Mother’s Day is a time to reflect on family. When people think of the word ‘family’ do they still conjure up scenes from Leave it Beaver, where June Cleaver cleaned the house wearing a dress and pearls? Ward never had to work late and always made it home on time for June’s home cooked family dinners, which the entire family enjoyed while conversing civilly at the dinner table.
If you look at the back of minivans and SUVs, you might think this is still the norm. Those perfect little stick figure families are everywhere! At first, I thought they were cute, 
but now, I find them pretty darn annoying, not to mention unsafe.
Why do we feel the need to advertise the number of kids and petsin our family to strangers (and potentially criminals)? Apparently, sharing our lives on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram isn’t enough. We must also personalize our 
vehicles with details like our occupations and hobbies,not to mention the ages, genders and names of our children!
Take a closer like at these conga lines of families, neatly arranged from tallest to smallest, and it feels like smug proof of the perfect norm: Dad next to the barbecue, Mom with shopping bags in hand, the teenage skater boy, the pre-adolescent cheerleader, the little girl ballerina, Fido and Fluffy.
My own family is far from that traditional model. In fact, with my “three sons”, only two of them are my biological children, something that certainly can’t be represented with stick figure decals! That’s why I had to smile when I stumbled upon these creative car owners who have taken stick figure families to an entirely new level:
Happy Monday,
Mary
