No one wants to die, and if we can avoid it by forcing kids to call us “Nona” instead of “grandma” or “Pretty Dancer” instead of “Aunt Aimée,” we will certainly try. Now even men are attempting to escape the specter of aging via linguistics, firmly insisting to their toddlers, “‘Dad’ is my father. Call me ‘Papa.’”

Key Takeaways:

• For some reason I can get on board with “mama,” while the “papa” phenomenon gives me pause. Maybe it’s that “mama” is so closely aligned with a baby’s first words anyway, while “papa” seems much more forced — not to mention, it makes the child sound like a character ripped from a Charles Dickens story.
• The guys I know who insist on calling themselves “papa” are the kind who fancy themselves to be Ernest Hemingway himself: the volatile artist, master of fear and pain, who can guzzle liquor and run with the bulls, all while dashing off brilliant prose.
• But Hemingway is long gone, alcoholism isn’t cool, and nothing about this association screams hip, young, or independent.

“While a handful of the dads in the story opt for “papa” because the sobriquet is more familiar in their ethnic or cultural background, most of the others are simply looking for a way to distinguish themselves from previous generations.”

http://blogs.babycenter.com/mom_stories/12132016-ugh-hipster-dads-want-be-called-papa/