People really hate "hipster parents" don't they?

Aidin Vaziri the pop music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and contributor to its parenting blog, The Poop, spotlights a Time magazine article which essentially says that today's "new generation of ("hipster") parents (are) so much more insufferable than the last."  In fact, Vaziri refers to them as "douche bags" and then later says "we're hanging our heads in shame as we type this."

And all I want to know is, "Why?"

Why be ashamed? People want to label every aspect of parenthood nowadays. Why be suckered into someone else's definition of what kind of parent you are?  You're either a "hipster parent" or a "hippy parent" or a "grup" or a "martini mom" or a "mom-jeans-wearing parent." You practice "attachment parenting" or raise "gourmet kids"  or you're a "spanker" and you better stay pigeon-holed in your parenting category because that's how "the experts" like it.

I'm sorry but is everyone writing these insufferable articles 21 and fresh out of college? Why apologize for being a "hipster parent" to other "hipster parents" writing about how douchey "hipster parents" are?

I read the Time article and laughed. Both the writer of the article and Vaziri imply that they are the kinds of parents that the article describes (the Time writer lives in Brooklyn, hipster-parent-central...who cares?), so why not just stand up and say, "You don't like that I don't fit your stereotype of what a parent should be? Well, fuck you. That's your problem, not mine." Be ashamed? Please.

I doubt that anyone would ever confuse me for a hipster parent, but you can be damn sure that if anyone did, I certainly wouldn't be hanging my head in shame about it.  I'd just crank up the Cars soundtrack a little louder.

[For further reading: I rounded-up reaction here.]

Comments

[may]

Shoot, people saw me carrying my son in a sling here in suburbia, and they said I'm old skool...

I proudly wear my sling around town, I don't care what they say.

[GraceD]

Welcome to my world. Bashing Baby Boomer Moms is a national pastime.

Maybe there should be a Today Show segment about this.

Trashing parents of any generation - it's all a teeming pile of shit, isn't it? With the exception of abusive parents, we all do the best, the very best we can.

[shel]

i really thought that the "image" of what a parent was was blurring...in terms of not being that stereotypical image of the past. but it looks like some people can't accept that there are a variety of people out there who are parents.

you may not be labeled a 'hipster parent' but you are also not the stereotypical parent either. so, what are they going to label you as? :)

no matter how hard we try to remove labels, they are always going to be around in some form or another. i think it makes some people feel better to be able to fall into a category or to group others into them. i have no idea why, but it seems to be so.

i could ramble somewhat incoherent thoughts on this for a while, but i'll save you the pain of my ramblings. :)

[gena]

My Mom was a hipster parent of the 70's and now I am a proud hipster parent. Can we help it if we are "cool?" HAhAhaHAhHA

[Mama C-ta]

Oh well, they may label me as a hipster parent but I label them as a total dumbass. Guess we're even.

[Christie D]

Is that anything like the Shrek soundtrack (I mean, cool)?

I actually thought you meant The Cars at first, and was going to comment on that. I still listen to my Cars first album in the car, and the children have learned the songs. Only my older son (now 12) has learned that it is fun to tease Mommy by singing "My best French girlfriend", instead of "My best friend's girlfriend", because Mommy has not yet recovered from the bad experience she had years ago with a boy who had a French girlfriend. Hmmph...

[MyKianaKeiki]

I agree with you CityMama. My daughter loves real food and turns her nose up at any baby/toddler food, even when we try to disguise it. She listens to everything from Pink Floyd (the right songs put her to sleep in a heartbeat) to Ian Van Dahl to The Cars to The Beatles. She drives me nuts some days, but I love her to death. And given enough hours in a day, I may even blog about it. I'd never consider myself a hipster parent, but would never hang my head in shame if someone said I was. I probably wouldn't bat an eye. Just call me a parent.

It seems to me that the TIME article was complaining that parents today 1) don't put their kids first and 2)complain all the time. 1) TIME can fuck themselves if they think that most parents of this generation don't put their kids first. Whether we cry about parenting or not, we put our kids first. 2) I'm pretty sure my parents commiserated with their friends about the difficulty of parenting. They just didn't have the technology to branch out publically through blogs and the internet. So, I don't think we're that much different from the previous generations of parents.

[MyKianaKeiki]

I agree with you CityMama. My daughter loves real food and turns her nose up at any baby/toddler food, even when we try to disguise it. She listens to everything from Pink Floyd (the right songs put her to sleep in a heartbeat) to Ian Van Dahl to The Cars to The Beatles. She drives me nuts some days, but I love her to death. And given enough hours in a day, I may even blog about it. I'd never consider myself a hipster parent, but would never hang my head in shame if someone said I was. I probably wouldn't bat an eye. Just call me a parent.

It seems to me that the TIME article was complaining that parents today 1) don't put their kids first and 2)complain all the time. 1) TIME can fuck themselves if they think that most parents of this generation don't put their kids first. Whether we cry about parenting or not, we put our kids first. 2) I'm pretty sure my parents commiserated with their friends about the difficulty of parenting. They just didn't have the technology to branch out publically through blogs and the internet. So, I don't think we're that much different from the previous generations of parents.

[Donna]

Amen! Enough with the labels and the "clever" put-downs.