Baby Loves Disco… But Mommy Thinks It Sucks!

If there is one major contribution that Generation X has made to the history of parenting, it has to be the way we have introduced and firmly established as gospel the idea that whatever Mom and Dad want to do, Baby can do too. Not to mention Toddler, Pre-schooler, Kindergartener and Tween. In fact, the older Junior gets, the greater the opportunities for bringing him along to some grown-up fun disguised as “family oriented activities”. I guess the idea is that by the time he is a teenager the gap will have closed and the parents, feet planted firmly in Neverland soil, will instead be able to join their children in some adolescent fun.

The trouble is, Generation X:ers are really a bunch of accidental, verging on reluctant parents. A significant proportion of us have waited until our thirties to have kids – heck, a whole load of us are still waiting! And as we weren’t exactly the most selfless, flexible generation to start with, thirty plus years of instant gratification has got to lead to some serious conflict when, as the venerable Dr Huxtable might say, these people move in. You know, these people who are responsible for the fact that you can no longer enjoy the Sunday paper over a leisurely brunch followed by some retail therapy. The ones that force you to get up at 5.30 like an old person and blow your personal spending budget to pieces. The ones that make your plans to take a sabbatical and escape to Tibet for a few months’ quiet contemplation seem, well, more like a joke than a feasible idea.

Cue a novel concept: Let’s just keep going, post-baby, doing everything we used to enjoy pre-baby. How, exactly? Well, it’s obvious! We’ll just mask everything as family friendly activities, designed to make well-rounded individuals out of our children. We’ll pretend it’s just a coincidence that these activities also happen to match our hobbies – besides, everyone knows that kids love joining in with adult pursuits. Anything we don't really enjoy doing with our children, but feel as though we ought to, can be given the opposite treatment. These things we will pass off as fulfilling, discover-the-child-inside-you style adult activities and kid ourselves that we’re enjoying them.

Thus, we kill two birds with one stone: Firstly, we meet the requirement drummed into us by the glossy parenting magazines, namely that there should be no such thing as “their stuff” and “our stuff” but just one, big, happy family enjoying life together. Secondly, we manage to allow, to the greatest extent possible, the thrill-seeking, fun-loving Generation X show to go on.

So, what to do? You name it, baby. Wanna go skiing? There’s a crèche for the infant and ski school for the three-year-old. Wanna travel the world? Pack plenty of disposable everythings and buy Claire and Lucille Tristram’s “Have Kid, Will Travel” from Amazon. Wanna enjoy a meal at a restaurant and some adult conversation? Take them to Chuck E. Cheese’s and put up with the crappy food. Want to enjoy decent grub at a good restaurant? Take them to a good restaurant, goddammit! If the restaurant objects, tell the papers and they’ll get subjected to the same treatment as Dan “indoor voices” McCauley.

But the best of all really has to be this: Wanna go clubbing? Take them to Baby Loves Disco! I’ve seen some weird things in my day, but this really takes the biscuit. For those of you who would rather not partake of the organizers' website, this is essentially what Baby Loves Disco is: A “disco” (this means a club, I suppose, in funky, retro language) currently available in NYC, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Boulder, where “toddlers, pre-schoolers and parents looking for a break from the routine playground circuit let loose for some post naptime, pre-dinner fun”. In the organizers’ own words: “Make no mistake, this is NOT the Mickey Mouse club, and Barney is Banned. Baby loves disco is an afternoon dance party featuring real music spun and mixed by real djs blending classic disco tunes From the 70s, & 80s guaranteed to get those little booties moving and grooving.”

In short, you take your kids to this place where dreadful music mixes with “bubble machines, baskets of instruments, a chill-out room (with tents, books and puzzles), diaper changing stations, a full spread of healthy snacks (provided by Whole Foods) and dancing, LOTS of dancing”. Heather Murphy, a professional dancer (“and professional mom”!!) who started the whole thing wanted no less than “to create an alternative to the pre-packaged world of entertainment for young kids”. No kidding? And Baby Loves Disco would be what, exactly?

Anyway, you won’t be seeing me in one of these places anytime soon. Apologies to Murphy, “whose lifestyle --- was changed when she gave birth to her 2 year old son Max”. My lifestyle has changed, too, and as a consequence of that, my kids’ first “disco” will be of the school variety - anything else they can go to when they’re old enough to drive themselves there.

Call me old fashioned, but last time I looked, clubbing involved one or more of the following: music so loud you’d struggle to hold a conversation, alcohol or some other intoxicating substance, sweaty adults letting their hair down and with it, all semblance of responsibility, and hot babes to chat up (or, should this be inappropriate given your circumstances, to ogle). A good night clubbing would generally include all of the above.

So, which of these disco-defining factors would one likely encounter at a Baby Loves Disco party? Unbearably loud music? Ha! Think of all those infants and their sensitive ears - someone could get sued. Booze? Ha! Ha! Ha! Sweaty adults? Possibly, but ones in the process of letting responsibility ride with the wind? Hardly. Hot babes? Well, yeah, but even though parenthood is now (thanks to Gen X) officially sexy, no one ever intended that to be taken literally. I don’t know about you, but while I certainly consider myself one hot mama, there’s hardly a time I feel less sexy than when in full view of my kids.

In other words, when you look at what a Baby Loves Disco party really is, what you are left with is precisely what you would normally expect when you invite parents and children for some “post nap, pre dinner fun”: a dimly lit room full of shrieking, hyperactive children bouncing around to a dreadful 70s collection picked up from the nearest gas station. I don’t need to pay ten bucks a head for that – I can do it right here, at home. (Though if I ever do attempt something so preposterous, could someone please shoot me?)

No, I’m sorry – a Generation X:er I may be, but I just don’t buy it. When it comes to parenting, I’d rather do it like my parents did. I love my kids to bits – to suggest I might not because I don’t feel like sharing every moment of my life with them would be ridiculous. I keep them warm and safe, provide them with nutritious meals and snacks six times a day, take them swimming, to ice skating classes and on holidays abroad, I read to them and help them with their homework. I think that all in all, they get a pretty good deal.

But there are some things I simply prefer to do on my own, sans kids. The list includes but is not limited to: going to the gym (no “KidZone” for me, thanks – I’ll wait ‘til they’re in bed), shaking my booty at the disc-oh (someone’s gotta keep the babysitting brigade in employment), backpacking (won’t be doing much of that for the next fifteen years), fine dining (where’s that babysitter’s number again?) and sleep (children who are sick or reeling from nightmares excepted, a “family bed” mine is not). Just about the only Generation X style thing I’ll do with my kids is take them to music festivals – though I view that as them doing something for me, as a kind of payback for all the times they’ve dragged me to Hell on Earth, a.k.a. the playground.

PS. Could someone please tell James Blunt to put his sweater back on and go inside? Why do people buy into this stuff? Please tell me that this isn’t happening.

PPS. Opening lines of Simon And Garfunkel’s Leaves That Are Green:

“I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song.
I’m twenty-two now but I won’t be for long”

Opening lines of Billy Bragg’s New England:

“I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song.
I’m twenty-two now but I won’t be for long”

Bet you didn’t know that! Two songs, born out of the same two lines, one mediocre and one a musical classic. But which is which?

PPPS. Just so you know: When moving abroad, homesickness will strike you approximately two months after arrival, or the first time you listen to Fifteen Years by The Levellers. Unless you move to Sweden, in which case homesickness will strike you on the first night. (This paragraph may well be deleted when I let the Swedish posse loose on my blog, so if you’re lucky enough to be reading it, savour the moment.)