Dear Neal,
Let me begin by saying that I love me some McSweeney’s. And that, for the most part, I’ve enjoyed the various literary products authored by McSweeney’s writers like yourself. However, all that aside, I feel confidant in saying that I am not alone in feeling rubbed just a wee bit the wrong way by your present “Alternadad” shtick. Please allow me to explain.
Firstly, if I may be so bold as to begin with a query: what makes you conceive of yourself as Alternative (yes, with a capital “A”), and what, if anything, does that word even mean within the context of parenting (correct me if I’m wrong here, but wasn’t “Alternative” and all its derivations finally and completely drained of all relevance and meaning at some point back in the late 1990s (see Thomas Frank’s The Conquest Of Cool)?)? As one review of your new book pointedly notes:
Pollack details the kind of problems that can be found in almost every memoir on child-rearing, from how to clean up baby poop to figuring out how best to be a “Dad” while being a friend. But he never really defines what it is that makes his parenting so alternative other than that he wants to be a parent and still get high and stay out late.
FYI for you, Neal: arrested development-type behavior like continuing to covet post-punk rock on vinyl and/or obsessively collect kooky-kitchy japanimation figurines after becoming a parent does not make you unique or some sort of bold trailblazer, it simply means you’re a caucasian person in their mid-thirties (and, hello, I should know).
Which brings me to my second point: please stop pretending — by way of omission, if nothing else — that you created (or even recreated) the concept of Hip Parenting, or Alternaparenting, or whatever you want to call it. Dude, look no further than HipMama and know that — however you choose to define (or not) your Alterna terms — those cards were played YEARS before you ever even contemplated spawning. You have not reinvented the parenting wheel, and possessing a penis does not somehow magically make your perspective and insights revolutionary . If anything, you’re quite late to a well-established community of misfit and radical parents that has already produced dozens of parenting tomes similar to yours — primarily authored by women with more tattoos and indie cred than you, by the by* — and in light of that fact its just plain unseemly and grating to not acknowledge that you’re standing on the shoulders of giants… or that the giants even exist at all.
Bottomline, I’m probably your book’s target demographic, but your I’m hip and relevant, and yet also a parent! And that’s something Innovative and Interesting I made up myself! routine just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, quite frankly. Because, to be blunt, you aren’t special, and it isn’t something new, and NEWSFLASH: WE ALL STILL WANT TO GET HIGH AND STAY OUT LATE. Welcome to the freakin’ club and get in line, my man.
But hey, listen, wanting to think you’re cool is totally fine. You’re entitled, what with that McSweeney’s gig and all. But dude, let’s not get carried away and lose our heads or anything, okay?
Giving you The Goat**,
Tracey
…………..
* Please see Marrit’s Reinventing The Neal.
**
Hey, howsit goin’?
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