Doodie-Head David Brooks vs. Hipster Parents

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I know, I should just ignore David Brooks, especially when he does his grumpy old man routine. But his latest “kids these days” schtick is unusually misguided. (Sorry, no link, the column is behind the NYT content wall.) Yesterday, Brooks tackled the scourge of hipster parents, decrying the “Park Slope alternative Stepford Moms” who are “fascistically turning their children into miniature reproductions of their hipper-than-thou selves.” Their sins: Giving their kids pretentious names like Anouschka, making them listen to Radiohead, and dressing them in annoyingly precocious t-shirts. All because they “refuse to face that their days of chaotic, unscheduled moshing are over.” (Not to be confused with the orderly, scheduled kind.) This is serious stuff: “The hipster parent trend has been going on too long and it’s got to stop.”

I’m actually sympathetic to some of Brooks’ ranting. I’m a new, un-hip parent who wants my kid to be a sheltered, uncoordinated nerd like I was. I think it’s dumb to name your baby Kal-El (unless it’s a family name), give him a fauxhawk, and stick him in a Che onesie or a “Boob Man” t-shirt. But I’m not too worried that the progeny of young bobos are being turned into what Brooks calls “deceptive edginess badges”—whatever that means. The trappings of hipster parenting are pretty superficial. New parents are naturally self-absorbed, but behind the impulse to be a cool parent with a stylish kid lurk big questions about mortgages and mortality. I’m with Slate‘s Michael Agger (also an occasional contributor to Mother Jones), who concludes after reading Neil Pollack’s parenting memoir Alternadad, “The difference between an alternadad, a banker dad, and a soccer dad is ultimately aesthetic and pointless. Sure, Pollack is psyched when [his son] Eli develops a love of the Ramones and Spider-Man, but most of his book recounts his struggle to find what America used to offer easily: a solid house, a living wage, a decent public school.” Child rearing in the U.S. has always been faddish and consumeristic, but the bottom line hasn’t changed much: Parents—even the ones with tattoos—want what’s best for their kids. Brooks should put on some Dan Zanes and chill for a couple of years. By then, the hipsters will have gotten the hang of this post-adolescent parenting thing and will be buying minivans. Now that’s scary.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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