The Stereotypical Difference Between Moms Who Drive A ‘White SUV’ Vs A ‘Black SUV’
Which one are you?
Georgio Trovato & Pete Alexopoulos / Unsplash Motherhood is fraught with decisions and doubts. Most days are spent wondering if you’re making the right choices for your family, if there’s any milk in the fridge, when your kid’s next soccer practice is, and if you're doing this whole mom thing right.
For moms who drive their kids to and from school, who wait in the carpool line, then drive to ballet lessons, guitar lessons, or any kind of lesson, their car becomes a second home and possibly even a way to determine what type of mom you are.
The stereotypical differences between moms who drive a white SUV versus moms who drive a black SUV center around personal style and parenting style.
A mom named Savannah explained that the whole "white SUV mom, black SUV mom thing has been around for years.”
“While growing up — I’m 24 now — my mom drove a black SUV,” she said. “Anytime they got a new car, which wasn’t super frequent, but I remember like four cars in my childhood. Every single one had to be black.”
“It had to be black, and I didn’t understand it. Now, I’m a mom, and I 100 percent understand it,” Savannah declared. “My mom still drives a black SUV, and now, she has raised a black SUV mom herself.”
“It’s amazing,” Savannah said of her black SUV lifestyle, saying she could never see herself buying a car that’s not black.
“It’s just kind of, like, engraved in my veins now,” she concluded.
Photo: Crown Moty / Unsplash
She went on to describe the way personalities and cars align, noting, “Now, I’m able to see other moms and be like, ‘A white SUV does suit you. A black SUV does suit you. Yours is red; that makes total sense now.’”
“One isn’t better than the other,” she said. “I think it’s just a personality-based thing.”
She used her own mother and her mother-in-law as examples: while her mom drives a black SUV, her mother-in-law drives a white SUV.
“She is very much a hostess,” she said. “Every time we’re over there, she’s making amazing homemade meals, she loves doing crafts” with Savannah’s daughter, Sophie.
Photo: Egor Myznik / Unsplash
“My mom, the black SUV mom, is the opposite of that,” she continued. “She would rather attend the party than host it. Instead of cooking, we did a lot of frozen meals, or we ate out.”
“Sometimes, we’d go shopping together. I remember playing kickball a lot as a kid, too,” she said. “The vibes are just different.”
Savannah believes both SUV moms are needed, noting that the one that resonates most with how a mom feels is the right choice for her.
“I’m a black SUV mom, and this is my daughter, who has a black SUV mom,” she said, holding her daughter on her lap. “It’s a baby dance party! Oh, someone’s not in the mood for a dance party.”
Tori Kanter, another mom, gave her perspective on the correlation between cars and personality types as her kids played offscreen in the background.
“So, white SUV moms are the ones that are like, basic white girl moms, [who] drive a cute little car, Starbucks, Target, cute aesthetic, that type of thing. Meanwhile, black SUV moms are just like, winging it, go with the flow type of thing,” she explained.
“If so, that makes sense, for me at least,” Kanter said. “I drive a black jeep that’s all blacked out, tinted, black wheels. Everything is blacked out, and I just go with the flow; I don’t have the energy to go above and beyond for some things, and I’m just living life, and I’m surviving.”
“My car is always clean, though,” she said. “The inside. And sometimes the outside.”
Another mom, Lisa Michelle, countered the stereotype that moms who drive black SUVs “shop at Walmart, have dirty cars, and are gross” by showing her black SUV, which was sparkling clean on the outside and spotless inside.
A mom named Karly Woodling described moms who drive white SUVs as “perfect, their kids are perfect, their life is put together, Target runs, Starbucks runs, traditional white girl mom.”
Moms who drive black SUVs are “the opposite, so it’s like, not put together, kind of just winging it,” Woodling said. “I don’t know how to explain it other than just winging it.
She wondered what SUV vibes she gave off, saying, “I know what color SUV I drive, but I just feel like sometimes it’s one thing, and sometimes it’s another thing. Sometimes, I’m a black SUV mom; sometimes, I’m a white SUV mom.”
Emily Johnson shared that she’d fallen down the SUV personality test rabbit hole, saying to her followers, “I need to know which one I’m giving.”
"From what I’m gathering, it’s kind of like the basics versus the baddies,” she said.
“So, the white SUV moms are just like your basic PTO, Starbucks drinking, Lululemon wearing mamas, and then you’ve got your black SUV moms, and they’re like, the cool girls, they’re a little edgier, a little more fun probably. Probably take shots of whiskey on the weekend.”
Johnson wore black scrubs, black nail polish, and sunglasses as she walked down the street, presumably toward her SUV.
“I know which one I am,” she declared, smiling.
Miranda Jane sat in the front seat of what was most likely an SUV, giving her own take on the SUV color-scheme stereotype.
“Apparently the meaning of a white SUV mom is that you’re like, an aesthetic mom who’s like, perfect. Perfect hair, perfect makeup, your kids are perfect, your life is perfect, and you have a perfect white car, and your life is just perfect,” she said.
“So, black SUV mom is apparently you’re like, the hot mess mom. You might or might not have washed your hair in a week. You’re just kinda winging it. You probably have a bunch of feral kids, you probably shop at Walmart a lot, you’re not the Target type, and you’re just drinking whatever coffee you can get your hands on, and you’re really just surviving.”
One woman left a comment declaring herself a 'Gray SUV mom: Some days aesthetic and other days, dry shampoo and Walmart.'
Her comment is light-hearted, yet it acknowledges a truth about parenting: Some days are more put together than others, and you’re always kind of winging it, no matter what.
Even moms who drive white SUVs, whose lives appear seamlessly streamlined and perfect, have moments when it feels like they’re speeding, full force, toward the edge of a cliff they can’t quite see over.
Parenting itself is a wild ride, full of left turns and unexpected speed bumps. You might feel like you’ve got the whole mom thing under control, and then the next thing you know, your backseat is covered in discarded snacks, your kids are quarreling, and you’re just keeping your head above water.
No matter what color your car is, as a gray SUV gay auntie, I want to let all moms out there know that they’re doing a great job, no matter how messy your backseat is.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.