Hipster? Me?

Friday I received an email from a reporter at USA Today. Seems she'd read my review of Alternadad, and wanted to get my take on the whole "hipster dad" concept. Sure, I replied. On one level, I fit the stereotype - the whole dress-like-a-college-student, surfing, skating, "alternative" (when a band is featured on The O.C., doesn't that by definition negate their alt-status?) music listening thing. I guess. But despite all that, am I really a hipster? And why does my skin crawl at the insinuation?

My brother-in-law, now, he's a hipster. He's opened for We Are Scientists and the Cold War Kids, fer Chrissake. Yet I'm pretty sure that if I asked him about his hipster status, he'd respond with a blank stare. My theory is that those who are Hip don't really think much about it; I don't believe that the truly hip make a conscious effort to maintain that elusive status. They just do what they do, and dig what they dig, and go on about their business. Much like the rest of us.

So it's funny that here in the parenting world, the latest hot-button topic is the Hipster Parent. Much is being made over Alternadad as some kind of Little Red Book for today's modern father, with Pollack as a Ramones-loving Mao. I should clarify - much is being made by people who apparently haven't read the book. (Sorry, no links for you on this, as I don't feel like rewarding piss-poor writing with traffic.) The Hipster Parent, we are told, is a New Phenomenon! Parents who aren't ready to give up their pre-child lives, and who proudly embrace their Peter Pan complexes while trying to raise their kids! It's a whole new style of parenting!

Bullshit.

Here's something I remember for my days as a kid. My dad's soundtrack, which played on car trips and in the house when TV time was over, were the tunes of his time - the Beatles, Creedence, The Band, Cash, and Hendrix. Music he still listens to today. The pleasures of his life were the things that he loved as a kid - camping, fishing, canoeing, and if there'd been an ocean nearby I suspect he'd never have let my grandmother sell his original Hobie longboard (one of the first boards shaped by The Man himself - I think my grandmother sold it at a garage sale for $20, which is about $8,980 less than what it would be worth on eBay today); he taught me to appreciate those things and still makes the attempt to keep at them today.

So is it really so "revolutionary", this concept of fathers holding on to their music and passions and wanting their sons and daughters to dig what they dug? The styles change, as do the sports and the sounds, but the desire is still there, to be able to connect with your kids on that level, to share that part of oneself that's close to the soul. And if you take a close look at your own parents, have they completely eschewed the trappings of their youth? (As for mine, my mother, who as a teen once fought her way through the pit and ended up in the front row at a Beatles concert, recently went to Paul McCartney's show in Omaha; rock on, Mom!)

Of course there's nothing new about trying to bridge the parent-child generation gap, and I suspect that on some level, "hipster parents" know this, and embrace it. We carry a lot of stuff with us as we grow up, some of which remains an important part of who we are; the music that brings us joy, the writing that inspires us, the games that keep us energized. It's who we are, and aren't we told that one of the greatest lessons you can teach a child is to be comfortable in his or her own skin? So when I'm trying to teach my kid the lyrics to "Welcome to The Black Parade", I am, in fact, being very old-fashioned.