Car-Loving Parents, Kids Who Aren’t Interested in Cars

The other day, my brother-in-law came over driving a Ferrari GTC4 Lusso T. During that visit, he apparently said this to my husband:

“Even though I bought the GTC4 Lusso T, the kids don’t even glance at it.” They don’t say they want to ride in it, and it’s not even a topic of conversation—they just show zero interest. When we say, “Let’s go somewhere in the Lexus LX,” they happily get in, saying it’s comfortable, but when it comes to sports cars, it’s like they don’t even register them.

That’s what he said.

Indeed, watching my nephews and nieces, they really don’t seem interested in cars at all.

From what I hear around me, quite a few people say, “My dad loved cars, so I ended up loving them too.” In fact, my husband’s father was a car enthusiast. My husband says,

After riding in my mom’s kei car, when I got into my dad’s Legend coupe, I was like, “What is this difference?! Amazing!” It was a real shock.

So I think he was definitely influenced to some extent.

That said, like my brother-in-law’s family, there are plenty of cases where “Even if the parents love cars, the kids just don’t.”

As for my daughters, they can at least name the cars we have at home, like the GT3 and Boxster, and they casually mention brands like BMW and Note Nismo, so compared to other girls their age, they probably know more car names.

But does that mean they’re super interested in cars? Not really. In fact, even when we take them to the Royu Driveway lookout, they’re always more focused on the café’s ice cream and juice than the cars.

Well, that’s to be expected.

That said, my husband and I don’t feel the need to force our kids to love cars. We just think, “It’d be fun if they grow up to love cars and we can have all kinds of conversations about them, but if not, that’s okay too.”

My Car-Loving Husband’s Perspective

My husband talks about his own love of cars like this:

My dad loved cars and preferred coupes. I think I was influenced by him. But when I was a kid, I saw a Porsche in a magazine and was blown away. I once said, “Dad, why don’t you buy a Porsche?” and he said, “There’s no way I can afford a Porsche.” That made me want a Porsche even more.

He also said about our soon-to-be-born child:

If a Porsche is just there at home from the moment the baby is born, the car might become so normal that the kid grows up not really interested in cars. I think many Porsche owners’ families are like that. Forcing the kid to ride or go to Royu Driveway by saying, “Let’s go!” might just make them dislike cars even more. So ironically, not pushing them to ride Porsches might actually make them more interested. I remember Shinsuke Shimada once said on TV, “I didn’t want my daughter to ride a motorcycle, so I bought one and forced her to practice. She hated it and naturally stopped riding.” Kids often react the opposite way. I grew up with a dad who was crazy about baseball and forced me to practice and go to neighborhood softball games, so I still really dislike baseball now. That’s why I plan not to talk much about sports cars or Porsches with our next child. Until they show interest, I’ll avoid pushing it.

Makes sense…

For our third child, we’ve already been playing the flat-six engine sounds of the GT3 and Boxster while still in the womb, so I think the prenatal education is going well (laughs). But what happens after birth… I’m kind of looking forward to finding out.