Another poor misguided soul is attempting to bridge the generation gap.
I've long been a proponent of widening the gap, not shrinking it. Can't we all just get along, waving to one another from opposite shores? A generation gap isn't so bad, not really. A gap enables us to have our own space, our own music, our own friends, our own clothes.
Now comes a clothing manufacturer marketing a line of children's clothes that "bridges the generation gap between parents and kids, allowing babies and tots everywhere the opportunity to hit the playground with fresh gear and street cred."
For those of you on the side of the gap accustomed to using real English, "gear" refers to clothing and "cred" means credibility.
The clothing company is hoping that parents desperate to be hip will buy infants' shirts emblazoned with "Diva," "Bling" or "Jr. Pimp Squad."
Won't that last one make Grandma proud?
Given the choice between a baby T that has puppies on it and one that screams that the wearer is a junior pimp (with obvious hopes of one day not only being potty-trained, but ascending to the rank of senior pimp), I'm gonna go with the puppies every time.
Or maybe you'd like to purchase "Baby Beaters" — scaled-down versions of "wife beaters," sleeveless white undershirts like Stanley Kowalski wore in "A Streetcar Named Desire."
Stanley was the character with a mean temper and a mean right hook, both of which he unleashed on his wife. As though this is a character and style a parent would wish a small child to emulate? Who in the world is a baby going to beat? Stuffed animals? Other babies? The pediatrician?
If we are that determined to drag small children into the rough and tumble world of street-smart adults, why stop with clothing? Let's get serious and put bass boosters on the baby monitors, spinners on the Big Wheels and neon lights beneath the strollers.
Not too long ago, I saw a well-developed young lady, about 14, wearing a tight-fitting pink T-shirt that said "Pimp Me." The woman with her appeared to be her mother. They may have closed the generation gap, but they had yet to address that sizable gap between their ears.
Some of the most spirited discussions I had with my mother were when I was a teenage girl and we stood on opposite sides of the gap regarding clothing. Thank goodness she challenged me to think instead of trying to become my best friend.
I knew a girl in high school whose mother bridged the generation gap and it was a pitiful thing. Her mother wore blue eye shadow, white leather boots and poured herself into a pair of hip huggers. Not pretty.
Two years ago, Healthtex began using "growing slow" as its marketing message for children's wear. The goal is to promote age-appropriate garb for children — clothes that let kids look like kids. Put another way, more puppies, fewer Jr. Pimps.
Does the idea of not bridging the generation gap in clothing have any viability?
I was in a department store recently when a voice over the public address system said, "Attention, ladies, now on the third floor: Not Your Daughter's Jeans."
It's a new line of denim for women with curves. Popular?
I was lucky I wasn't crushed in the rush to the escalator.
