mostly fine. I have 2 "slim" seats from Clek, one is a booster, and it's really not a big deal. I cannot imagine deciding to give up a child because of a minor inconvenience like this.

Buying slim car seats is just not that expensive compared to buying a new car, so we did that. It's hard to believe that people who really want 3 children cannot make it work.

by simonsarris

3/31/2026 at 9:30:08 AM

> I cannot imagine deciding to give up a child because of a minor inconvenience like this.

I don't think the article was suggesting that parents sit down together, ask each other "hey, should we have a third kid?" and one of them says, "well, I would say yes, but the only downside I can think of is that fitting a third child seat will be really hard, so let's not do it."

Parents who decide not to have the third kid certainly have other reasons for not wanting one, and the difficulty of a third car seat is a contributing factor, not the only consideration.

by kelnos

3/31/2026 at 3:23:46 AM

Only quite small cars would have this problem - we had to upgrade from a Honda Jazz/Fit for this reason, but only to a Hyundai i30.

by magarnicle

3/31/2026 at 6:26:20 AM

Interesting moral discussion: An estimated 8000 fewer births in 2017 attributed to a law that saved an estimated 57 lives in the same year.

by paulmooreparks

3/31/2026 at 9:33:14 AM

It's also unclear if it's the laws alone that saved those 57 kids. If the laws didn't exist, presumably some of those 57 kids would still have been in rear-facing child seats, and would have survived, no? (Unless their study accounted for that, and the end result was 57.)

But it is an interesting thing to think about. Sure, 57 children dying would create a lot of misery for a family (and extended family), but would 8,000 other children in the world, presumably giving their families happiness, somehow "make up for it"?

Feels odd to think about it in those terms. Balancing/trading lives is a dirty business.

by kelnos

3/31/2026 at 6:53:48 AM

It's the classical trolley problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

by etamponi

3/31/2026 at 8:36:37 AM

I don't want to put words in your mouth etamponi, but if we take the trolley problem to classically mean choosing between different numbers of deaths; then I wouldn't describe it as a trolley problem.

I imagine the typical car accident in which three 'car seat age' children are involved, and at least one is killed. Then I imagine the typical event where a family decide against a third child. I feel quite a substantial qualitative difference! I certainly wouldn't claim one offsets the other.

Personally I don't know if there's any multiplier I'd accept. I find reduction of suffering and trauma much more important to me than offset creation of life and opportunity.

by david_rugaex

3/31/2026 at 8:29:13 AM

I don't think fewer births qualifies for the classic problem

by FergusArgyll

3/30/2026 at 9:37:57 PM

I thought this was going to be about a car being uncomfortable to have sex in.

Such a car would make for a great product to sell to parents of teenagers, so you can lend them the car but at least make it difficult to fornicate without consent of the king.

by TZubiri

3/31/2026 at 4:16:15 PM

I figured the same thing, was expecting a lament about the demise of the glorious bench seat.

by genthree

3/30/2026 at 10:06:46 PM

Anyway stow-n-go minivans are the best for ... carrying (and making) lots of kids

by bombcar

3/30/2026 at 10:25:47 PM

Minivans cause minivans?

by msy

3/30/2026 at 9:42:37 PM

That was immediately my thought.

by waynecochran

3/30/2026 at 10:14:46 PM

A friend once remarked that it'd take particular dedication to so using a Miata.

by RhysU

3/30/2026 at 9:46:31 PM

When did any of that ever stop teenagers?

by cucumber3732842

3/31/2026 at 9:04:58 AM

> We show that laws mandating use of child car safety seats significantly reduce birth rates, as many cars cannot fit three child seats in the back seat.

It's almost Darwinistic: Offspring has an increased potential of survival and faces less threats, so reproduction is organically adjusted to prevent overpopulation.

by rickdeckard

3/30/2026 at 9:57:59 PM

Let’s just focus on how cars and car culture are reducing birth rates. Nobody wants to chuck their kids into the back seat without a carseat any more. Laws aren’t the problem.

by bentt

3/30/2026 at 10:02:27 PM

Cars and car culture probably increased birth rates in the last few decades to begin with!

by yawnxyz

3/30/2026 at 10:01:53 PM

These seem like particularly specific excuses. If you are not into having kids, there are many different ways to rationalize that (but why?). If you are into kids, you'd have to overcome all sorts of pain and suffering, car culture is by far not the worst of them.

(Father of 4, 39 y.o., non-religious.)

by oleganza

3/30/2026 at 10:44:47 PM

I was going to have more kids, but I didn't for the particular exact reasons I always am harping on about (in my case, nerfing beast hunter in WoW in 2018) ;)

by bombcar

3/30/2026 at 10:36:05 PM

back seat? we were loose in the pickup truck!

by steanne

3/30/2026 at 10:39:53 PM

You had a truck! Lucky! We just rolled around like billiard balls in a station wagon.

by bombcar

3/31/2026 at 7:38:40 AM

Luxury! Oh we used to dream about rolling around like billiard balls

by gib444

3/31/2026 at 1:07:57 PM

My favorite scene in Life of Brian

by luckys

3/30/2026 at 10:03:44 PM

[dead]

by sieabahlpark

3/30/2026 at 11:37:12 PM

I also think that modern car seats are one of the main factors driving the adoption of unnecessarily large cars, which have far worse safety outcomes in crashes for everybody except the people inside them.

When I was growing up in the 90s with 2 siblings we had a small hatch. When I had my second child we had to upgrade from a small hatch to an SUV because we simply couldn't fit a car seat behind the driver. Even now, I'm not sure if a third would fit.

Sure, the SUV itself and the extra padding on the car seats might make my children safe in collisions with other big cars, but if we were all still driving hatches then maybe none of that would be necessary.

