Hip Parents

The local, cool radio station hosted an event today called, Rock the Cradle. Kids got the chance to have their faces painted, talk on the radio, listen to stories told by dj's and even scratch records. As I stood in line waiting for the face artist (and I do not use the term lightly. I waited for 1 hour for a yin yang sign painted on my son which I still covet), I checked out the other parents. Instead, the room was full of attractive twenty and thirty somethings shuffling their feet to the ultra-cool tunes being spun by the ultra-cool deejays. The music was good and the activities interesting but what I enjoyed the most about the event was realizing that an entire group of hip parents reside in the Twin Cities. For them, personal style still matters in spite of the demands of parenthood. Rather than choosing function over form and comfort over aesthetics as I think the majority of parents do, they simply expanded their sense of style to include their children. I couldn't tell who was trendier, the five-year old wearing the bright blue platform boots or the mom wearing a New York Dolls T-shirt and even brighter blue platform boots.

Trendsetters, artists and other hipsters have always been objects of fascination for me. I appreciate interesting texts when I people watch and the stories they tell with their appearance is often so carefully cultivated that I can't resist trying to read them. I try not to engage them because the stories I weave for them are generally more intersting than they are, but today I actually wanted to pull out a tape recorder and start interviewing them: Why was style so important for them that even in domesticated they remain slaves to fashion? Was it because they had a strong feel for aesthetics? Was their clothing choice a way of expressing themselves?