01 March 2007

Words that should be banned: hipster parents

Much is being said lately of the Hipster Parent, most of it negative. Time magazine recently printed a screed entitled Too Cool for Preschool and New York Times columnist David Brooks dissed the trend of turning a six-month old into a logo for the lastest indie rock band or for Mummy's blog.

This typist has also critiqued the Yummy Mummy syndrome in which mummies pamper and ornament themselves and regard their offspring as cute accoutrement's.

They are one and the same, Hipster Parents and Yummy Mummies. They believe their style and behaviors are individualistic and that they are rebelling against the imposed parental expectations.

But in reality Hipster Parents and Yummy Mummies are not rebels but sheep. They Baa Baa to the consumerist instruction to express identities through branded logos which they purchase and wear on their clothes, on their skin (tattoos) and on their babies.

They have been told by the Macintosh Corporation that i-brands = cool and so they have gone out and dutifully bought those i-products. Hipster parents and Yummy Mummies seek direction for their indie babies through websites like Babyrazzi which features the style and behaviour of celebs such as Gwyneth and Moses, Posh and Brooklyn, Britany and, oh never mind that one.

Hipster Parents and Yummy Mummies believe they are re-inventing parenthood or perhaps inventing it for the first time. They are wrong about that. But more to the point, they are wrong to impose their consumer branded identifies on their six-month olds. They lack imagination and taste.

Let's ban Hipster Parents and Yummy Mummies and leave our babies to form their own identities.