Barbara Rushkoff is now blogging at Babble, the new urban parenting site launched by Nerve.com founder Rufus Griscom. I’ve gotten a kick out of Barbara’s brilliant wit, nerdy irreverence, and comforting honesty since the days of her print ‘zine Plotz. (Her book Jewish Holiday Fun For You! is a high-larious holiday gift.) As a new dad, I’m looking forward to following Barbara’s parenting adventures on her Babble blog, “A Girl Grows In Brooklyn.” From a recent post:
From where I stand, in the middle of Park Slope, I’m almost urban, not quite suburban, and alls I can say that the farthest thing on my mind is trying to be cool.Here’s the thing. I remember when Mamie was 6 months old I went out and spent $32 on a Sex Pistols t-shirt for her. Here I was imposing my youth on her, like my punk days would show everyone how cool my kid was. How cool I was. So can I tell you how stupid I felt when nannies at the local playground would look at me and ask me about the shirt.
”Well, it’s this band that I used to love.”
I didn’t mention that the only time I listen to Never Mind The Bullocks these days is when I clean the house. Punk rock man, yeah. (Isn’t John Lydon like 60 now anyway?) But saying that sentence I realized the shirt had nothing to do with my kid, and everything to do with me trying to show everyone what kind of parent I was trying to be. Which is so wrong.
