[dw438]

From the Sunday Times:
February 25, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Mosh Pit Meets Sandbox
By DAVID BROOKS
Can we please get over the hipster parent moment? Can we please see the end of those Park Slope alternative Stepford Moms in their black-on-black maternity tunics who turn their babies into fashion-forward, anticorporate indie-infants in order to stay one step ahead of the cool police?

Can we stop hearing about downtown parents who dress their babies in black skull slippers, Punky Monkey T-shirts and camo toddler ponchos until the little ones end up looking like sad-parody club clones of mom and dad? Can we finally stop reading about the musical Antoinettes who would get the vapors if their tykes were caught listening to Disney tunes, and who instead force-feed Brian Eno, Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens into their little babies’ iPods?

I mean, don’t today’s much-discussed hipster parents notice that their claims to rebellious individuality are undercut by the fact that they are fascistically turning their children into miniature reproductions of their hipper-than-thou selves? Don’t they observe that with their inevitable hummus snacks, their pastel-free wardrobes, their unearned sense of superiority and their abusively pretentious children’s names like Anouschka and Elijah, they are displaying a degree of conformity that makes your average suburban cul-de-sac look like Renaissance Florence?

Enough already. The hipster parent trend has been going on too long and it’s got to stop. It’s been nearly three years since reporters for sociologically attuned publications like The New York Observer began noticing oversophisticated infants in “Anarchy in the Pre-K� shirts. Since then, the trend has exhausted its life cycle.

A witty essay by Adam Sternbergh announced the phenomenon in an April 2006 New York magazine. Sternbergh described 40-year-old men and women with $200 bedhead haircuts and $600 messenger bags, who “look, talk, act and dress like people who are 22 years old,� and dress their infants as if they’re 16. He called these pseudo-adults “Grups,� observing that they smashed any remaining semblance of a generation gap.

He noticed that the music of the parental generation sounds exactly like the music of the kids’ generation. They have the same rock star fashion sense, and share the same taste for distressed denim. He found a music video director, Adam Levite, who had a guitar collection propped up in his TriBeCa loft, and then similar miniature versions of the same guitars for his 6-year-old son, Asa.

Then came the hipster parents’ own online magazine, Babble.com.

Babble is a normal parental advice magazine submerged under geological layers of attitudinizing. There are articles about products from the alternative industrial complex (early ’60s retro baby food organizers). There’s a blog from a rock star mom (it’s lonely on the road). There’s a column by L.A.’s Rebecca Woolf, a sort of Silver Lake Erma Bombeck. (“Who says becoming a mom means succumbing to laser tattoo removal and moving to the suburbs?�)

On top of that there’s been a flourishing of the movement’s official gathering site — the message board complex UrbanBaby.com. Here, highly educated parents trade tips about the toxic dangers of aluminum foil. Stay-at-home Martyr Mommies trade gibes with their working mom frenemies. High-achieving types try to restrain their judgmental, perfectionist tendencies with self-mockery: “I horrified myself the other day when I found myself being surprised that Angelina [Jolie] would let Zahara eat Ms. Vickie’s chips. Shoot me before I turn into a sanctimommy!�

Finally, in a sign that the hip parenting thing has jumped the shark, the movement got its own book, the indescribably dull “Alternadad,� about a self-described whiny narcissist who tries not to let his son’s birth get in the way of his rock festival lifestyle. Surely a trend has hit absurdity when you have a book in which the most memorable moment comes when the writer succumbs to the corporate temptations of Toys “R� Us.

Let me be clear: I’m not against the indie/alternative lifestyle. There is nothing more reassuringly traditionalist than the counterculture. For 30 years, the music, the fashions, the poses and the urban weeklies have all been the same. Everything in this society changes except nonconformity.

What I object to is people who make their children ludicrous. Innocent infants should not be compelled to sport “My Mom’s Blog Is Better Than Your Mom’s Blog� infant wear. They should not be turned into deceptive edginess badges by parents who refuse to face that their days of chaotic, unscheduled moshing are over.

For God’s sake, let’s respect the dignity of youth.

[meganlibrarian]

[Guest]

[Livetotravel]

I would say this applies equally well to Prospect Heights...
[color=red]
MOD NOTE: it's also being discussed there
http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33415
as well as on two different threads here in PS, now merged as one [/color]

[Rose]

It seems like a silly thing to take a stand about. Who cares how other people dress their children? But I'd rather read this than his political opinions, I guess.

[Livetotravel]

Absolutely - but maybe this will be the start of a "KILL HIPSTER SCUM" campaign like the old one aimed at Yuppies. We could have a Brooklyn Hipster Eradication Project with teach-ins and street protests.

[sprite]

I just logged on to post a about this, but you beat me to the punch, Livetotravel! It's as if Brooks read some of the threads here and put them into op-ed format. The bit about the suburban cul-de-sac looking like Renaissance Florence made me laugh out loud.
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What is essential is invisible to the eye. —Antoine de Saint Exupéry

[steve]

Actually, there was a die hipster die tshirt available at...Urban Outfitters. The pile next to it had the traditional yuppie message.
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For The Love Of Paris, Don't Go To The Lounge!

[pitu]

[laura]

[raw]

It doesn't take glam to win a fashion-conscious kid's heart. My parents have always dressed like dorks among their peers and I continue to love them dearly.

The notion that some parents decorate their children for public display and to recreate themselves disturbs me. I'd like to think that all parents realize that kids aren't pets, living dolls, or Christmas trees.

