I was never actually cool, but I was definitely cooler than I am now. When I first had kids, I told myself that I was going to be a cool Dad, not lame like normal parents. Kids just don’t think of their parents as “cool,” but I was going to change all that. Ah, how young and naive I was. I didn’t know then about the theory of finite coolness.
You see, there is only so much “cool” available per household. When it was just me, I was super cool. Well, cool for me anyway. Then I got married, and suddenly I was only about half as cool as I had previously been, but I couldn’t explain why or how. Luckily, half as cool as single me was still pretty cool, and my wife was half cool too, so together we made one cool couple. If only we had stopped there.
Unfortunately for our coolness levels, we decided to have children, which, as many of you may know, starts the “Coolness/Hipness Instant Level Drain System” or CHILDS. What happens is that, over time, all of the coolness previously found in the parents gets transferred to the children. This process can take anywhere from 12 to 14 years, but it starts instantly and there is no known cure.
What this means is that, by the time your children are teenagers, they will be completely cool, while you will be the uncoolest person ever. It does get a little better once they move out, but I am sorry to report that you will never regain your previous levels of coolness. I can already see the terrible CHILDS process at work in my own life. For instance, I drive a convertible. Cool, right? Now put two baby car seats in the back. Still cool? What? Not as cool you say? But think about other babies in minivans. They are all marveling at the coolness of my babies in the convertible. The transfer has begun. The kids are stealing my cool!
Is it possible to keep your cool while you have children living in your house? Many have tried, but none have succeeded. We can just take comfort in the fact that someday their children will suck the cool out of them too, unless of course they don’t have children, in which case our kids will be cool forever. Just like we once thought we would be.