Assorted Rants for Tuesday

This weekend included a successful shoe-shopping experience (this is a real rarity for me. hate shoe shopping so much), a Tucson Moms meet-up (next week I go for a Mom's Night Out), and but no yoga class since poor Jon (now bearded once more) was still too sick to babysit. I did make it to the Monday vinyasa class though, which kicked ass and was a real workout. I'm officially trading in my gym membership for a wellness membership at Providence. I'll be doing yoga three times a week and I'll get my massages free.

The hipster parent thing continues to amuse me. Like everything in parenting (and pretty much every other arena too) you get a lot of screaming from two exteme sides. In this case the 'you must totally give up your individual identity' when you become parents side against the 'I will continue to stay up to 3am and smoke pot because I'm a dad, not The Man' side. There's a lot of yacking about how 'hipster' parents 'indoctrinate' their kids to listen to The Hives or whatever, which is different than my parents listening to Bob Dylan and Blondie when I was a kid somehow because clearly Generation X is the first group of people to ever do anything. Which is what I (and most of the articles I've read) find most irritating about the whole phenomenon of Babble and its ilk. At their most self-rightious they honestly spew a bunch of stuff about how the difference is that they don't rely on Spock and their pediatricians (because, you know, expert advise is always bad) and talk to other people. Because before blogs, people just had babies in total isolation and never talked to anyone who wasn't a medical professional. Sigh.

The thing is, I have definitely seen the parent (or to be honest, the mom) who makes their entire life about the kids. Their every day, week, month, year is built around Junior's activities, Junior's playdates, picking up Junior's dry cleaning, etc. I have an acquantaince whose son is seventeen and she's still like 'I have to be home at 7 to cook dinner for my kid' because despite being smart enough to go to Magnet High, he can't master the can openner or microwave? But I certainly don't feel like I'm 'rebeling' against something by not doing that, because that certainly wasn't the typical parent where I grew up.

I wouldn't have become a mother if I didn't want to have kids and didn't intend to spend time with my child. Maybe I was just born old? I also continue to be stunned by claims that there's some sort of conspiracy to convince us that parenting is really fab when actually it sucks donkey balls. Honestly, does anyone have children not knowing that they'll face sleepless nights, poopy messes, tantrums, and the decrease of private time? Have they never seen a baby before? Plus the insult of telling me I dont' really like my daughter. Yes, there are times when I get frustrated, but see above about wanting a kid in the first place. It really is amazing how fufilling it is to roll a ball across the living room with her for half an hour. That doesn't mean I have to give up yoga or reading or BSG. I don't play 'Exile in Guyville' while I drive her to daycare, but I do think it's fun that she likes my Cat Power albums. I also have Grover's Greatest Hits (and I will eventually have to get over my usurper! reaction to Elmo) because I am not too cool to let my kid have kid music (except for frakkin' Kidz Bop).

Okay, enough ranting for now. I have an appointment at the salon. Because I'll admit that part of maintaining my own identity is keeping my hippy hair ;)