#18) Pregnancy

There is nothing more humiliating to a hipster than when her thrift-store bought maternity dress stops being ironic.

Tonight, a hipster will be impregnated. Maybe she’ll buckle to the baristo at the local coffee shop, seduced by his beard and self-aware Exxon-Mobil trucker hat. Perhaps it will be that V-necked charmer at the dive bar who claims to be Ariel Pink’s tour manager. Or maybe it will just be that guy whose filthy apartment she’s been sleeping at for the last month so she doesn’t have to pay rent.

Hipsters are very torn about pregnancy. On the one hand, they don’t have any problem with abortion seeing as they got their BA in post-structuralist conceptual astrology and have endured hundreds of hours of NPR, Ira Glass’ infanticidal socialist drone lingering in their subconscious. On the other hand, being pregnant is kind of cool. It gives them some sort of purpose in an otherwise directionless post-graduate existence. In fact, some hipster girls dream of having a traditional nuclear family. They fantasize about their husband handsomely dressed in wool flannel and Ray-Bans returning home from his long shift at the record store and coddling their infant son decked out in a vintage neon Morrissey romper.

That said, most of the time they just get an abortion.

In fact, the average hipster girl has had three, largely because she is incapable of taking the pill on any regular basis due to the fact that her Pabst-and-cocaine-saturated nightlife has thoroughly obliterated her sense of time. The pregnant hipster may contemplate having the poor child and ironically raising it to be a sexually confused, blue-collar pseudo-intellectual who wears a rainbow headband and rape whistle to parties. Ultimately, though, she will realize the inevitable challenges pregnancy and motherhood present to her hipness, and, after a pensive cigarette break or two, she’ll bail out. Her musings are not limited to but include the following:

1) Being pregnant means that clothes bought at American Apparel no longer fit.

We all know that the utopian vision of Apparel CEO Dov Charney involves an America in which men are neutered, girls remain 14 years old indefinitely, the media consists exclusively of early ’80s aerobic workout videos, and no one wears pants. This vision is uncompromising and leaves no room for pregnancy.

2) The trust fund is going to have to be tapped to pay for the abortion.

An awkward conversation invariably ensues when a daughter announces to her parents that she is unintentionally pregnant. This is exacerbated when the daughter, at an age typically associated with financial independence, seeks out her parents’ help to prevent the unwanted birth. The following conversation between the pregnant hipster and her father would ensue:

Preg hipster: Hi, dad?

Father: Well! You haven’t called me in ages, dear. How is Williamsburg?

Preg hipster: I live in Bushwick now, dad.

Father: Isn’t that a slum?

Preg hipster: No, it’s way cooler.

Father: Well, why are you calling? Do you need more money? Have you used the Starbucks gift certificate we sent you?

Preg hipster: Well, actually, I’m pregnant. So, I need, like 600 dollars.

Father: Again? Well, I guess that’s the age we live in. It’s a good thing I just refilled the trust fund.

3) The prospective father is a junkie and has no money.

Given that hipster girls typically sleep with men who give credence to the perception that they are painfully bohemian, the likelihood that the expecting father will be utterly incapable of raising a child, paying medical bills, or deploying basic life skills in general is relatively high. Yes, he probably interned at Stereogum and can quote Thomas Pynchon, but in spite of this impressive resume he still pisses in the shower and has been wearing the same “If there’s no bingo in heaven, I’m not going” t-shirt continuously since he graduated from Sarah Lawrence six years ago.

4) Hipsters are far too emaciated to bear healthy offspring.

Because a hipster’s trendy, self-imposed diet consists mostly of vegan soup and cigarette tar, they are likely to weigh no more than 80 pounds. Even an additional pound of fat would structurally compromise their wafer-thin calves, snap their pelvic bone and send them tumbling to the Brooklyn pavement like a pitiful waterfowl pummeled by a thunderous volley of buckshot.

There are no doubt other issues as well, like having to curb alcoholism to prevent the infant from being pickled in PBR and emerging from the womb with FAS and an insatiable craving for Animal Collective bootlegs. Reasons like these are enough to dissuade your average hipster from motherhood. However, the long-term effects of accidental pregnancy on discouraging any future promiscuity or rampant irresponsibility are questionable.

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Photo by Christophe Legris for Stuff Hipsters Don’t Like ©2008. Photoshopping by Lola Wakefield with assistance from a friend who is the drummer of a band that hipsters don’t like.