Wouldn't you like to be a grupster, too?

by Susan Wagner (Subscribe to Susan Wagner's posts) Mar 15th 2007 4:35PM

I'm on the fence these days about my hipster parenting status. On the one hand, I wear skinny jeans and leopard print shoes, my kids know who Green Day and R.E.M. are, and I wouldn't be caught dead driving a mini van. On the other hand, my sons go to private school (not artsy private schools, but church-affiliated programs), most of their shirts have the GAP logo on the front, and we own just about every Wiggles CD ever produced.

Oh, and I'm a writer. Or, as a friend recently said, a professional blogger. I have one of those parenting blogs you've heard so much about, where I write about my kids and their crazy antics.

So does that make me a hipster?

Of course, hipsters--or "grupsters," as they're being called these days--aren't just about being cool. They're parents, too, but according to our very own Jonathon Morgan, they're parents who don't believe that you have to trade being people for being parents. He writes, "The media dialogue on grupster parenting can come across like high-school bickering, with the cool clique either beloved or bemoaned, depending on your persuasion. Overlooked amid all the diatribes for and against designer toddlerwear, or the perceived snobbery by parenting's social elite, is that there is a new kind of family, a new generation of parents trying to define what it means to be Mom and Dad."

Hipster parents have gotten a lot of bad press lately; they've been accused of being narcissistic and of putting a higher value on cool than on parenting. The parents profiled in Jonathon's article deal head-on with this criticism, and talk honestly about how they came to be the parents they are. They also talk about how uncool they really are, which I find funny because I feel the same way.

Is it possible that I'm so uncool that I'm actually hip?

"Grupster," according to Jonathon, comes from "hipster, yuppie and "Grups" - a term for grown-ups on a planet ruled by children in a "Star Trek" episode, according to a much-e-mailed New York magazine article last year." In case you were wondering.

Comments (14)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

LT 3-15-2007 @ 6:05PM

Minivans are practical when you have 3 kids or more! Also, did Melissa give you permission to use a martini glass on your blog? Yes. She does 'own' the martini glass. Maybe you're not so much of a grupster as a poser?

LB 3-15-2007 @ 6:23PM

Sorry Susan, but when you knock minivans you are just asking for it. Dissing what people drive is not cool.

Katrina 3-15-2007 @ 7:52PM

I love my minivan!!! Have you actually looked at what they are coming out with these days?

Miss 3-15-2007 @ 7:57PM

I'm with you, Susan. Minivans just aren't cool. Ever. Blech.

Dontcarewhatyouthink 3-15-2007 @ 9:14PM

No offense, but postings like these are what annoy me the most. You are so self-conscious it's pathetic. You are definitely a grupster by New York Mag's definition. It's all about you. I am really not sure what value you are providing to the rest of us. Plugging your blog doesn't count. How do you manage to have children and still have the time to become preoccupied with minivans and status symbols? Who cares? The rest of us are trying to maintain our work-life balance (or like me right now cleaning up my toddler's changing station after he pooped all over it). Get a life.

laura 3-15-2007 @ 8:49PM

I don't like minivans either. My mother is on her 5th one, and I think this is the cause of my aversion.

Reading that article gave me a headache though. I really dislike it when people try to label each other, and the name grupster makes me want to vomit. Labels can be so divisive and create dislike between people that would otherwise find they had a lot in common with each other. It's pretty lame if you ask me.

cce 3-15-2007 @ 9:17PM

Oh everyone get a hold of yourselves...I don't think Susan was trying to incite a mini-van vs. SUV war. And I'm personally thankful for the rundown on 'grupster'. If I'm going to be labeled, I'd like to know the provenance of the tag.
As soon as anyone starts wondering out loud if they are hip, I would have to say the answer is decidedly, NO. But then, I still wear last year's jeans with ballet flats, so what do I know?

Cassie Lyn 3-15-2007 @ 9:16PM

SUV all the way for me!

Miss 3-15-2007 @ 9:16PM

Dontcarewhatyouthink:

Those of us who have time to care about this sort of thing don't have to worry about our work/life balance. Because we had kids so we could raise them, not spend the next twenty years bitching about how much we have to do as a working parent.

Miss 3-15-2007 @ 9:17PM

Also - Susan, I like you. You are the only writer here who is not stuck on yourself, unabashedly liberal, unapologetically biased, whiny, or a combo of these things.

Ron 3-16-2007 @ 6:48AM

No, you are not so uncool that you are hip. You are Susn Wagner, that's who you are.

Sonya 3-16-2007 @ 7:21AM

OK, with the topic of this post, is anyone else having a flashback to high school? I can't believe parents are actually concerned with labels. I say...grow up.

Marcia 3-16-2007 @ 10:15AM

I agree w/ Sonya. I really don't care what other parents label me as. My concern is that my child is healthy, happy, and clean. Does our everyday attire have anything to do with that? No. Be who you are, who cares about everyone else.

clarity 3-17-2007 @ 9:21PM

I heard it as GRanola yUPpie

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