If you're a parent and you're over 50, your kids will not be duped into thinking you're cool if you imitate their clothing style, adopt their slang and embrace their culture. Maybe you were hip in 1969 when you were rolling around in the mud at Woodstock, but the mere fact that you're now over 50 means that achieving the level of coolness that your kids and their friends enjoy is an impossible goal for one reason - you're over fifty. And yes, if you understood what I meant by the word "hip" you've just dated yourself.
For starters, please stop using the word "awesome". You should know better. The Great Wall of China is awesome. Ordinary, mundane things are not awesome. If you're an educated adult, you're probably aware that the English language contains more than one adjective. Try to imagine that it's the Sixties and your parents are overusing terms like "far out", "outa sight", and "groovy". Dumb as those words are, they were our words.
Stop wearing torn jeans. On the kids, they look cool; on you they look like you fall down a lot.
Get rid of the flip flops and wear sensible, adult shoes. Your kids have lovely, smooth, young-looking feet; yours are probably veined or bony or swollen or bulging with unsightly bunions. If you're a fifty-year-old guy, you may even have a trace of toenail fungus. Who wants to see that? Going back to the Sixties again, try to imagine your father going to the office in Frye boots.
If you grew up during the Golden Age of Rock, you can't possibly like hip hop or rap music, so stop pretending that you do. Snoop Dog will never be as good as Led Zeppelin. Paul McCartney should retire. And let's face it -- there's nothing more idiotic than an adult jumping up and down in a mosh pit like a gray-haired jack-in-the box. For one thing, you might pull a muscle or go home with a stress fracture because you're not fifteen anymore and your limbs have been through half a century of wear and tear.
Dad, the three-day stubble is cool, but not if it's gray. You'll just look like you forgot to shave. Mom, Lady Gaga can get away with those hairdos; you can't. People will think you escaped from an asylum.
In your vocabulary, the term "hooking up" should only be used to describe a process involving a pick up truck and a speedboat. And if you're old enough to be a member of AARP, the word "dude" should only be used if it's followed by the word "ranch".
Here's the bottom line: If you've been a good parent - loving, nurturing, supportive -- your kids will always think you're cool, but in a different, more significant way. Trying to be their parent and their cool friend is hopeless and unnecessary. You had your time to be cool; now it's theirs.
Both my grandparents have to be the coolest people I know, and have every had the honor of knowing.
This generation thinks wearing an extremely lame t-shirt is ironic, well, they can have that trend. Lame is lame, whether you want to claim it as ironic or not. These days I see kids wearing Iron Maiden t-shirts as well. They probably grabbed mine from the thrift store, and they can have them. Who is biting off whom now?
So understand
Don't waste your time
Always searching for those wasted years
Face up...make your stand
And realize you're living in the golden years
On a side note, in the sixties Charles Mingus talked about the use of the word "groovy" being dated. He claimed a jazz d-jay coined that term in the 1930's. Apparently the jazz crowd used to talk about being "grooved" by a chick, so the d-jay would advertise the Coconut Grove saying "everyone is groovy down at the Coconut Grove." What is hip?
While I believe in an evolving sense of style, some things are timeless. I own two tailored suits, one black and one navy, and a dark green sport coat. Grown men should have a leather wallet, a nice watch (with hands, not digital), a pair of leather shoes, a wool overcoat, and a pocket knife.
Shakespeare said a well dressed man is "one whose clothes you never notice." I think he was right. Flashiness screams insecurity, subtlety whispers confidence. That's why the old black guys I see in cotton suits and pork pie hats will always be cooler than the next wave of hipsters. Ryan Goseling is the only young celebrity these days who seems to get this. He wears great clothes, but more importantly he wears his clothes well.
I have to admit, the one thing I've been doing since I was thirteen is wear a hat forward and cocked to the left, because that's what Rick from Casablanca did (still the coolest guy ever).My question is, why would anyone want to dress like kids today anyway?
I agree with some of the things Mr. Blumenthal wrote. A Valley-girl vocabulary is ridiculous, but if I never hear another Led Zeppelin song ever again I'll be okay with that. It's important to grow as a person throughout life. Emulating younger generations is not growing, nor is stagnating in the culture of one's youth. While I make no claims to be cool, I am a man and I enjoy being a man.
As I've aged my tastes in clothes, music, art, and literature have grown as well. I'll never wear tapered jeans, pastel t-shirts, jams, or flip-flops (flip-flops, by the way were never cool) or listen to 80's college music, watch Miami Vice, or read J.D. Salinger. Nor will I wear baggy jeans, XL shirts, puffy basketball shoes or jump in the pit, or eat Taco Bell or read Hunter S. Thompson. Those phases of my life are over and done with. At the same time, I have no interest in J.K. Rowling, cargo shorts, golf shirts, sports gear, pleated pants, or button-down collars. I have my own sense of style & I don't care if today's hipsters don't like my casual utility shirts and flat front pants that fit me correctly.
But I have to disagree with you about Rowling. I began with reading those with my kids. They intrigued my youngest who, at the time, was not that interested in reading. Having found that set of books, I used that as a guide to seek others of the same genre. He began to read for pleasure and he did well in school. He's now a physician in his residency. Those Harry Potter books set him on the road to success academically and for that I am most grateful.
Screw your rules.