Globe and Mail columnist Leah McLaren nails it today: "Alternaparents" and their kids aren't nearly as cool as alternaparents think. What is an alternaparent, anyway? Basically a Gen X-er who finally settled down and reproduced, and thinks that's just so wild, dude, because, like, he used to do drugs and listen to Sonic Youth, youhearme? Adam Sternbergh described them as terminally hip "grups" in New York magazine. Breeders, please please please: don't go there. McLaren writes today:

Alternaparents think that they're the first generation who decided to maintain their identities after giving birth. They think getting their kids to rock out to the Hives is revolutionary. Except they're forgetting something. The generation before them did the same thing. Except it wasn't the Hives, it was the Beatles.

McLaren cites writer Neal Pollack's book "Alternadad" as an irksome indicator of the mindset, replete with banal monosyllabic exclamations of Pollack's young spawn. There are pages of it. McLaren says:

Seriously. Pages. Which makes it clear to me that all this talk of the importance of punk rock and downing tequila shots between play dates is nothing more than a flimsy excuse to do what self-absorbed parents have always done: Inundate everyone around them with stories about how special and cute their kids are....Even more tedious than the cute-kid stories...is the alternaparent stance of, "I'm a Dad now -- isn't that ironic?" No. It's not. I know you partied hard in your 20s. I know you made art your priority. I know you vowed to never sell out by owning a car or a house or any of that bourgeois crap. I can see how surprised you are by your own ability to do a 180 on this position and become the guy in the park with the baby jogger. But guess what? No one else is surprised. You are a mammal. Your job on this planet is to procreate. And no amount of rave-going or ecstasy-dropping was ever going to change that. Changing a diaper with a Jagermeister hangover is still just changing a diaper.

"You are a mammal. Your job on this planet is to procreate." Whew. You're very wise today to save that back-to-basics stuff for the men, Leah. Can't say that to women anymore. That'd be sexist - even from a woman, see - and judgemental and entirely paleolithic. Something tells me Leah McLaren and that troglodyte Mark Steyn must get along just fine.

TECHNORATI TAGS: ALTERNAPARENTS, ALTERNADAD, NEAL POLLACK, BREEDERS