文字难度：★★★
The other night, I was trying to explain to my seven-year-old twin boys, Jared and Jasper, what an 1)oxymoron is. It’s when you have a combination of contradictory words that just don’t seem to go together. I tried to illustrate with some examples, like “2)jumbo shrimp”, “awfully nice” and “pretty ugly”. “Oh,”3)chimed in my ten-year-old daughter, Sydney, without 4)missing a beat—”You mean like ‘cool mom’?”
不久前的一天晚上，我正试着向我的那对7岁大的双胞胎儿子贾瑞德和贾斯帕解释什么是矛盾修辞法。矛盾修辞法就是把两个看似不应该连用的、互相矛盾的词合在一起使用。我试着给他们举了一些例子来加以说明，如：“庞然小虾”、“好得可怕”、“丑得漂亮”。“噢，”我那10岁的女儿希妮毫不犹豫地插话说，“你的意思是，比如说‘酷妈’？”
Hmmmm. Surely, I thought, she’d simply misunderstood the 5)lighthearted literary form that we were discussing. However, the hands-on-the-hips, twisted lips and look of general disgust on her face told me otherwise.
呃……我想，她准是误解了我们正在讨论的这种轻松愉快的文学修辞手法。但是，她叉着腰，撅着嘴，脸上露出很厌恶的表情，显然另有所指。
I was just about to really 6)lose my cool and send her to her room for that 7)sassy sentiment, when I realized that she might, in fact, be right! Can you keep your “cool” once you have kids or do you immediately go from being a happening “8)It Girl” to a 9)washed-up “Was Woman” as soon as you give birth?
因为她那无礼的说法，我差点一气之下把她打发回她自己的房间里，然而这时我意识到，也许事实上她是对的！一旦有了孩子，你还能像以前那么“酷”吗？还是说，从你生下孩子的那一刻起，你就从一个当代“性感女孩”迅速变成一个筋疲力尽的“过时女人”了呢？
I suppose one could argue that you can’t exactly lose something that you never had in the first place. Maybe I wasn’t all that cool to start with. But, in the 80’s, before having kids I lived in NYC. I had big hair and 10)boulder-sized 11)shoulder pads in my 12)dolman sleeved 13)Norma Kamali sweatshirts. My 14)mullet-15)maned mates and I even managed to get past the red velvet ropes at some of the city’s hottest clubs, on occasion. But, judging by my daughter’s 16)gagging reflex from my scrapbook photos of this dance down memory lane, I can see now that even then I was more than six degrees away from anything remotely 17)registering as cool!
我想可能会有人反驳说，你根本不可能失去一开始就不曾拥有的东西。可能我一开始就确实不那么新潮。但是在20世纪80年代，在生儿育女之前，我可是住在纽约市的。那时候我留着爆炸发型，穿着著名时装设计师诺玛·卡玛丽设计的蝙蝠袖运动衫，衣服里的垫肩大得像鹅卵石。有时，我和我那些留着胭脂鱼披肩长发的同伴们甚至闯过了红色的天鹅绒围栏绳，进入纽约市一些最火爆的俱乐部。但是，从女儿对我那些陈年舞会照片的缄默反应来判断，我明白了即使是那个时候，我与所谓的“新潮”也八杆子打不着！
I guess today I’m getting even colder to cool. The only thing that I’ve purchased recently that says “18)Juicy”, comes in a six ounce square box and has very little to do with “19)Couture”.
我想，现在我甚至离酷更远了。最近我买的唯一一样标明“Juicy”的东西，是一盒四方形重6盎司（约170毫升）的果汁，和“时装”完全没关系。
Reality aside, at least Sydney used to think that I was a cool mom. Cool was a 20)clincher when all it took was a song and dance with her and her little buddies to one of 21)Barney’s brain boring songs. I’ve learned the hard way that this tactic no longer 22)cuts it. Today, if I’m caught humming or moving rhythmically in anyway to her ever-blasting 23)boom box when her friends are around, she shoots me a panic-stricken look, as if I were 24)convulsing with a 25)grand mal seizure. Sydney used to play dress up for hours and hours, trying on all of my clothes and shoes. Now however, according to a recent inspection, she insists that everything in my closet must immediately be burned or bu-ried. Those matching mother-daughter outfits at the mall are a thing of the past. Even admitting that we’re mother-daughter at the mall is a thing of the past.
先不说现实，至少希妮曾经认为我是一个酷妈。以前，酷的关键就在于一首歌，以及与她和她的小伙伴们随着巴尼沉闷的歌声跳的一支舞。经过了惨痛的教训后，我才明白到这一招再也不管用了。现在，如果我被发现一边哼着小调，一边按节奏扭动身子向她那个一直响翻天的音箱靠近，而她的朋友又在场的话，她就会以惊恐的目光瞪我一眼，就像我正癫痫发作一样。希妮以前常常玩盛装打扮的游戏，不停地试穿我所有的衣服和鞋子。但是，继最近视察过我的衣柜以后，她坚定地认为我衣柜里的所有衣物都应该立即被烧掉或是埋掉。穿着母女装去超市已经成为历史，甚至在超市里公开承认我们的母女关系也已经成为了过去。
In my defense, I grew up with an 26)unhip mom of my own. 27)Shirley Partridge and 28)Carol Brady were my only real “cool mom” role models. This may, in part, explain the cool 29)conundrum that I find myself in right now! But today’s Hollywood moms make it look so easy. I wonder if 30)Jamie Lee Curtis, 31)Teri Hatcher and Madonna are ever forced to follow a detailed doctrine of approved talking points when conversing with their kid’s 32)cliques, like me. 33)Heck, it seems that 34)Demi Moore’s daughters not only let her hang out with their friends, they even let her marry one!
我为自己辩护：把我带大的母亲也是土里土气的。对我来说，雪莉·帕特里奇和卡罗尔·布雷迪是真正的“酷妈”的典范。这或许能说明为什么我现在会面临酷不酷的难题！但是现今好莱坞的妈妈们让这个难题看起来很容易解决。我真想知道，杰米·李·柯蒂斯、泰瑞·海切尔和麦当娜是否和我一样，跟子女的伙伴们谈话时必须遵守重重规矩，只谈论一些准许的话题。该死的，似乎黛米·摩尔的女儿不但让母亲跟自己的朋友们出去玩，还让她跟其中一个结了婚！
“Certainly,” I pleaded with Sydney, “you can think of one mom who has held on and can still qualify as ‘cool’?” “That’s easy,” she said, pointing to my very own mother across the room, “Grandma!” I put my hands on my hips, twisted my lips and, with a look of ge-neral disgust, replied, “Mark my words, my darling daughter, one day you may have children and become an oxymoron of your own—and guess who will be the cool Grandma then?” She about lost it. That was cool!
“好吧”，我向希妮恳求说，“你能说出一个既是过来人，又仍能称得上‘酷’的妈妈吗？”“容易得很，”她一边说着，一边指向房间另一头的那个人——我的妈妈，“外婆呗！”我双手叉腰，撅起嘴，满脸不悦地回答说：“亲爱的女儿，记住我说的这句话，总有一天你也会生儿育女，然后自己也成了一个矛盾修辞的例子——那么，猜猜到时候谁是酷酷的外婆呢？”她几乎晕倒。这倒是挺酷的！
