Holy groovyosity, Alternadad!

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My newspaper featured an article on the writer of the new book "Alternadad" today.

(Full story: http://www.oregonlive.com/living/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/living/1170210348180140.xml&coll=7&thispage=1)

Alternadad says....

Quote:

Which makes him the perfect writer to reflect on a social phenomenon that he's part of: namely, what happens when hipsters have children. Pollack's memoir, "Alternadad" (edit: delete buying info), chronicles how Pollack and his wife, painter Regina Allen, set about raising their son, Elijah, without sacrificing their own identities.

blahblahblah.....

What you've got is, for the most part, a generation of parents who are reproducing slightly later. These are parents in their mid-30s or early 40s, adults who already have a very strong sense of pre-parenthood self."

blahblahblah....

Pollack readily admits that the alternaparent model doesn't fit all. "You're mostly looking at college-educated parents. . . . It's a middle-class-and-above phenomenon...

blahblahblah....

I don't think this is a selfish generation of parents at all. I think these are good parents, but with more of a desire to keep a foothold on their identity." His peers are not laissez-faire, as some older-school hippie parents were, Pollack says. But neither are they the hyper-parents of the '90s, whose entire lives revolved obsessively around their children.

blahblahblah......

New York Magazine says....

Quote:

A recent article in New York magazine painted such parents as privileged, snobby, self-centered, perma-adolescents who would rather die than play Wiggles music for their little ones (such parents prefer Sufjan Stevens). Pollack doesn't feel that depiction fits him or others like him.

My question:

Is "alterna-parenting" really anything new?

I don't recall my parents having lost their own identity when we were kids. Sure, they made a lot of sacrifices and didn't get to do everything they wanted when they wanted but that doesn't sound so different from "alterna-parenting".

Anyway.

This article made me feel inexplicably grumpy so I was wondering what you all thought of alternastuff.

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I recall that New York Mag article.

I was certainly nodding my head when I read it - I recognized a lot of the behaviours in people I know who are currently parenting.

The cover alone made me laugh (nearly hysterically) - it was such a classic cliche.

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Up with Grups

Quote:

2. BEGINNER GRUP
Typical Wardrobe Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars, MORE COWBELL T-shirt from Urban Outfitters; torn jeans from Abercrombie & Fitch.

now to find that cover

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not the cover, but still Cool

inducing

http://newyorkmetro.com/news/features/upwithgrups060327_3_560.jpg

http://newyorkmetro.com/news/features/upwithgrups060327_1_560.jpg

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Uh oh.

Am I going to have to give up my Converse? I don't know what the heck I would wear instead but in hopes of maintaining my identity I will have to reject some of my identity, I suppose, since everyone knows your soul is in your sole.

How funny is it that maintaining identity means looking just like everyone else!

Thanks eBeth -- I'm off to read the article!

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What a smug, self-congratulatory knob.

But, then, people who get published in magazines always have been smug, self-congratulatory knobs, haven't they?

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Annoying.

The part I like -- dads having a major role in their kids' upbringing.

The part I didn't like -- pretty much everything else.

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sooooooo recognizable

really

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Oh I know, I recognize them. I think it exists. I probably do some of it myself. I think there are good things about it as a concept, as annoying as the guy is.

There's something about the very same one-up-man-ship that has been part of parenting for a long time that irritates me. They think they're all counter-cultural and anti-establishment but "I took my son to Modest Mouse!" is just "I got my kid into [insert name of obscenely expensive private school]!" for a different set. It's about bragging rights amongst their peers, not about the kid per se.

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There's something more meta that bothers me I think -- the whole impulse to group widely disparate people together. Happens with parents and parenting all the time. Pretty much always makes me grumpy about having to define myself in terms of groups -- not-like-them or like-them. Just let me do my thing.

Plus the whole judge-y thing -- they're good, they're bad. This is the right way, this is the wrong way. WhatEVER.

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I mean there are actual right ways and wrong ways when it comes to important stuff, but so much non-important stuff is subjected to the "right/ wrong" judgments too.

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(Can you tell I have about 27 windows open? Shocked

)

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I can see myself in some of the things they talk about, I'm embarrassed to admit.

My own parents were a bit bohemian so it just feels like family from where I sit - my dad was not a suit and tie, nine to five, kind of guy.

And there is a lot to be said about living in a way that makes you happy - even if it is selling groovy surfwear instead of doing what your "supposed" to do.

Thinking......

And I kind of dress/look like that - without the expensive brand names and spendy haircuts.

And I think it's great that Mo likes both Aerosmith and Thomas the Train (although he has learned from school that Thomas is "uncool" so he now prefers to watch it in private).

I'm not sure where I fit in with this....

I was a grown up who had always been able to pursue my passion, and I still am. I didn't have a lot of responsiblities pre-Mo. Does that make me developmentally retarded?

Hmmmm......

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patiodog wrote:

What a smug, self-congratulatory knob.

yup, that pretty much says it.

pretty worthless article.....oooo...look at me, i'm a father, oooooo......

stupid knob.

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Look at me, i'm a father!

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ooooooo......

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Barf.

MeMeMeMeMe.

WhatEVER, as Soz so aptly said. Smile

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I think the thing that really got to me in the article was that he had to "refine" his underwear choice to make sure that it was "right" and then he had to insist that the writer use it in her story.

I think the fact that the writer used the whole story unstead of just his underwear line showed that s/he too thought he was a knob.

But haven't parents always picked out their two year old's clothing? I own very little clothing that has pattern and you know what? I hardly buy Mo clothes with patterns. These days he does pick out some for himself though.

So is the fact that some parents buy their kids "Clash" T-shirts really remarkable?

I hate the whole barfy "Look how hip and cool I am" vibe to this - the whole one upmanship thing that soz mentioned - but is this really novel or new?

I see the neighborhood teens tricked out in their punk garb and I think "Gosh! All my old stuff is finally selling at Goodwill". I wouldn't start dressing that way again (except for the Converse) but I do still listen to the music (it's my classic rock).

And is this whole work ethic new? Faith Popcorn wrote about "cashing out" years and years ago (run off to look it up.... 1991.... 16 years ago to be exact).

Is it new or is it just recycled?

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Quote:

I hate the whole barfy "Look how hip and cool I am" vibe to this - the whole one upmanship thing that soz mentioned - but is this really novel or new?

Dunno. When I was growing up this was so not a thing -- using your kid as a prop to demonstrate your cool consumer choices -- but, then, my little town didn't have much in the way of money or anywhere to spend it, and most kids wore hand-me-downs at least some of the time. (Some of which would be cool now, but Mr. Bubble was not a hip fashion choice then.)

At the same time, the grown-ups in my life were pretty unconcerned with these things to, so maybe it wasn't a representative picture of American life.

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With two older sisters, I was the hand-me-down kid. I grew up during the hippie era though so by the time things came to me they were in fact "cool".

What you say about using your kid to demonstrate your cool consumer choices is EXACTLY it, I think.

Yep. Yep.

I think you nailed it.

I do remember certain trends and fads that I pined for but were way beyond my family's means. My parents always meant well but by the time we could afford something it was always out of style -- but they got it for us and we were weird about wearing it.

That is perhaps one of the reasons I am so not into fashion.

I think the reason this whole thing makes me grumpy is because it attacks my beloved Converse sneakers. Honestly, over the last 30 years I have owned maybe six pairs of shoes that aren't Converse. I'm still working my way through my pre-Nike-buyout stockpile.

Is my consumer choice now so "cool" that I feel weird about it?

And if so, what does that say about me?

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Holy groovyosity, Alternadad!

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