Well, as far as safety goes, you can't go wrong with a fully-framed SUV. Minivans are normally unibody...which basically means they're like a human without a skeleton, lol. This means that in an accident, the SUV would hold up to an impact much better.
When we had our second child, my hubby and I upgraded from a sedan to a Chevy Suburban (we were planning to have more kids and wanted to pay off and stick with a vehicle for many years). Five months later, we were at a red light when someone in a van plowed into the back of our vehicle at approximately 55 mph without braking at all. Just....wham. My five month old baby was rear-facing in the middle row of our Suburban (which basically made it a "front" impact for her) and, even though she was completely covered with glass and even had some in her eyes, she was absolutely fine. I give God all the credit for this, of course, but I feel like it was His guidance that put us in the SUV to begin with. Had we still been driving our little car, the kids would most certainly have been killed. In fact, there was a Toyota Scion in front of us with two little girls in the back seat that the cops told us would not have survived the impact had our vehicle not been there to take the hit.
The Suburban was totalled, of course, but held up remarkably well under the circumstances. The back end was crushed in and the empty third-row was pushed up slightly, but there was so much space between the point of impact and where my kids were buckled in, it never even came close to touching them. Sadly, the driver of the van did not survive his injuries....but I still shudder to think that he could have taken everything away from me that night. We never got any answers as to why he struck us so hard without even trying to swerve or stop, but if we learned anything from that accident it was that we will never, EVER put our kids in anything smaller than an SUV. They are more important to us than all the money in the world and, if gas goes up again, I would rather stay home every day than put them in an unsafe vehicle. And small = unsafe. That's just physics, people.
We now drive a GMC Yukon XL (same exact vehicle, really) and are very happy with it's performance and reliability. We've had it for three and a half years now (after buying it used) with absolutely no problems.
P.S. For your reference: http://www.yourdictionary.com/unibody
uni·body (yo̵̅o̅′nə bäd′ē)
adjective
"designating or of a type of construction used in motor vehicles in which the floor, roof, panels, etc. are welded together into one unit, thereby eliminating the need for a separate frame"
EDIT: Anything labeled as a "crossover" SUV (like the Honda Pilot) is also unibody. They are basically just minivans made to look like SUVs.
