In any case, it looks like the answer is more or less "yes." The difference in car ownership per capita is not that different between the US and many other first-world countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_p...
But this counts a lot of vehicles we wouldn't consider "cars," like tractor trailers. If we just look at passenger vehicles, it seems that the US is nowhere near the top:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/its...
The discrepancy is pretty big and this doesn't fit with what I'd have thought. Plus the source is not available. But other sources corroborate:
http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/30/energy-europe-automobiles-b...
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Pas...
http://www.acea.be/statistics/tag/category/passenger-car-fle...
So not only is the US not unique in being in love with cars, we're not even the most excessive at it. Maybe the next time somebody feels like getting all nationalistic about criticizing car culture, they'll point the finger at Italy, Germany, or France before they decide to aim for the US.
From the comments to that article, there seem to be some questions around what vehicles exactly are being counted and whether the methodology is consistent from country to country (e.g. pickups are probably quite a bit more common in the US than in western Europe). You could also argue that per capita isn't really the best measure and you may consider adjusting for income measures, demographics, and urbanization.
That said, there's a stereotype of Americans as a car culture where people drive everywhere and western Europeans as living in the core of medieval cities and walking/biking/taking transit everyplace. And that stereotype doesn't hold up.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/its...
No way is "children require cars" a uniquely American perspective. I have a lot of in-laws in urban China and the ones who are now having children pretty much universally buy cars if they didn't already have them. I lived in France for several years and I don't think I knew anyone with children who didn't own a car. Look at just about any city on the planet and what do you see? Cars, cars, and more cars. Cars as far as the eye can see.
Car culture is not an American thing. It's a first world thing, where "first world" includes the wealthy parts of the third world too. Now, it's certainly possible that this is not necessary, but that's how it currently is all over the place. If you want to change it, you won't get anywhere if you think that it's somehow unique to a single country.