I’m not sure how, but I seem to have offended David Brooks. Or maybe it was you. Either way, he’s mad.
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?
Babies and toddlers, apparently, are not supposed to be funny. They are not supposed to dress like their parents or reflect their parents’ taste. Babies and toddlers are supposed to wear sailor suits and fluffy dresses, no colors other than soft pastels (navy is ok in the sailor suit), no decoration other than puppies and bunnies.
Brooks thinks that to dress them otherwise is to strip them of their dignity:
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.
Let’s review that last bit.
David Brooks apparently thinks that babies and toddlers have dignity.
Right. I can’t tell you what dignity Noah had last night as he suddenly changed his mind about the deliciousness of the raisin in his mouth, literally shaking it from his tongue to his lap. Or the dignity with which he arched his back and shrieked in anger at the horror of having his diaper changed. Or the dignity he brings to us both with his inspirational circus-performer contortions during his morning nursing.
Phrased another way, David Brooks, have you met any babies or toddlers? In real life, I mean, not in magazine ads.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
Apparently in the Sunday New York Times (Times Select, requires subscription) reprinted in the Monday Atlanta Journal Constitution and (probably illegally) copied on the Internet, David Brooks wrote a nasty diatribe against so-called hipster parents who dress their children in funny t-shirts and try to raise them with products purchased from small businesses instead of mass markets.
How dare we?
Brooks is apparently under the strange delusion that only a superhip parent would dream of doing this. Speaking as a member of the terminally unhip, I can tell you that this is far from the case.
I’ve never been in a mosh pit. I wouldn’t know a $600 messenger bag if it fell in my lap. I don’t think I even looked, talked, acted, or dressed like Brooks’ idea of a 22 year old when I was a 22 year old. I’m an NPR-listening, clearance-rack-shopping, suburban-home-owning, church-going professional. The closest thing I have to “hipster credibility” is that I’m a lesbian — and if that doesn’t prove to you that lesbian moms are pretty much just like straight moms, I don’t know what will.
I digress.
My point is that I don’t understand why becoming a Mom should suddenly force me to change my taste or my shopping habits. Quite the opposite, in fact. I want to teach my son my values, which include support for small and local businesses, healthy foods, and the importance of having a sense of humor.
So he shops with me at the Farmer’s Market. And we buy most of his books from our local and wonderful children’s bookstore. I’m not a purist about these things — he’s also been to Toys “R” Us, and I’ve bought books at Amazon.com — Noah even had his first fast-food french fry last weekend. But I do my best to balance the things I think are “better” to do with the things that are more convenient.
And there’s a fabulous picture of him in the masthead of my blog, wearing his, in my opinion hilarious, “My Mom’s Blog is Better than Your Mom’s Blog” t-shirt.
He’s outgrown it, but thanks to David Brooks, I’m ordering him a new one.
If you want to annoy David Brooks too, here’s where I got it: (and if you order it through this link, I get a little bounty for referring you)
(Heh, and yes, I also have the “I’m too lazy to make a bottle” adult shirt, and I love it. LOVE. It cracks me up every time.)
Follow me on Twitter 