The currency of Cool.

At 54 years old, and I am painfully uncool.

That's okay, I gave up trying to be cool somewhere in my twenties when my life turned upside down, and cool was a luxury I could no longer afford. In fact, there were a few necessities I couldn't afford at that point in time. Poverty and reality have the effect of smashing everything that is not true or essential. Being cool is not important when you have a newborn and $80 in your savings account.

But wait, don't you wear skate shoes, play music, and have an Instagram account? You must a little cool, right?

Not really. Any coolness I enjoy is accidental at best. Any of the semi-cool things I wear; skate shoes, concert t-shirts, or 501s are just out of habit. I wear these because that's what I wore in high school, and they are still what I find comfortable.

I'm not sure when we first discovered cool. For me, maybe seventh or eighth grade, but certainly not in early elementary school. Back in my day, especially out in the tiny rural town I lived in, fashion and brand names didn't exist. Or at least they were not at the center of popularity and 'coolness'.

My family, depending on what economic cycle we were in, was well pretty well off as those things go. Not that you would know it by what I wore to school. My mom shopped at Sears like everyone else, and I wore t-shirts and Toughskin jeans, just like most of the kids in our K-8 school.

Today, it seems like kids, even little kids, are very aware of fashion, brand names, and the latest trends. From Nike, Hollister, H&M, Hilfiger, to iPhones, Galaxy, Airpods, and Beats headphones, most of the kids in school understand exactly what they have, or don't have, and what the cool kids have.

It's crazy to think a seven year old should be concerned she will be ridiculed for not having the 'right' kind of (fill in the blank). If you wonder why child anxiety and depression rates are climbing to alarming rates, I would say you need to factor this consumerism and comparative mindset into the equation.

I'm sure another one of the factors is our all-encompassing digital age.

Out on the ranch, I didn't know what cool people wore, or what cool people did.  That was up until a family from southern California moved up to our tiny town. I remember the first time I saw Skateboarder Magazine at my friend Tim's house. I went home and begged for a skateboard. Keep in mind we only had twenty feet of concrete sidewalk at our house on our cattle ranch, and the only place I could ride it was at school. Well, that was until they outlawed them. Skateboarding is not a crime Mr. Boris!

The plain fact was, aside from television, I knew very little of what was happening outside my zip code. Which is probably for the best.

Today, the kids in Pine River Wisconsin can see what the Kardashians wear, how they talk, and keep up with the latest pop music star's life and romances. They can check out the celebrity and sports icons shaping the culture, and compare their lives to the 'cool people'. This is a recipe for disaster.

This trend will continue, and probably get worse as the comparative/coolness mindset gets driven downward to younger and younger kids.


I'm not sure when we grow out of this pursuit of coolness. Maybe we never do. It's like a currency we all want. Although, some are happy without it, others will go to almost any length to get it.

One thing is for sure, your parents might be able to buy you the uniform of cool, but if you're not a genuinely good person, kids will only hang out with you to get what they can from you. Paying for friendship is pretty sad.

I find the more years I mark off the calendar, the less coolness concerns me. If you've ever seen me walking to the mailbox on Saturday in basketball shorts, slippers with wool socks, and a Carhartt hat, you can see how obvious this is.

I don't know what we can do as individuals, or as parents. We can explain the difference between our 'wants' and our 'needs' for sure. However, what we really need to do if reinforce our definition of worth and value to our children. That comes through what you do, the way you think, and how you treat others, not through what you wear, drive, or the kind of lifestyle you can finance.