Hip in Our Hearts

Yes. I am back. My hair still is stupid, but it'll grow out. I've given up "controlling" my baby and instead am working with her. And, I recently finished Alternadad, by Neal Pollack, and so maybe I do feel like I can give advice after all.

First off, Pollack's a good writer and his book was pretty entertaining. I didn't know this before I read Alternadad, but he set off a shit storm on Salon.com a couple years ago when his kid got thrown out of daycare for biting and he'd included clues about his & his wife's lame and listless parenting in the article. I'm not here to criticize their parenting, though. I actually felt a little bad for him after reading some of the nasty comments people made to him following his Salon piece. I'm here to criticize his hipster cred.

That's right. How hip is it to smoke weed every day at age 35? I mean, really. Seriously? Is that really necessary? That's so "in your twenties". Also, is Beck (who Pollack idolizes) really that hip? Beck? I guess it's just a matter of opinion. But mine is "no". Watching scads of corporate mainstream TV is not hip. Additionally, blowing money you don't have and being stupid isn't hip either (going to happy hours several times a week, paying for your mother in law to stay at a hotel with you to watch your kid, paying taxes with a credit card). Sending your kid to daycare when you and your wife both "work" from home isn't hip either (daycare costs money!). OK. So now I'm criticizing his parenting. Didn't mean to.

My husband and I are comparatively boring, but we are hip in own hearts. He chooses the life of a civil servant to make a steady living but not distance himself from his family with crazy corporate work hours. I work from home part time so I can earn a little money and nurture our child in the way we think is best at this point. We live in the (gulp!) suburbs. Yes, that's right. And ours is pretty culturally diverse, too. We still see live music, occasionally (my husband more than me, because he like to much more than me), we read, we travel. We have a great life...but we don't piss our money away.

To me, what's hip is not trying so hard to be cool and not feeling you have to partake in all of society's gooniness to make it through. It's about finding your own way in a way that works for you. I don't want to teach my daughter to like punk rock and be an anarchist. That's just silly. If she decides she likes punk rock on her own, then so be it. I want to empower her with the confidence and ease to be a free spirit, but an "anarchist"...no.

Anyway, I always am thinking how I have got to be a kinder and more compassionate person, and I don't think this post really accomplishes anything in that regard, so I'll wrap it here and just say that Neal Pollack is a much better writer than me.