Third Culture Kid(s)

Metro Dad (who may not be “hip,” but who’s certainly cool) posted this quiz today, and since I’m all about the quizzes, I’m pasting it here (complete with my answers in bold):

ARE YOU A HIPSTER PARENT?

Does your child own any of the following “ironic” t-shirts or onesies?

1. The Clash, The Ramones, or Sonic Youth (add 1 point)
2. Che Guevara or Mao (add 2 points)
3. I make my child’s clothing from sustainable materials (add 3 points)
4. No. They don’t sell those at Wal-Mart. (add 0 points)

How would you describe your child’s sense of style?

1. A miniature version of myself! (add 1 point)
2. Betsey Johnson circa 1987 (add 2 points)
3. Indie rocker meets Bohemian graffiti artist (add 3 points)
4. Baby Gap meets jelly stains (add 0 points)

What is your child’s favorite music?

1. Radiohead (add 1 point)
2. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (add 2 points)
3. His own. He started a rock band with his Park Slope pals (add 3 points)
4. The Wiggles (add 0 points) (actually, it’s Jack/Laurie Berkner, but that’s also TV and I figure it’s the same as The Wiggles)
   

What is your child’s favorite food?

1. Edamame (add 1 point)
2. Roasted foie gras with a fricasse of cremini & shitake (add 2 points)
3. My child is a Vegan (add 3 points)
4. Chicken McNuggets (add 0 points)

What’s your idea of the perfect family vacation?

1. Touring the great museums of Europe (add 1 point)
2. Backpacking in Costa Rica (add 2 points)
3. Volunteering at the local soup kitchen (add 3 points)
4. Building sandcastles at the Jersey shore (add 0 points)

My child LOVES coming with me to…

1. Cocktail parties (add 1 point)
2. Concerts at the Liberty Heights Tap Room (add 2 points)
3. Jivamukti yoga class (add 3 points)
4. The mall! (add 0 points)

What is your child’s favorite movie?

1. Anything by Michel Gondry (add 1 point)
2. Anything by Fellini (add 2 points)
3. “Manufacturing Consent” (add 3 points)
4. “Finding Nemo” (add 0 points) (we haven’t actually started movies yet, but this would be the one; everything else I put on TV she says “No, no, NO!” about)
   

What is your child’s favorite TV show?

1. The Charlie & Lola Show (add 1 point)
2. The Wire (add 2 points)
3. We don’t believe in television (add 3 points)
4. Sponge Bob rules! (add 0 points) (see above comment about music)
   

What brand of diapers do you use?

1. gDiapers (add 1 point)
2. Cloth diaper delivery service (add 2 points)
3. I make my own out of hemp and organic cotton (add 3 points)
4. Whatever’s on sale at Costco (add 0 points)

What kind of haircut does your child have?

1. A shag (add 1 point)
2. A mohawk (add 2 points)
3. Shaved head (add 3 points)
4. Standard bowl cut from Superfine (add 0 points) (actually, my mom cut it for the first time today - she looks like a Vulcan now)
   

How is your baby’s room furnished?

1. DWR for Kids (add 1 point)
2. Eames furniture (add 2 points)
3. Homemade crib whittled out of teak (add 3 points)
4. Dirty finger-smudged wallpaper (add 0 points) (it’s paint, but all her furniture is vintage my-old-furniture and one used crib)
   

What’s the WORST thing your child could grow up to be?

1. A corporate drone (add 1 point)
2. An investment banker (add 2 points)
3. A Republican (add 3 points)
4. A career criminal or an ax-wielding sociopath (add 0 points)

.

RESULTS

O-14 points: Congrats! You’re so down-to-earth as a parent that you’re truly alternative! You aren’t trying to desperately hold onto your youth by turning your kids into fashion accessories. You know that kids should just be kids. Besides, who has time to worry about all these stupid labels when you’ve already got your hands full with a household of rug rats, a second job, and trying to make this month’s car payment? You’d love to raise your kids to be socially-conscious humanitarians but, right now, you’re busy trying to keep them from burning down the house!

15-25 points: C’mon, admit it. You’re a little bit hipster. If you take a step back, you know that you’re sometimes a little too trendy for your own good, right? You’re a little too old and a little too square to be a hipster parent but it’s not always for a lack of trying. Sure, the kids love listening to The Cure, but you were secretly hoping that they would, weren’t you? Besides, how could they NOT like them? You not-so-subconsciously play it every time you’re in the Prius, right? Don’t worry, man. It’s cool. I won’t tell anyone.

26-30 points: You are firmly entrenched as a hipster parent. Odds are you live near me in Tribeca or in Park Slope. You and your kids are best friends. To prove it, you insist that they call you by your first name! You are definitely too cool for school and you mock anything that has the slightest whiff of mass appeal or corporate commercialism. No Disney for you! Dora is the devil! Elmo is a four-letter word!

31-36 points: You practice what I like to call “fascist parenting.” You have foisted your own choices onto your child so firmly that he’s wound up tighter than a vise. Your choices are your child’s choices. And while you think you’re fostering free thought, you’re really only imposing your own. Your self-righteousness attitude belies an unforgiving intolerance to other styles of parenting. If your child doesn’t grow up to be EXACTLY like you, then you will have failed miserably.

Metro Dad then goes on to qualify his tongue-in-cheek quiz a little, but it does raise some interesting questions for me.

Specifically, what would happen if M. and/or I were invested in being hip? Our ages alone make this an absolute impossibility (one of us was of “advanced maternal age” when MM was born), but it’s also the case that, as far as hipsters are concerned, the fat and/or disabled need not apply (don’t think so? Check out the clothing sizes at your favorite neighborhood boutique; I promise, they don’t want my kind).

As such, MM is being raised by two decidedly un-hip parents. And if we were to raise her, for whatever reason, with a hip consciousness, I think we’d find ourselves deposed as her parents at the first available opportunity. And God knows we’ll probably be an embarassment to her eventually - we’re too much our own people not to be. But, in the meantime, she’s going to be the hapa daughter of an older, graying, and probably still-overweight mom and a disabled dad with a roving eye (for the girls, yes, but he’s actually got an eye that kind of wanders away; when I first met him, I wasn’t quite sure where to look). She’s going to need a strong sense of herself in order to get by (not that this looks to be an issue at this point; as my mom says, she’s freakishly comfortable in her own skin. I know she’s only 1, but it’s true). And that’s simply not terribly compatible with any kind of keeping-up-with-the-Jones consciousness, be it hipness, or crunchiness, or preppiness, or whatever. She’ll need to be compassionate - any person does - but she’ll also need to know and be true to herself.

And that’s the kind of parenting we’re interested in here at casa del [Japanese surname].