I'm blind to baby fashion, but toddlers on leashes disturb me. I can understand how parents want constant connection with their kids, but seeing kids yanked about like dogs bothers me. I saw a toddler on a leash fall down on Union Street and then begin crawling on all fours on the sidewalk during rush hour. The parent was overcome by the silliness of the clumsy kid and started laughing. The kid was confused. The parent continued to choke with laughter. I wasn't sure if I should help the kid up before it was trampled by commuters, join in the parent's laughter, or recommend a psychologist to help the kid 15 years later.
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I blame such comments on beer.
© karlthedruid 2007

[laura]

Gawd! I saw a guy let his baby crawl down the sidewalk on 7th Ave. At least he picked up the kid when it got to the curb.

[The Chipster]

Everyone's gotta get up on their (organic) soapbox sometime; although in his case, I'd say it was a Borax brand....
However, there's NOTHING wrong with dressing babies up-down-sideways-whatever..Would you rather us emulate the Jon Benets? How about PS Parents dress their kids in the mo$$$t expensive Roccawear or Baby Phat? Should we be cowed thusly by the Russell Simmons of the world?So what if we're using our old album covers as onesies? It's temporary, and I'd rather look at that then at some Disney shit. Was THAT okay Mr. Brooks?!!
Is he espousing some unknown age of innocence from pre-industrial England? Is he saying that Baby Beluga is easier to sing to than John Lennon or Cat Stevens? That parenting is such seriuos business that you can't even put yer tot in a bear hat with ears cause it's too demeaning? Get over it.
Soon enough it will be revealed if these are just harmless parenting styles--or a dangerous self-indulgent attitude that will spoil em rotten. I hate the idea of being a "cool" parent rather than a good one.
If you pride yourself on your "hipness" you'll never create anything truly original...and your child already is.
Hopefully, after the joy of dressing up your kid becomes more trouble than it's worth ("I prefer Amish simplicity Dad") the real parenting will begin.
Of course, if we were in Jordan,*we'd have even MORE fun dressing our babies up in lil Jihad outfits replete with real ammo!! Now THAT'S respecting "The dignity of youth."
*Please save your race/religion baiting for another thread.
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Ask a burning question, get a burning answer.

[laura]

I don't have a problem with parents dressing their kids the way they want, outside of the fact that sometimes I'll see a little girl and think, damn, I wish I had those flowered tights! Every generation dresses their kids in their own image or idealized image - my mom loved dressing me in frilly pink dresses, and saved my childhood dresses for the daughter she thought I would have. As if I would dress my own kid in that stuff. Weirdly enough, I recently got a catalog in the mail with the exact same stuff I wore as a kid in the early 60s. Scary.
http://www.woodensoldier.com/ensemble.aspx?cid=2&eid=39&bid=2

[Drano]

Yay, Gawker's gone establishment.

[kensingtonmom]

[escap]

[Flexichick]

[remybklyn]

[Livetotravel]

persnickity - origin: 1885–90; orig. Scots, var. of pernickety

Jump the shark -origin: from a moment on the TV series Happy Days in which the character Fonzie jumped over a shark on waterskis.
(idiomatic) For something, often a television show, to have a significant storyline development whose ridiculousness or incredibility signifies that the series has lost its previous quality. Happy Days jumped the shark when Fonzie jumped over a shark on waterskis.

I would also hasten to add that Brooks, no longer a persnickity, smug, kiss ass to the Bush Administration, is showing his full libertarian colors in arguing against the conduct of the war and for gay unions.

[kensingtonmom]

[laura]

I thought I was the only person who used the word 'persnickety'. It's a good word.

[kensingtonmom]

[Jamzer]

Nothing stale to me about the phrase Jumping the Shark. I still think it is hilarious. Every time I hear it I think of Fonzie in the water with his leather jacket and Joanie begging him not to do it. But I date myself.

I wonder how many Park Slope moms David Brooks met before he wrote this article. My guess is zero. Not that he can't write about them anyway. I am sure these hipster parents exist, but I hardly think it is a dangerous social epidemic that warrants space in the Sunday New York Times Op-Ed page. Perhaps the Style or City section.

***Edited for a type - I can be so careless!***

[Rose]

[laura]

[escap]

I've rarely found Brooks to be very libertarian. I'd call him more of a "moderate social conservative". He seems very interested in social and cultural trends as a whole, with a conservative bent, and often talks about the importance of family, etc. This op-ed is therefore in line with his normal interests. John Tierney was the most legit libertarian the Times has had since I've been reading--too bad he decided he'd rather write about science. Oh well.

[Hal]

I thought 'snarky' was the new 'persnickety'.

[Guest]

[kaiserkai]

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/009176.html
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Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
-- Oscar Wilde

[Guest]

[MichaelKeys]

Or maybe the '60s and '70s when parents dressed kids like, um, kids and not billboards advertising how cool and edgy Mom and/or Dad were.
(Although, I must say I found my co-worker's baby in a "I Crawl The Line" t-shirt kinda cool. So...)

[Rose]

[laura]

I dont regret wearing plaid bell-bottom pants in the 70's. I do regret, however, wrapping them around my calves and tucking them into my boots to turn them into knickers.

[cbukster]

Here's me dressed for a normal day (circa 1969, Homecrest section of Brooklyn). Note the hard black shoe which was the norm at this age until you grew into a pair of your older siblings' sneakers.