Everyone thinks it's all about them....(even me)
So, I'm reading "Baby Wars" on the Toronto Life website:
"Pulp Kitchen is a small 24-seat vegetarian restaurant and juice bar in Leslieville, where strollers dot the sidewalks like giant jelly beans. On a summer day in 2006, Julie Forrest entered the restaurant with her friend Karen Green and their two infant daughters to get some salads and juice to go. It was late in the morning, and no one else needed to be served.
Instead of a big welcome, the hipster behind the counter directed a frosty eye at the babies in their strollers. “It was a definite F-you look,” recalls Forrest.
A few weeks later, when she walked by, Forrest saw a handwritten sign on the door: “Attn, parents with baby strollers. Our restaurant is tiny! We have parking for only one stroller inside (but not in the dining area). Thanks!” Forrest’s neighbourhood, south of Queen near Logan, is a place of class confusion: she can buy direct-trade organic coffee and drink it while watching a heavily armed police squad circling a house across her street to halt a drug-related kidnapping. These are the realities of modern downtown life that play out on her blog, Metro Mama, and the blog is right where she headed after her salad snub. Without naming Pulp Kitchen, Forrest posted a picture of the sign and her take on it: “What pisses me off is that I think they have signs like this because they think kids (and parents) aren’t cool. These too cool for school Queen Street joints don’t want the babes spoiling their image.”"
I think that the real issue is Hipsters are having kids and struggling like crazy to stay "cool".
...and while we're at it...a giant "F-you" to you selfish, childless bastards who would like to go out and not deal with screaming babies or toddlers tearing through the restaurant.
Especially when it's a tiny restaurant.
Because who cares about other people...it's all about ME!!!
...and because hipster is a mommy now...we need to get with her program.
(Excuse me while a make a reservation at Pulp Kitchen)
What kills me the most is that the biggest hipsters I've ever met, actually grew up in the 'burbs.
It's a constant struggle to capture that "urban" thing...to the point where you're a parody.
Check out the forum discussion on the article.
There are some excellent comments, like this one:
"As parents of a well-behaved five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter, my wife and I feel comfortable going out to lunch or brunch downtown for the simple reason that our kids are acquainted with the now archaic art of discipline. The old adage “kids will be kids” is great, but not when other people are paying to drink $7 lattes or take in some art. If you are sitting at Shanghai Cowgirl and your four-year-old with the grandiose name wearing the tiny Ramones T-shirt starts screaming, “I don’t want wasabi mayo!” then here’s an idea for you: hang up your hipster hat, drop the New Age child-rearing crap, and actually parent your child. Children don’t need a best buddy from Coolsville who lets them act however the hell they want. They need lots of love and lots of boundaries. So if you’re too lazy to put in the effort and say traumatizing words like “no” and “stop that” to your child, then eat at home."
Matt Hawkins, Toronto
I would like to add that this "Hipster Parenting" trend appears to be a North American thing...because while in Europe, I didn't cringe when a family sat down next to us in a cafe. Because their children sat at the table and behaved themselves, and if they didn't, they weren't consulted or negotiated with.
They were disciplined (GASP!) in public....and everything!
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