Calling BS On The Brooklyn Dads Who Want To Be Called Papa

By Raakhee Mirchandani for Elle Magazine

Papa, can you hear me? There's some bullshit brewing in Brooklyn.

"Hipster Dads Now Want to Be Called Papa" a headline blares in The Daily Beast. The article cites "anecdotal evidence" (playground chatter, several quotes from Brooklyn "papas" and some "mamas"), and posits that its comeback (it was last popular in American English in the 1870s) is "perhaps as part of a return to the authentic and artisanal—the old made new again." The now-viral story contains a quote from one Will Grose, 36, a Brooklyn father of three boys under the age of 5: Axel, Oscar ("Ozzy"), and Balthazar ("Bo"), who says, "I just think 'dad' and 'mom' are very Saved by the Bell–ish." (Grose also estimates that half of the kids in his son's Williamsburg preschool refer to their dads as "Papa.")

What your kid calls you is a reflection of your own family...[t]hose words are part of their story, not some nonsense narrative they manufactured while waiting for their slow-drip cold brew.