Alternaparents

Most of you probably remember that New York Times Magazine article about Grups – thirty and forty somethings who refuse to grow up.  That fundamental idea has been expanded upon in a new book by Neal Pollack, entitled, Alternadad.

Leah McLaren of Globe and Mail has a somewhat more cynical assessment towards the whole Gen X–aternadad-grup thing, as well as the new book.   

In his new book, Alternadad, American writer Neal Pollack explores a hipster’s journey through fatherhood. It involves a lot of watching The Wiggles in a dumpy row house in Austin, Tex., where he and his wife choose to live because hey, South by Southwest rocks.

This, apparently, is very different from watching The Wiggles in a suburb of Phoenix, like the one in which Pollack grew up. Like many Gen X hipster types, he spends most of the book desperately trying to avoid replicating the mundane middle-class family life of his childhood. Unlike his parents, he is determined to raise a "cool kid." Except that conventional life (or "corporate parenting culture," as he calls it) has clearly come home to roost. He’s sitting watching The Wiggles with a two-year-old, after all. And while that’s nice, there’s nothing alternative about it.

After pages and pages of babble about the idiosyncrasies of the authors child, McLaren comes to the conclusion that:

All this talk of the importance of punk rock and downing tequila shots between play dates is nothing more than a flimsy excuse to do what self-absorbed parents have always done: Inundate everyone around them with stories about how special and cute their kids are. And while alternaparents are clever at masking their message in self-deprecating terms, the point of the story is always the same: Isn’t my kid adorable?

Even more tedious than the cute-kid stories (which most of us have come to accept and tolerate) is the alternaparent stance of, "I’m a Dad now — isn’t that ironic?" No. It’s not. I know you partied hard in your 20s. I know you made art your priority. I know you vowed to never sell out by owning a car or a house or any of that bourgeois crap. I can see how surprised you are by your own ability to do a 180 on this position and become the guy in the park with the baby jogger. But guess what? No one else is surprised. You are a mammal. Your job on this planet is to procreate. And no amount of rave-going or ecstasy-dropping was ever going to change that.

Globe and Mail: Hey, Diaper Dad, you’re so not cool
Alternadad

<via Chroma>