Here’s the article I wrote for the Baffler that I’m referencing. It’s a little mean!
IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR a clear marker of cultural decline, something that represents an inescapable cul-de-sac in the American ideal of forward progress, just ponder the all-too-familiar image of the kindergarten-aged child whose parents have outfitted him (it’s usually a him) with a Mohawk haircut. A friend of mine who teaches young children is forever complaining that the Mohawked boys have chronic self-discipline issues. “They are always the ones who have the behavioral problems,” she says.
When I ask her why that is, she explains that “they are being raised by adult-aged children”—in other words, people who are too immature to know better.
That shocking thatch of hair flanked by pallid scalp, once a symbol of rebellion, marginalization, and class rancor is now being buzzed onto the heads of children in Minion T-shirts who barely know how to wipe their own asses. The problem is not simply an aesthetic one (though the child-sized spikes are undeniably vulgar); it is also that parents are styling their not-yet-literate offspring in the garb of disillusionment. Just what it does it mean when parents use their children as signifiers of their own neuroses about being grown-ups?
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