The Times’ celebre-pundit put his values on the table. We know he’s enamored of patio men and soccer moms, but would anyone have thought he was this angry, or troubled. I guess you’d have to be a psychologist to sort out what in the world could provoke him to write this. Or perhaps a picture really is worth many thousand words after all.
Update: Steven Johnson weighs in: “Brooks’ obsession with the surfaces of hipster parenting ends up
blinding him to the real trend here, which is central to almost all the
examples he cites: young parents choosing to raise their children in
the city, not the suburbs.” It’s must read.
Your thoughts? The whole incredibly ludicrous screed after the jump.
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.
February 25th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
OMG! We used dcurbanmom.com to find a nanny and my 3 month old wears a winter hat from LLBean — where I buy much adult winter gear. How have my wife and I gone so wrong? Should I not buy a jogging stroller (thus setting an example that exercise is part of a healthy lifestyle) and just leave my baby in a basonet or a drawer? Mr. Brooks, where can we turn for help on how to properly raise our son?
February 25th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
DJM – You and yours may have jumped the shark yourself. Have you considered time travel back to the 50s for proper family reorientation.
February 25th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Okay, Mr. Brooks, when is your parenting book coming out? My three creative and innovative children can’t wait to hear your recommendations. Are you going to recommend the “Barney Does Pop Tunes” disc, so my daughter will have to turn in her IPod and her Green Day discs? My son will turn in his cool games and his sketch pad (along with his cartoons and snarky political commentary)and “Republicans for Voldemort” poster for what?
The picture says it all. God help us.
February 25th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Well, he’s got a point. A web site like Babble that features an article on the trials of going to markets in Provence with baby is obviously meant for an especially privileged group of people, and anybody who thinks that they’re being “nonconformist” by figuring out how to introduce baby to punk rock is living in a fantasy
But so what? The rest of the world gets to laugh at Bobos and their loinfruit because hey, you’re pretty funny. And obviously, a lot of people are just buying stuff for baby that reflects their own tastes, something that’s been going on for centuries for those who can afford it.
Meanwhile, Brooks (as always) remains the man without a mirror.
February 25th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Iraq War in shambles; check.
George Bush hated; check.
Republicans on the outs; check.
Right wing loathed and ridiculed; check.
People to blame for all of this? Duh.
Hipsters.
February 25th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Brian – Touche!
February 25th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Wow, you guys really don’t get him at all do you? He uses overblown examples to make his humorous point. Get over yourselves.
February 25th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Matt – Really, ya think? That’s a lot of over-blowing for one 750 word piece.
February 25th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Not that all hipsters are left or leftists hip, but I wonder if the political right would think it was merely (or at all) humorous if I interwove the term “fascistically” into some discussion of various aspects of their lifestyle, as Brooks does in the above column.
Calling people fascists? Decidedly not funny, and Brooks didn’t intend it to be. He apparently really thinks it.
February 25th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Brian – Steven Johnson, himself a Park Slope dad and terrific commentator on cultural trends, “What’s Bad is Good for You” and on cities, has a thoughtful post on what this trend means for families moving back cities which Brooks chooses to ignore.
February 25th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Steven Johnson link…
http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2007/02/some_close_read.html
February 26th, 2007 at 7:00 am
Seems to be the pre-election precursor to the typical right’s meme “hipster urban elitists are ruining the world.” Building the frame a little early in the election cycle aren’t you, David? How many times can they think this will work?
February 26th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
This article was a wierd anomaly. I generally like Brooks, he’s a thoughtful and insightful non-ideological conservative who writes well. Some particular neighbor must have gotten on his nerves and somehow it got into his column — doesn’t the Times have editors?
February 27th, 2007 at 8:16 am
Michael – I too benefit from some of Brooks’ ideas. But I don’t think this is an anomaly. Brooks seems to consistently lash out at them, while regaling “patio-man.”
March 5th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Poor, poor, Master Brooks. If only everyone would just plug their kids into good, safe, homogeneous family fare like Disney, the world would be so much easier for him to understand.
Not that putting some Flaming Lips into the baby mix makes you somehow inimitable…but please! Don’t do it for the sake of…..well for the sake of what, exactly Master Brooks?
What unspeakable calamity does Master Brooks think will unfold if I introduce my little guy to some Sufjan Stevens, or buy him something to wear that isn’t sold in Herald Square?
This is never made clear, exactly. I’m not sure why a black-on-black maternity tunic is so threatening to him – maybe this is just too titillating a sight for his Victorian eyes?
This seems no different from his vapid book “Bobos in Paradise” in which Master Brooks articulates his longing for a world where elite nobles of good lineage ruled the NY Times wedding page and the middling classes filled their coffee mugs with Sanka instead of latte.
There really is no point. It’s just Master Brooks, tilting at windmills in Park Slope, and pretending it’s a righteous crusade.