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A license to breed in Florida
Who’s your daddy?
We here at The Blogaroni aren’t ashamed to admit that we’ve lost track of all the specialty license plates available to Florida drivers. With the pressing needs of sports enthusiasts (“Support Soccer”), pet obsessives (“Animal Friend”) and peaceniks (“Imagine”) already addressed, it wouldn’t surprise us if, for example, a “Save the Unicorn” license plate gets added to the ever-growing list of specialty plates.
Fertile territory for license plates
However, I didn’t expect to discover yet another specialty license plate to celebrate the self-inflicted role of parenting. I was driving on I-95 the other day when I saw a car with this unfamiliar plate.
I thought parenting had already reached its quota of state specialty license plates.
Turns out, there are only 855 cars in the state with the Parents Make a Difference plate, which has been around for more than two years already. I’m not surprised there are so few takers. Because, let’s say you are one of those parents who feel the need to fly your banner of responsible procreation to an indifferent world of manatee protectors, share-the-road cyclists, and University of Florida alums. If so, the “Parents Make a Difference” plate is only one of three nearly identical choices you can make.
You might, for example, go with this variation on the theme:
Or perhaps, this one, which has a slightly outdated Republican get-out-the-vote taint to it:
Or you might branch out into the various specialty plates that single out the product of parenting: Invest in Children, Stop Child Abuse, Choose Life, Kids Deserve Justice, or Keep Kids Drug Free
Splitting heirs hairs
The key element to these parenting plates, as you can see, is the pictorial representation of the four-member family — husband, wife, boy and girl. The most popular of these three variations, according to state figures, is the Family First plate, with 1,534 issued.
Which, in the big scheme of things, is a puny number. It turns out that being a good parent is one of the least popular things Floridians chose announce to the world. In contrast, the “Go Fishing” license plate has had 53,379 takers, and the most popular plate, the Florida Panther (the endangered animal, not the endangered hockey team) gets about 100,000 takers a year.
Maybe not enough parenting plate options
For some reason, the parenting plates just can’t compete. In 2005, the most recent year that specialty license plates were ranked by their popularity, out of the 103 different specialty license plates in Florida, the family plates ranked 68th(Family FIrst), 80th (Parents Make a Difference) and 83rd (Family Values).
I blame the family depiction on the plates.
Florida ought to broaden the selection of family license plates. Here are five suggestions:
1. Celebrate Weird Uncles
C’mon, every family has a strange uncle or two. Shouldn’t they have their own plate.
2. Protect the Family, capish?
With a depiction of the HBO Mafia drama The Sopranos featured on the plate. Just a hunch, but I’ll bet there are far more people who want to see The Sopranos continue on HBO than want to tell the world what a wonderful job they are doing raising their cute little children — even though everybody already knows that one day they will turn into teenagers.
3. Gay Parents Make a Difference
Available in two styles — man-man, or woman-woman.
4. Share the Dad
From the designers who brought you the cycling “Share the Road” plate, this would be a plate to honor the complicated lives of guys who straddle two home lives. The plate would picture a silhouette of a guy in in the middle of two family groups.
5. Every Family is Screwed Up in Some Way
This license plate, which would depict the stick figures of the family in a swirling tempest, may not end up as the top seller among family license plates, but it will certainly speak to the greatest number of people.
Comments
By michaelj
January 4, 2007 2:58 PM | Link to this
Regarding your No. 5, may I suggest a refinement that would serve the additional purpose of accentuating Florida’s reputation as a notable bastion of erudition and literacy:
Every Family: Unhappy in Its Own Way.
By TC
January 5, 2007 2:24 PM | Link to this
Florida Family Values: “It Takes A Gated Community”