My family went through a few vehicle iterations as my kids grew.
We started with a 2nd Gen Montero when they were little:
But it was always a challenge fitting our stuff:
After a while, I couldn't handle the constant thumping in the small of my back as my extremely rhythmic daughter kept kicking the back of my seat. Not enough room! Especially with her in the car seat. So we upgraded to an LR3:
kids liked it:
but again, hard pressed to carry all our gear on longer trips:
At that point, our adventures forked, and we split our time between hard rock and soft road, using a Nissan Armada and 2005 Jeep Unlimited. The Armada was awesome, and fit anything and everything. Was comfortable to drive, was comfortable to sleep in, and could do trails like the Mojave Trail no problem:
Though sometimes, when we had guests, we found ourselves tacking on a trailer too!
With the Jeep, we tried extra hard to reduce our gear, but deserts get cold at night, and then you've got bulky gun stuff plus camping gear, plus, because rocks+Jeeps= lots of tools, spare parts, etc... We managed, but it was heavy and not fun to fit all 4 of us plus a dog into a Jeep:
I got pretty good at Tetris learning to pack the Jeep:
but we used every square inch of that thing:
Kids continued to grow, and for a while it limited our Jeep excursions to only part of the family, like trips with just my son and myself. Good times:
lots of room for two people and gear:
Eventually, the kids grew enough, and learned to drive, and got their own wheels. Full circle, back to a Montero!:
My point of all this is this: It doesn't really matter what you choose. But it will shape your adventures for a period of time, but they will grow, your needs will change, your adventures will adapt accordingly. They key is to get out there, and be the best dad you can. The car doesn't really matter.