In today’s NYT, David Brooks includes a hilarious and spot-on oped on “hipster parents”:
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/opinion/25brooks.html
Even before having a baby, we all know these people, they are cooler than you, they have better clothes than you, they don’t work for “the man,” they upload alternative music on their iPod before you, and they’ve been to the newest, coolest bar before you even knew it broke ground.
That’s right, we all know these people, whether you have a baby or not.
But I agree with Brooks, it is particularly egregious when parents take that attitude and shove it on their kid. You know the parent: they have their baby wear alternative rocker shirts, gasp in horror over Kraft mac-n-cheese (guarantee they ate it as a kid) and would NEVER set foot in a Gymboree store to buy clothes. Their baby is too deep to wear pink, if it’s not a dark and brooding color, it’s not in their baby’s nursery. Anyone thinking of poor Shiloh Jolie-Pitt right about now?
I mean, seriously, people. The hipster baby poops, pukes and drools just like the Elmo-branded Gymboree baby. Babies are equal-opportunity bodily function offenders.
What bothers Kitty-Time about these hipper-than-thou parents is this: they are so painfully insecure, one wonders how they don’t seem to notice it?
But along the way, are they forgetting their baby? What are they going to do when their kid’s first word is “French Fry” and “Wiggles?”
They gonna take their kid to see Elmo Live, along with all the other pastel-wearing Sesame Street branded twerps whose parents all work for the man and love it?
Truth be told, when I come across the kinds of parents who are too cool for Goldfish, I secretly hope they have a JCrew, madras pants wearing, Wall Street Journal reading, Republican on their hands in 20 years.
I’m telling you – every new parent ought to listen to Patton Oswalt (the comedian) who believes that in order to have cool kids and save future generations, you must be a BORING PARENT who owns no record after Phil Collins “No Jacket Required”. He says to hide away all your cool stories of taking 8 hits of E and then punching out a cop. Don’t tell them that stuff – or else they WILL turn into that pleated pants wearing Alex P Keaton Republican.