An Open Letter to the Uncool Suburban Moms

I took a look at my blog after many months and discovered this post in draft, written last May. I remember now why I didn’t post it and it’s really not great writing. But since it’s somewhat amusing, I’m gonna go ahead and post it, with a disclaimer at the beginning, in case you don’t know me or my sense of humor very well.

Disclaimer: In my world, uncool does not equal unawesome, OK? All moms rock, whether downtown or in a suburb, colored streaks in hair or going grey, minivan owner or bicycling to work, 1 kid or 10 – you all are truly awesome! I have decided that I’m “uncool” but I’m fine with that and am just trying to make fun of myself a bit here. So there you go; just take the post for what it is – a laugh at my life. Ugh – disclaimers are soooo uncool.

Well, I don’t even really know what an open letter is, but I know it’s the new cool title to use. I thought it might help.

You see, I’m not actually cool. Oh I used to be. But now I’m a run-of-the-mill suburban mom and that automatically cancels out the cool factor these days. I know there are other uncool suburban moms out there and I think know you all rock, but somewhere along the line we’ve been put in the same category as “mom jeans.”

I had subtle clues that I was becoming uncool over the years. But it really hit home when I went back into the work force. All of a sudden I was keenly aware that showing up for an interview at a startup company in my conservative, suburban mom church clothes, wasn’t perhaps quite cool. Shockingly I was hired in spite of my faux pas [Coolness Tip: Work foreign phrases into your speech]. The more I looked around outside of my little circle and connected with new circles, the more I realized that I was no longer cool. And I do work at a cool company with cool coworkers, so hopefully a bit of that will eventually rub off on me.

Here are a few more signs that clued me in to the fact that I am an Uncool Suburban Mom:

• I don’t own an electric car, and don’t even know which brands are hybrids
• My suburb has a name that ends in “-ville” – not Downtown or Midtown or Uptown
• I go through fast food drive-throughs more often than I care to admit [Coolness Tip: NEVER admit going to McDonalds]
• I get Starbucks drinks regularly, which is tolerated, but it would be best if I went to an independent coffee house
• I don’t shop daily at a Farmer’s Market for dinner ingredients [Coolness Tip: Use a vegetable that most people haven’t heard of in a new recipe]
• I drive my kid to school – we don’t ride our bikes there together and it’s too far to walk
• I buy my mass-produced clothes at suburban department stores rather than individual boutiques
• Sometimes I get my groceries in plastic bags at the store because I already have too many paper bags at home
• I don’t frequent all the micro-breweries in the area [Coolness Tip: Order an unusual beer at a restaurant and post it on Instagram]

And if you’ve been following along and memorizing the Coolness Tips, I hate to inform you that you, my friend, are definitely not cool. If you were, you would have realized that the phrase “Coolness Tips” isn’t cool at all and should actually be called “Hipster Tips” except that hipsters don’t need tips. So we are in the same boat – glad to have you on board.

Awkward feminine high five coming your way, friend.