A Glimpse Into the Navels of New York Parents
5 Comments Published by Joel February 27th, 2007 in Family. Share ThisIf you live in New York, there are two places to live: Manhattan and The Other Boroughs (”Oh, And Staten Island”). In Brooklyn, where I live, there is a neighborhood that is stereotypically filled with fussy parents, called Park Slope. (Famously, an email list discussion last year about the supposed gender of a dropped hat has solidified this reputation.)
Park Slope also happens to be where writer and parent Steven Johnson lives, who has taken umbrage with an article in the Times last Sunday that attempted to call out so-called “hipster parents,” those who dress their tykes in a tiny rock concert t-shirts and make their kids listen to “adult” music. (Those seem to be the two big hallmarks of these parents.)
Here’s why this argument is totally New York: who gives a fuck? Parents have been dressing up their kids as miniature versions of themselves for ages, with irony and without. And some of my favorite music was playing in my house when I was a toddler, not in any attempt to program good taste into me, but just because it was what was playing at the time. (That it happened to program some taste, good and bad, is incidental.) I just can’t believe that any parent would care what their kid was wearing or listening to at all. Ripped baby jeans and “Anarchy in the Pre-K” t-shirts? Whatever, fine. Twee sailor outfits and taffeta? Okey doke.
I personally love it when parent dress their babies up as bugs and animals and the like. But there’s also something totally charming to me about a 3 year old wearing an AC/DC tee shirt. I have a niece in Seattle whose parents are a little bit square, but every stitch that kid gets from us is invariably extolling the love of bands like Blondie and the Ramones, etc. By god, if I have anything to say about it, that kid *will* get some ‘cool’ culture!
Alex! do you still have that picture of the kid with the mohawk from Mermaid Parade? that is kind of ideal for the topic.
I do! Alas, it’s back in NYC on the home machine.
However, I did find someone else’s so-so picture of the kid, coolest thing seen of the Mermaid parade of 2002…
http://jinners.com/pages/mohawkbaby_jpg.htm
Here’s mine:
This kid got so much attention and adoration that it eventually made him really , really upset by the end of the day.