The Blogfathers

Last Wednesday, spring raised it’s glorious, golden head and offered Denver a preview of what’s to come; temperatures in the mid-70s, light, white cirrus clouds skittering high across the sky. The post-work, late afternoon screamed, cocktails on a patio.  

Prior to the birth of the twins, every Wednesday night meant gathering with friends to celebrate the downhill slide to the weekend. These impromptu gatherings came to be known as ‘Wednesday Night’ (catchy name, isn’t it?).

P.Pie & I had missed the last five weeks of ‘Wednesday Night’ for obvious reasons.

But on this particular Wednesday the weather was wonderful, our friends beckoned, and The Squeaker was ready for her first ‘evening’ outing. An adventure with friends, light hors d’oeuvres, and an adult beverage or two would seem to be the perfect opportunity to start traveling down the Hipster Dad highway.

So who are these so-called ‘Hipster Dads’?

The Hipster Dad is the spokesdad of the dad revolution. And not every dad in the revolution can be a hipster dad. The hipster dad has taken the tenets of fatherhood – of the whole dad revolution – and lives them to their fullest potential, all while keeping their hip, urbane lifestyle intact.

For the Hipster Dad, the phrases ‘having a child’ and ‘settling down’ are not synonymous 

The poster boy of hipster dads is Neal Pollack. Neal has taken the hipster-life-with-kids to the greatest heights imaginable, chronicling along the way with a blog that shares his name and an aptly titled book, Alternadad, which has been reviewed from coast to coast. 

So here we are at a hip little nuevo Mexican joint known as Lola’s - high end tequilas, coastal Mexican cuisine and a bar/patio that overlooks downtown Denver, any hip and/or trendy person in Denver is sure to have Lola’s on his/her places-to-be-seen.

At the door, the trepidations start to set in.

The patio was standing room only. And judging by the slight sway of the crowd, the folks in there had been standing and drinking. But the hipster life beckoned, so we elbowed our way to our friends’ locale – a nice spot on the edge of the patio with a great view.

And then it began.

Complete strangers – mostly on the patio, but a few from outside the patio – began prodding my child with long, unclean fingers and goofy, slightly inebriated faces that blew tequila breathe in her face.

The ‘new’ father bodyguard in me wanted to fall on top of her to keep her safe from these would be bio-toxin assassins. Instead, I pulled her slightly closer in order to better deflect their germ-laden appendages from reacting her.

Thirty minutes and one bowl of fresh guac and chips later, we made the decidedly unhip move of heading for home. The excuse? The Squeaker needed to eat.

What an unhip, pathetic excuse. Obviously I am unfit to be on the frontlines of the dad revolution.

Please don’t mistake that with being unfit for the revolution. No, I am as committed to the cause as I was the day I wrote my first post.

I think my failing as a hipster dad comes, in part, because I was never really all that hip to begin with. Instead, I’ll cheer on Neal and all the other hipster dads who can successfully pull off the revolution in front of an audience.

I’ll just write about it, safely ensconced in my house with my wife and baby girl.

This Thing Of Ours