The Cool Parents
You know who I feel sorry for? The cool parents. They spawned in their early twenties and still knew what the kids were into because they were still the kids. They named their children after spastic drummers from obscure punk bands and couldn’t wait for them to be big enough to teach them how to jump a curb on a skateboard. They knew they’d never grow into a remote figure of authority because the memory of being a kid and hating their parents was still fresh in their minds. They figured they could be kind of like a really cool older sibling who paid the rent. You know, like Dave Eggers. What a shock it must have been for these cool parents to reach their thirties and learn from their thirteen-year-old offspring that Nine Inch Nails is an old lame band. Imagine the sinking heart of a dad who has spotted his daughter’s surreptitious eyeroll after he pronounced something “hella cool.”
Having never been cool in the first place, I don’t expect myself to suffer this fate. I was a dork as a child and fatefully behind the curve throughout my adult life. I will transition most comfortably into the roll of clueless out-of-touch dad. I mean, come on, look at us now - we watch Survivor. How four years ago is that? I expect to totter off to antiquity listening to The Clancy Brothers and watching Star Trek, and if that makes Baby Dog’s eyes roll, it’ll be all the same to me. All parents are uncool, but those of us who had already failed to be with it before reproducing will never feel the sting that comes with sudden demotion in the hierarchy of the hep. Ah, the poor cool parents. My heart goes out to them. But still, in the groundbreaking observation of Nelson Muntz from a decade or two back, “Ha ha.”
Having never been cool in the first place, I don’t expect myself to suffer this fate. I was a dork as a child and fatefully behind the curve throughout my adult life. I will transition most comfortably into the roll of clueless out-of-touch dad. I mean, come on, look at us now - we watch Survivor. How four years ago is that? I expect to totter off to antiquity listening to The Clancy Brothers and watching Star Trek, and if that makes Baby Dog’s eyes roll, it’ll be all the same to me. All parents are uncool, but those of us who had already failed to be with it before reproducing will never feel the sting that comes with sudden demotion in the hierarchy of the hep. Ah, the poor cool parents. My heart goes out to them. But still, in the groundbreaking observation of Nelson Muntz from a decade or two back, “Ha ha.”
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 5:58 PM
2 Comments:
When I was a young, I thought that cool parents were ones that let their kids stay out late with no curfew; have 17th birthday parties in which beer was served to minors; and drug experimentation was encouraged. It didn't matter much what kind of music or cultural stuff the parents were into -- it was more about how permissive they were.
I know that I won't allow that kind of lackaisical shit in our household when Baby Dog is a teenager; nor will I be into any kind of cool music or cultural scene. I will be a Zen authoritarian parent. I'll practice compassionate tyrrany. She'll appreciate us when she's in her thirties, I am sure.
Amen, Twizzle!
Freedom with limits, not limits with freedom.
I'm a dork.
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