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I lived in Germany for nearly 4 years. I arrived with a child who was about 8 months old. I had another baby when my first was 2 1/2. I did a LOT of walking in Germany, or I took my bike. Germans generally do a lot more walking than Americans. They wear leather boots ("winter shuhe") and short, heavy coats. They also have gloves and stuff.
I walked to the grocery store 4 to 6 days per week. One year, we got more snow than usual for that region of Germany. That same winter, I had my second child. Two days before he was born, my husband and I stood with our 2 1/2 year old between us on the sidewalk, on our way to the grocery store, each of us holding his hands. We told him to not cross without us. Naturally, for this child, that meant it was imperative in his mind that he manage to pull away from both of us and dart out into the street as an Experiment to find out what would happen if he defied us. He came so close to getting run over that he cut his finger on the car that drove past him. He then spent the next year refusing to cross the street until there were no moving vehicles within his sight -- in 2 blocks or so in all directions. I spent that year standing on the curb for 20 minutes, regardless of the weather and with his infant brother strapped to my chest, waiting for him to determine that it was SAFE to cross. I wasn't about to veto him and undo the lesson he learned by so narrowly escaping being run over by a car.
Sorry, weather is not really a great excuse much of the time. Neither are kids. Those excuses occur to the minds of folks who have never done much walking and who can't imagine making the lifestyle changes necessary to make walking a success. However, it is a very good argument that more Americans would walk if the built environment were more pedestrian friendly. But there are cultural factors involved here. Part of it is that Americans generally don't "know" how to make a pedestrian lifestyle work. And part of it is how squeamish middle class Americans are about being "clean". We get all weird if someone has done any sweating, if they smell at all, or if their hair isn't perfectly coiffed because they have been out in the wind for 20 minutes of walking. Europeans aren't so squeamish.
It also creates class issues in America that I think are less problematic in countries where "cleanliness" is less of a big deal. Because we are squeamish about such things, we shun the immigrants who do the hard physical labor that we are unwilling to do, generally speaking. We think we aren't classist, it is just that they smell. But it is classist to act like only super-clean people are "good enough". You have to have a rather pampered life to be "clean" like that all the time -- and having a car-based lifestyle is intricately interrelated with that American foible. Cultures that use more public transit and do more walking simply don't have the means to get to a psychological place where that degree of isolation and "cleanliness" seems "normal" and reasonable.
I walked to the grocery store 4 to 6 days per week. One year, we got more snow than usual for that region of Germany. That same winter, I had my second child. Two days before he was born, my husband and I stood with our 2 1/2 year old between us on the sidewalk, on our way to the grocery store, each of us holding his hands. We told him to not cross without us. Naturally, for this child, that meant it was imperative in his mind that he manage to pull away from both of us and dart out into the street as an Experiment to find out what would happen if he defied us. He came so close to getting run over that he cut his finger on the car that drove past him. He then spent the next year refusing to cross the street until there were no moving vehicles within his sight -- in 2 blocks or so in all directions. I spent that year standing on the curb for 20 minutes, regardless of the weather and with his infant brother strapped to my chest, waiting for him to determine that it was SAFE to cross. I wasn't about to veto him and undo the lesson he learned by so narrowly escaping being run over by a car.
Sorry, weather is not really a great excuse much of the time. Neither are kids. Those excuses occur to the minds of folks who have never done much walking and who can't imagine making the lifestyle changes necessary to make walking a success. However, it is a very good argument that more Americans would walk if the built environment were more pedestrian friendly. But there are cultural factors involved here. Part of it is that Americans generally don't "know" how to make a pedestrian lifestyle work. And part of it is how squeamish middle class Americans are about being "clean". We get all weird if someone has done any sweating, if they smell at all, or if their hair isn't perfectly coiffed because they have been out in the wind for 20 minutes of walking. Europeans aren't so squeamish.
It also creates class issues in America that I think are less problematic in countries where "cleanliness" is less of a big deal. Because we are squeamish about such things, we shun the immigrants who do the hard physical labor that we are unwilling to do, generally speaking. We think we aren't classist, it is just that they smell. But it is classist to act like only super-clean people are "good enough". You have to have a rather pampered life to be "clean" like that all the time -- and having a car-based lifestyle is intricately interrelated with that American foible. Cultures that use more public transit and do more walking simply don't have the means to get to a psychological place where that degree of isolation and "cleanliness" seems "normal" and reasonable.
