The new movie “Away We Go” is trying to trick you into thinking it’s good. The main characters, a hipster couple about to have a kid, are played by Jim from “The Office” and Maya Rudolph (aka Donatella Versace on “Saturday Night Live.”) It’s written by real life married authors Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. However, the New York post writer, Sara Stewart, who reviewed the movie is onto them and does a public service by making sure everybody knows that the movie is just a nicely wrapped package full of sanctamommy (and daddy) attitude. The article is not just about the movie, it’s a rant about how New York parents are uptight, holier-than-thou douches who lecture each other about organic food and think they’re better parents than everyone else. (Sara calls it parent-on-parent shaming.)
Coincidentally, Eggers’ old neighborhood, Park Slope, remains ground zero for NYC’s alt-parenting elite — though they can be found in every corner of town. Whenever eyebrows raise at a mom feeding formula to her baby; whenever a parent tells another, “We don’t have TV in our house;” whenever a baby is forced to wear a $40 Ramones onesie, the spirit of parental one-upmanship is there.
Luckily, not every NYC parent is a brainwashed yuppie. Sara managed to find some normal people (tbti readers, maybe?).
One acid-tongued commentator on the Brooklyn baby scene, a man who will only give us his blog name (“Blogngr”), has penned an online apology for presumptuous hipster-parent misdeeds.
“We the parents of Park Slope and the surrounding vicinity,” he writes on his blog, “hereby declare our realization that we and our children can, at times, be annoying as F – - K. We are naturally compelled to value our children’s feelings and well-being above all else, frequently to the exclusion of our consideration for others, our capacity for courtesy, and our common sense.”
Holier-than-thou parenting, he says, is as old as humankind. It just comes in different formats. Today’s “Away We Go” brand is based in a competition to see who can, as he puts it, be the “least evil.” (He hasn’t seen the movie, he adds, but has watched the trailer. “I swear to Christ,” he says, “you’d have to kidnap my children and demand a ticket stub as ransom to get me to go see it.”)
OK, we’ve gotta find this guy’s blog and link to it. Hello new best friend.
“I think women are afraid to say that they don’t want children because they’re going to get shunned. But I think that’s changing too now. I have more girlfriends who don’t have kids than those that do. And honestly? We don’t need any more kids. We have plenty of people on this planet.”
- the beautiful (and environment-loving) actress Cameron Diaz
Model Marie Helvin, who is modeling for the UK department store Marks & Spencer, is 56 and really fucking rad. She also agrees with us a lot! Marie hates leggings, likes pencil skirts, and is adamantly anti-kid.
I’ve had an amazing life, done lots of fantastic things. I never wanted children, so that’s not an issue.” She is very clear on this point, having once had an abortion when she lived in Japan.
Once again, Marie proves that not spawning is excellent for your health, your looks, and your sanity.
Hey, Marie, any interest in starting a London version of tbti? We can’t pay you, but you can totally stay at our apartment whenever you’re in town!
We got all excited when we saw a flyer for something called “Batting for Babies” in our mailbox yesterday. Sadly, it isn’t a day where people hit babies with baseball bats. It’s some kind of like minor league baseball fundraiser for babies or something. Whatever it is, it’s in Jersey and sounds lame. They should really work on coming up with a better name or they might accidentally end up with a bunch of baby-haters at their event trying to swing at their kids.
This horrifying article aimed at Australian parents who want to visit New York with their children, contains several pieces of useful information. Useful if you’re trying to avoid parents and their children, of course.
1. “The Kaufman Astoria film and video gallery on the second floor of New York’s popular Whitney Museum of American Art is the perfect place to breastfeed.” Well, OK, time to cross that off my list of good museums. I’d rather look at exposed boobs in paintings, thank you.
2. “New Yorkers love babies. Who would have thought?” I’m sorry, but this is simply not true. Exhibit A: this fucking blog. Maybe the woman who wrote this article only hung out with other sanctamommies or something.
3. “Don’t miss FAO Schwarz’s flagship store in the landmark General Motors Building at the corner of 58th Street and Fifth Avenue.” This is actually OK. No reasonable adult would ever go in there, anyway, so the breeders can have it.
4. “The Buckingham Hotel, 101 West 57th Street, Manhattan, offers regular family specials. The SupercalifragilisticexpealaSavings package includes a two-night stay for four in a deluxe one-bedroom, four tickets to Disney’s Mary Poppins on Broadway and a performance CD, from $US798 ($1117). See buckinghamhotel.com.” Dude, that is what I think hell must be like. Babies, stupid musicals, and having to pay $800 a night for the “privilege.”
One of those grownups-only things we love to do here on our island is go check out some Broadway theater. Unfortunately, people are always dragging their little mutants along to come see the play, even if it’s past bedtime and they’re tired or have colic or whatever. Isn’t that why we have those stupid Disney musical plays in the first place, for kids and tourists? But one awesome playwright has written a play that’s not just interesting and apparently good, it’s got a foolproof way to keep babies out of the theater.
Mark Schultz’s play The Gingerbread Man is about a married couple who are bored with life. Obviously, the reason they are bored is because they have kids, which drags everyone’s life down.
Brian (Jason Butler Harner) stirs from his exhausted slouch. “Honey,” he says, “I think we should sell the kids.”
Stacey (Sarah Paulson) responds with a blank stare and a light laugh. “Maybe we can get a new fridge,” she says dryly.
But Brian isn’t kidding. He’s sick of the children. “We can start our lives again,” he says in a coaxing tone. “We can have it back. All of it.”
Mr. Schultz isn’t kidding either. In the queasy discussion that follows, Sarah gradually comes around to the idea of unloading their two young children, through a work associate of Brian’s, to strangers in Albania. In the play’s second scene the deal is struck, and Stacey and Brian are instantly unencumbered.
OK, this is brilliant. That’s the one thing missing from all these articles where people freak out about the economy and how you should give up things and save money and shit – if you have kids sitting around sucking up resources and not even doing anything to earn their keep, it’s time to trim the fat, people. And your baby = the fat.
Seth Rogen is officially our boyfriend. Check out these quotes from a recent interview he did while promoting his kids’ movie, Monsters vs. Aliens:
Now that the movie’s out and I don’t have to promote it anymore, I can say that I hate children. It’s out, it’s made $60 million. I can say it: I hate kids. If no kid ever came up to me, I would be more than happy. These guys bring their kids [to screenings] and I kind of resent them. To me it’s kind of a sacrilegious thing, and the kid would cry. It was horrible.
We don’t know much about Jack Cafferty from CNN, but he seems like a grumpy old dude. His style could be described as “get off my lawn.” But he has a book coming out and part of it hates on annoying people and their kids, so we’re going to have to buy it. Here’s some of what he says-
Exhibit A: My wife and I have just been seated for dinner when the maitre d’ walks over and seats a young family at the table next to us and the kids start carrying on like orangutans on a leash.
The parents are going, “Timmy, that’s not nice, don’t throw your food, stop stuffing your mashed potatoes up your nose.” Are mom and dad having fun yet, picking food up off the floor, apologizing to people like us, and wiping food flung across the table off their faces?
Some parents still have this attitude that their kids are too special to be burdened by discipline. And the rest of us are supposed to put up with their little mutants. That attitude really pisses me off.
I hate to break it to them, but the kids aren’t special, and I don’t have to put up with their behavior. If you can’t control your obnoxious little brats, leave them home.
They don’t belong out in public annoying other people, period. I don’t remember a generation of kids ever so indulged and enabled to behave so badly. What’s going on?
