I Am the Mother of a Crafty Hipster: Just Don’t Tell Her I Said So

          My daughter would cringe if I called her a hipster to her face.  She would hotly deny it.  She would contend that she doesn’t fall into a category.  The she would throw back her self trimmed hair and stomp away in her mud- spattered second hand boots despising the material world. 

          “Ha! Yes, you are Elena!” I think.  She and most of her friends fit the bill.  Give her $20 and she gets her shopping therapy at the thrift store.  She lives frugally on her part time job income.  She makes candles, pottery, jam or cheese as gifts for people.  She tries to eat organic food when she isn’t sneaking some hot flaming cheetos. 

          My conservative business minded brother-in-law marvels that his son has chickens and heats his home with a wood burning stove.  My nephew is a forest ranger. 

          My daughter, like many of today’s college graduates, is crafty.  She and her fiancé live half the year on an island in Lake Michigan.  They have a huge, I mean huge, organic garden.  She works at a bakery where much of the flour is self-milled.  That doesn’t sound too bad.  The house they live in, however, has no water and no electricity.  I mean no well when I say no water.  The house has bats in the siding.  Off the grid is how they live.

          They can their produce.  The excess is sold at a farmers market.  They sleep on the roof under the stars when it is too hot in the house.  (This happens rarely on their northern island.)  They ride bikes and walk miles.  Sometimes, they even comb their hair.  For my son’s wedding they built the most beautiful bookcase with Alec and Betsy’s names as part of the structure.  It is very cool. 

          They have a place to charge the cell phones when they feel like it, not often enough in my book.  They go to the library to check their email.  The community center has hot showers.  Last summer, Elena learned the importance of this after an almost continual poison ivy rash.  The little solar shower didn’t cut it.  For Christmas, I gave her a hand crank washing machine and an oil lamp.  Before they departed this year, we went and bought rubber boots for her to wear in the poison ivy that grows everywhere. 

          A well is at the top of the wish list.  It’s expensive to drill a well on an island.  You have to pay for the ferry for the equipment.  You have to pay for housing for the workers.  (Who, get this, want a hot shower and a light bulb after a hard day’s work.)  The goal is to get the well drilled this summer.  Then they won’t have to fill jugs of water in town. 

          I know much of the world lives like this.  The difference is that most people who live that way grew up living that way.  They know how to use rainwater from a barrel that they don’t allow to fill with leaves and mosquito larvae.  They understand you have to move the outhouse every couple years.  My daughter grew up in a house with three bathrooms, for Pete’s sake. 

          The whole idea of wedding gifts for these two is kind of mind boggling.  What do you buy someone who lives so basically?  A solar panel?  A wringer washer?  A treadle sewing machine?  Do green living, off the grid, websites have a gift registry?

          I am, as you can guess, sometimes overwhelmed by this life choice of my daughter.  At 24, I had returned to college to get my degree in finance.  I was about being financially independent from my family.  I had business clothes – blouses with bow collars, wool suits, and work dresses that I wore jackets over.  I wore panty hose and walked to the train in my heels.  (I can’t believe this, but I did.)  I wanted to make my million.  It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I switched to teaching and my 50s before I began to write. 

          I was, however, one of those natural moms.  The ones who breast fed our babies, limited sugary snacks, cooked for homeless shelters, had Solstice celebrations and preached about caring for the Earth.  When I look at the hipster friends, the protestors, the musicians, the waiters, and even the friends with seemingly regular jobs but who only shop at Salvation Army and distain Starbucks, I realize they were all brought up by the parents who pushed the envelope of the eighties.  We were the ones who said we didn’t care if our kids were rich in money but we wanted them to be rich in happiness. 

          Yes, I am the mother of a crafty hipster.  She’s a beautiful, young woman living life her own way.  While I am sometimes confused by it, I am damn proud of her.

           

Here's a great hipster song.  And, no, my daughter does not have a mustache and only a simple tattoo.  

http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KLqIAiopdRLEkAJ8T7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTBvYjI0OHIyBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDVjE0NQ--?p=hipster+youtube+the+get+down&vid=583460386b0b6e71b3982028e2cf7d70&l=3%3A40&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DV.4682855408602419%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DmzYHHl24iDo&tit=Hipster+-+The+Get+Down&c=0&sigr=11ac3ph8h&age=0&&tt=b