I worked with a guy who had two kids and no car. They rode their bikes everywhere, always. He insisted on it. I think his wife was miserable lol. But his kids seemed to like it!
> Bringing home groceries on a bike for a family of 4 in the rain sounds awful.
It's 100% about the equipment. Gore-Tex. Neoprene. Fenders. Front and rear racks. Waterproof panniers. Lithium-ion batteries. Motor.
Park right in front of the market. Pop the panniers into a cart. Stow the groceries directly into them. No hauling bags out to your car, loading them into the trunk, and then unloading them at home. Instead, transfer straight from the panniers to the fridge and pantry.
I do it year-round in the hilly and rainy Pacific Northwest, and it's actually kind of fun.
I go grocery shopping by bike. Of course it's only for me, but I can easily fit a week's worth of food in a milk crate. I even get heavy stuff like cartons of canned drinks or gallon jugs of milk. I live about two kilometres from two grocery stores in an isolated northern town in Canada, and even though there is zero bike infrastructure here, it's so close that it doesn't really matter if I need to go multiple times per week.
Rain or snow doesn't really matter either; that's what fenders and a jacket are for, and in any case it rarely rains heavily non-stop, but comes in waves, so I can just wait until the rain pauses for a little while.
It's great fun, actually. I hate getting groceries by car now.
It totally depends. I do half our shopping on a bike, but I was very intentional about buying a place that was only a km from a grocery store. I could walk if I really wanted.
The worst part is that the shopping carts aren't near the bike rack, so its quite a hastle to deal with toddlers trying to run away.