The new big kids

There's an article in the latest New York magazine about early-middle-aged parents who are emotionally/culturally still in their twenties. Unwilling to grow up, or maybe just remaking adulthood in the image of their youth, or something.

I think I'm starting to make peace with the young old fogey that I am (but not so much that old old fogeys don't still annoy me sometimes). After all, if you weren't cool to begin with, you don't have to worry about maintaining your cool either.

Given the focus of the magazine, I do wonder whether this subculture actually exists outside Manhattan. I've certainly seen a parent or two in Toronto who at least dresses the part, but their numbers are probably much smaller here, maybe because there aren't as many cool creative jobs here.

I think my only inclination towards the idea of being a 'grup' was wanting to buy a pair of dark jeans because I felt less well-dressed in my regular denim jeans among the other dads in Mimi's mothers' group, even though I never had that much interaction with them. It was pretty much the reverse of buying a pair of dark Levis when I was 16 because I couldn't find exactly the right pair of 501s, then feeling self-conscious and trying all sorts of ways to lighten them.