We are in the stupidest arms race.

by clusmore

3/31/2026 at 10:59:10 AM

Odd, I have two kids and never owned a car, so I dont think this study results work for me.

by Markoff

3/31/2026 at 1:48:32 PM

The paper specifically does not apply in your scenario.

by tohnjitor

3/30/2026 at 10:07:22 PM

It's just not cool to have kids. There are many more ways to have fun and status in society, so having kids is either coming as a social burden ("i am expected to by my spouse/relatives"), or a religious thing. Rationally, it's such a pain in the ass to have kids, while you can have some much more fun without them: travel the world, meet people, learn and explore! Clearly, having kids is net cost and suffering.

Yet, those who opt in do have a different opinion. We got two a decade ago, and then a couple years ago through of FOMO that when we are 45 we'd look back and regret missing the window of having another couple of kids. So we did. I'm 39, have four kids, had to get a bigger car, pay the airline tickets through the nose, spend a lot of time on kids' stuff, and love it. My family is the center of the universe and I'm the happiest and wisest dad alive. Everyone else is childish ;-P

by oleganza

3/30/2026 at 10:48:21 PM

What I've seen is that when you have no kids, DINKing it up, everyone you know has no kids and having kids seems impossible.

But as they start having kids, you start having kids - and you can roughly keep the same group, maybe get a few, lose a few.

But if you get up to 4 (or more) kids, you start finding ... your group changes to one that includes more and larger families.

by bombcar

3/30/2026 at 9:49:03 PM

I wonder if self-driving cars and massively improved safety will solve this.

5 kids in a car, held, seated, seatbelted, any-which-way. Like on a train.

by yarone

3/30/2026 at 10:01:42 PM

No parent will ever do that, because parenting fucks up brain in a special way

by Muromec

3/30/2026 at 10:20:06 PM

> We estimate that these laws prevented fatalities of 57 children in car crashes in 2017 but reduced total births by 8,000 that year and have decreased the total by 145,000 since 1980.

145K is roughly the population of Syracuse, NY or Midland, TX. That is far more than the absolute number of US military deaths in World War I (116,516 per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt...).

by RhysU

3/31/2026 at 6:10:42 AM

Wasn't WW1 basically finished when U.S. troops reached the front line?

by etiennebausson

3/30/2026 at 9:52:34 PM

I was expecting to read about flame retardants in car seats causing infertility.

by caned

3/30/2026 at 9:22:27 PM

The law in my state doesn't require car seats be in the back if it's full or not possible. IIRC they also aren't required if there's no more room. I put my kid up front in my truck that had zero back seats, only a couple people said anything and I told them to pound sand, it certainly wasn't illegal.

by mothballed

3/30/2026 at 9:39:45 PM

Legal or not, there are real safety reasons not to put a small child up front. I bet your car's user manual says not to put kids up front. The safety systems are designed with minimum height & weight assumptions. The front seat belts aren't designed for a car seat. But most importantly, airbags explode with serious force that can break bones in a kids face. If they're in a rear facing car seat it can strike the seat (which will be close to the dashboard) with enough force to snap their spine.

by randerson

3/30/2026 at 9:44:40 PM

>Legal or not, there are real safety reasons not to put a small child up front. I bet your car's user manual says not to put kids up front. The safety systems are designed with minimum height & weight assumptions. The front seat belts aren't designed for a car seat. But most importantly, airbags explode with serious force that can break bones in a kids face. If they're in a rear facing car seat it can strike the seat (which will be close to the dashboard) with enough force to snap their spine.

He already said he told people who were hand wringing to pound sand. What's the point of more hand wringing?

Also, trucks from the 90s typically even have passenger airbags.

by cucumber3732842

3/30/2026 at 9:39:52 PM

That seems reasonable. Which state do you live in?

by Maximus9000

3/30/2026 at 9:40:06 PM

AZ

by mothballed

3/30/2026 at 9:37:18 PM

It was never about the limit of the law. It was always about what will get you scolded or otherwise harassed by other parents or people in the "children" profession. Any sort of place lots of kids are (daycare, doctor, etc, etc) are absolute hives of those kinds of people.

> I put my kid up front in my truck that had zero back seats, only a couple people said anything and I told them to pound sand, it certainly wasn't illegal.

Yeah because at that point you're basically advertising that you don't give a shit what they think and so you're a lost cause to the kind of people who'd try and guilt you.

I bet if you showed up wearing both a front and rear kid carrier while riding a motorcycle they would have not said a word and avoided I contact with you entirely.

by cucumber3732842

3/31/2026 at 1:07:10 AM

[dead]

by cacao-cacao

3/30/2026 at 9:41:27 PM

[dead]

by theturtle

3/30/2026 at 9:30:14 PM

Correlation does not equal causation. I feel this study shows correlation, but fails to prove any associated causation.

Maybe people just avoid 3 kids, because it’s hard enough raising one or two kids.

by daft_pink

3/30/2026 at 10:09:56 PM

A theory that at least is consistent with the observed correlation seems vastly superior to a midbrow dismissal that doesn't. Your "raising kids is hard" theory would explain why people don't have a third child, but raising kids is hard universally. What was observed was that a third child was delayed for longer (even indefinitely) in states with higher age thresholds for mandatory car seats (even when controlling for demographics).

Their causal explanation relies on two additional observations that seem pretty hard to explain by other theories: the effect disappears for single-parent and carless households.

by jsnell

3/30/2026 at 9:58:08 PM

Or cars usually fit 2 child seats because that's the common number they get from customer research.

by msy

3/30/2026 at 9:41:06 PM

It is also the number at which your reproduction exceeds that of only replacing your own life. This is very important to some parents to leave the world with more people in it.

by RIMR