The Cool Mom

“Dad”, Mark said in the car the other day, “You’re so cool. I love you. I just think you’re so cool”. “Thanks buddy”, Rob said, “I think you’re pretty cool too. What about Mom? Is she cool?”

“Not really” he replied.

I’m not sure what gave him that idea. Maybe it’s because I laugh at math jokes. Maybe it’s because I was driving alone in the car on a sunny afternoon blasting such late-eighties hits as “Johnny Come Home”, “Try”, and “Fast Car”. (I-I-I had the feeling I could be someone, be someone). Maybe it’s because I interrupted my gender-prescribed floor-washing in order to dance wildly to “Take On Me”. What? A-Ha isn’t cool anymore? Or never was? Oh well.

The thing is, who really wants to be the cool mom? We all know what the supposed cool moms are like, and they are really not so cool. They are the moms who want to be friends with their children, and to be accepted by their kids’ friends as one of them. They are the moms that bootleg for their kids and let them smoke in the house. One of my aunts was a cool mom, and even when I was nine I thought her hot pink suede mini skirt and matching fringed jacket, along with her leathery tanned complexion, platinum hair, and Tammy Faye eyelashes were strange. It’s one thing to keep yourself looking well. It’s another thing to fight aging to the point that you want to look like one of your kids’ friends, but end up looking like a younger version of Baby Jane. Now that I think about it, my aunt was surely younger then than I am now, but her desperation to be hip and with-it aged her in a way wearing regular clothes and makeup never could.

All of which is to say: I’m content to be the uncool mom, destined to embarrass my kids for years to come – but not by wearing a MILF t-shirt.