Playing it cool
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published Saturday June 15, 2013

You have to be cool to know cool. I have no such expertise. By the time I’ve noticed the trendy young mothers at school are wearing Birkenstock orthopaedic sandals, that foot fetish is over. My decision to shell out $130 for a pair of cork clogs is the tipping point that declares them passé.

Proudly wearing my new Birkies outside class, I spot several willowy mums having their tetes-a-tetes in their new season zebra-print ballet flats. I flinch, but this is nothing new. I have spent a lifetime trotting at the heels of trend-setters.

Of course by next summer, cork thongs will be ‘in’ again, but I’m a laggard. Cool people know when to deviate from the manual. I don’t.

Over the years, I have tried to be cool. But the very act of trying is a guarantee of failure. Only once did I succeed – age 26 – by accident. After moving to Sydney in the midst of a steamy summer, I began taking long walks around my new city wearing ankle-grazing floral sundresses and Blundstone boots. I rode the crest of Bohemian cool for an entire weekend.

 I have often fantasised about parting a sea of admirers with my ‘indefinable something,’ and hearing people whisper in my wake: “Look at that! She’s got it!” Instead, I clumsily part crowds with a stroller festooned with lumpish bags of groceries. My darting toddler has only two speeds: accelerating and flat out. My scooterised 6-year-old gives chase, as pedestrians scatter for safety. Twelve-year-old son walks three paces behind hoping no-one will guess he belongs to this vagabond family.

My eldest son and I used to be inseparable. He idolised me, and I was captivated by his boyish charms. Now he’s like a boyfriend I’ve grown tired of, but feel obligated to keep. We have rare moments of the old magic, but mostly I can’t remember what I saw in him. He now maintains a veneer of cheesed-off indifference, and I scrabble to keep him connected to the family flock.

 I have tried pointing out to him that every generation thinks it’s cooler than the one before. “Yeah right!” he grunts. I’ve even suggested that he become a trailblazer at school by resurrecting the 80’s exclamation Mint! with his mates. I tell him: “It’s such a great word honey! It even feels cool saying it…. Mint! And you know what? When everyone’s saying Mint! you can start saying Mintox! That’s for things beyond Mint!” He sighs and shakes his head: “Yep Mum, that’s a fully sick idea, one of your best.” Then he adds: “Please don’t come to Assembly this week. I can’t stand the embarrassment.”

If I had street cred, everyone would want to talk like me and that would be Mint!  Lacking street cred, I pretend to be hip on Facebook instead.

Social media has done cool people a disservice – it levels the playing field by allowing everyone to appear at their best. Facebook is an illusion – it encourages users to showcase only their prettiest, wittiest side. On Facebook, we can all be sophisticates posting our snappiest thoughts and most flattering photos. My cool friends say Facebook has had its day.

And so has Twitter, says my 14-year-old God-daughter: “Who does Twitter anymore?” she scowls, “It’s so, like, dumb.” Then she rolls her eyes at me: “Don’t you get it? When the Mums start doing it, it’s so, like – over.” 

My bookclub, however, is still avant-garde after thirteen years. Twelve of us meet every six weeks to escape the twenty-seven offspring we have outputted since our club started. (We gave up reading the designated book years ago – Bridget Jones’ Diary had became an annoying distraction to the more fascinating minutiae of each others’ lives).

In 2007, when I was pregnant, I discovered that one book club girlfriend was on Twitter before I even knew what Twitter was. It sounded like a cult but I could tell it was cool. She could tell me fascinating insider stories about how Apple almost called the iPhone the TelePod. The only fascinating thing I could think to tell her was that I had a crush on my obstetrician. “No way!” she said. “Yes way!” I continued, “And I think he’s secretly in love with me too. When I’m on the examination table, he always catches my eye and smiles down at me through the gaps in the stirrups.””You dope,” she said, “He bats for the other side,” and sashayed off to fill her glass. I felt decidedly uncool.

I’ve decided the essence of cool, is indifference. And I am never indifferent. Instead, I made sure I married a man so laid back that at least my offspring have a 50-percent chance of being cool. And if the gene pool fails them, I’ll tell them to be proud of a mother who was uncool before uncool was cool.