ETCETERA
O
NIGHT CAP
Why Un-Cool Is The New Rule
By Dan Shere
11
y son gave me "the look"for the
first time the other day. You know
the one I'm talking about — where,
with one exasperated roll of the eyes,
your once sweet, adoring child conveys
the message that you are hopelessly,
irredeemably ... un-cool.
My first reaction was denial. My son
must have been directing his eye-roll
at some older, lamer dad sitting behind
me because — me — un-cool? That just
wasn't possible.
I was the first kid in fifth grade to
wear a Members Only jacket. I started
listening to U2 while other kids my age
were still singing "Row Your Boat," and I
can quote long passages of The Breakfast
Club by heart. Only a neo-maxi-zoom-
dweebie could fail to see how"with it" I
am. Besides, I was a champion eye-roller
myself as a teen, acutely aware of, and
suitably mortified by, every un-cool
thing my parents said, did and wore.
Surely, I hadn't become exactly like
them.
Then it hit me: The Breakfast Club is al-
most 30 years old (likely to be seen next
on Turner Classic Movies), the guys in U2
will soon be AARP-eligible and the only
remaining members of that once-cool
jacket club are grandfathers who have
combed the clearance racks at TJ Maxx.
Sure, I've tried to keep up with the
trends over the years, but at some point
I lost the thread. New trends used to
make me think, "Oh, that's cool," but
when kids started wearing baggy jeans
halfway down their tushes, my thought
was, "How are they ever going to get
instead ordering him to do all the
jobs dressed that way?" And, seeing Lady
things he doesn't want to do.
Gaga for the first time made me long for
Whatever"cool points" are
the wholesome days of Madonna, writh-
awarded because I'm able to
ing around in a wedding dress, pretend-
play"Stairway" on guitar vanish
ing to be a virgin.
the moment I make him clean
But my son is only 9 and cares more
his room, brush his teeth
about Harry Potter than Lady Gaga.
or refrain from pulverizing
How could he already think I'm un-cool?
his little brothers. Sadly, it
After all, I do a stellar Yoda imitation, I've
seems as if being a good
written animated movies for a living and
parent and a cool parent
I introduced him to the music of Weird
are mutually exclusive.
Al. On paper, I should be pretty darn cool
Sure, your kids may love
to a 9-year-old boy. Why, pray tell, the
you — they may even like
eye-roll?
you to an extent — but as
The answer came to
long as you're doing your job as
me one night after
a parent, they're not going
I made him turn
to think you're cool.
off an episode
Take one of the most
of Phineas
universally agreed
and Ferb to
upon cool guys in
practice his
the world: Brad Pitt.
multiplica-
Movie star? Check.
tion tables.
Good-looking?
So what if I
Reportedly. Playing
can also do
house with Ange-
a solid Dr.
lina Jolie? Roger
Doofensh-
that. But when he
mirtz impres-
makes his kids put
sion? I'm still
away their toys,
the guy who
they probably think
says, "Turn
he's the biggest tool
off the TV, iPad,
in the world. So, unless
iPod, Kindle" or
you think you're a whole
other fun gadget he
lot cooler than Brad
'44*seow.-
may be enjoying,
Pitt, my advice
Colonial
to parents is to stop trying to be
cool altogether.
Being cool requires a certain blasé
indifference toward the world that's hard
to fake when you've stayed up half the
night googling "potty training tech-
niques" in a panicked effort to ensure
your 31/2-year-old won't still be wearing
diapers at his bar mitzvah. Parents can
do anxious, stressed and exhausted
quite well, but "cool" is best left to the
young and unencumbered.
So, go ahead parents and embrace
your minivan driving, mom jean-wear-
ing, 529-contributing selves. Embarrass
your kids with exuberant displays of
affection and over-the-top declarations
of love. Don't worry about the resultant
eye-rolls because your kids were never
going to think you were cool anyway. As
parents, we care too much to be cool;
someday our kids might thank us for
that.
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