Are some of the posters here seriously suggesting that we shouldn't make fun of people for driving 100 yards? *double checks the address bar*
Well, I'm new, so I should probably keep it to myself that I drive my kids to school in my 2013 Subaru instead of walking 200 yards to school. I just guess whoever is going to make fun of me doesn't live in a climate with several foot of snow in winter (and I guess the people in the subject do live in a place where there is snow on the streets in winter). Just FYI, I do shovel my own driveway. But in my neighborhood there are no sidewalks, so walking to school would be on the streets that might be plowed or might be not yet. And even if they were, it's still very hard to walk on them, they are icy, there are huge mountains of snow on the side preventing 2 cars to go by, let alone to go by when there are people walking. But even if we make it on the residential roads, we need to walk about 80 yards on the busy minimum 40 m/hour road. There is a sidewalk there, but it's rarely shoveled. So all 3 of us would need to have an additional pair of shoes and pants to change when we make it to school. I guess this is still manageable. But I'm sure at some point the school principal will approach me saying that my "street walking" isn't very safe for my kids and will politely ask me if I need any help with transportation before he complaints to CPS.
But even if there is no snow around, I would have to admit that I do drive my kids. I don't waste time on buckling and unbuckling them, since they are out of car seats now. But we are working on being more independent and prepare our own food which takes precious time in the morning and leaves no time for walking. And at this point of life making my kids more independent is more important to me than making sure they can walk, they aren't toddlers. I figured since they shovel with me, they probably would pass the walking to school test. And since I drive after that to work, 200 yards won't make a significant difference, takes me longer to find a parking lot at work sometimes.
Having said that, my annual budget for a family of 3 is 22k and I lough at my neighbors who pay for gym memberships, are absolutely not-fit, but outsource shoveling and moving.