today in dads

Here’s a New Brooklyn Hipster Parenting Trend for Your Enjoyment

Photo: yulkapopkova/Getty Images

The world is bleak and only getting bleaker, but there is something we can always count on to remind us to appreciate the world’s absurdity: a new Brooklyn hipster parenting trend, from a DJ school for babies to the “babyccino.” Now, as Lizzie Crocker reports in the Daily Beast, children are being urged to call their fathers “papa” instead of “dad” or “daddy” (not to be confused with daddy).

Crocker compares this to the recent rise of the word “mama,” first among lifestyle bloggers and eventually other affluent white urban parents. Some dads who have adopted the moniker “papa” do so because they feel it sets them apart from fathers of a previous generation, including their own. Some, like the father mentioned in the passage below — which I’m planning on printing out and getting framed so I never forget it — seem to think it makes them sound cooler:

“I just think ‘dad’ and ‘mom’ are very Saved by the Bell-ish,” said Will Grose, 36, a Brooklyn father of three boys under the age of 5: Axel, Oscar (“Ozzy”), and Balthazar (“Bo”). He estimated that half of the children in his 4-year-old son’s Williamsburg preschool call their fathers “papa.”

If you’re interested in making the switch to papa, consider trying it out in a sentence first. For instance, “papa, this artisanal gelato is giving me a tummy-ache” or “Papa, I’ll only go to bed if you sing my favorite song by the National first.”

Here’s a New Brooklyn Hipster Parenting Trend to Enjoy