Cool moms

I always thought I would be a cool mom.

I really thought it was within my grasp. Fast forward three years later, and I formally admit defeat. I am in no way cool. In fact, I have become my worst nightmare – the embarrassing mom.

I was hit in the face with this reality last week when I took my daughter swimming at the county recreation center. After our swim, I changed my daughter and then stripped myself down in the locker room. Normally I would get a stall or be a little more discrete about changing in public, but my daughter was standing barefoot on a public bathroom floor with her hair soaking wet, so I was going a fast as I could.

As I stood there naked, trying to keep my daughter from picking up a soggy band-aid off the floor, a girl who must have been about 10 years old walked by and shot me this shocked look.

I knew that look.

I had given that same look to many a naked locker room mom back when I was a kid. The look says, “Whoa. Seriously? Have you lost your sense of decency to the point where you are really just standing there naked in a public locker room? Geez.”

It was at that moment that I realized I was not a cool mom. I am a naked-in-the-locker-room, embarrass-the-heck-out-of-my-daughter-one-day kind of mom

I just don’t know how it happened so fast. It’s like one day you’re a cool, young married person, then before you know it you’re saying things like, “That’s not music, that’s just yelling,” and asking questions to no one in particular like, “Since when do boys wear girl jeans?” and “Why does anyone Tweet, anyway?”

Before I know it I’ll be wearing curlers in my hair to my daughter’s school and saying heinous things like, “Why not do your homework on Friday night so you don’t have to worry about it all weekend?”

Oh well, maybe the truth is that a cool mom is an oxymoron. Perhaps it’s just not possible to be both. Maybe being a good mom is about as close to cool as you can get in motherhood.

Any good stories about when you succeeded in being a “cool” mom or when you discovered you were not quite as hip as you thought?