The "cool" parent is rarely the "cool" parent because he or she is any more hip, trendy, permissive, or liberal than the "uncool" parent. The "cool" parent is the "cool" parent because he or she interacts with the kids - with frequency, with understanding, with perspective, and without bias.
I support literacy (no revelation there, not that many are against it) and would like to share some good books with points of view about the world at large. The first in the series is... Dry by Augusten Burrows. A truly witty, and thus endearingly honest, memoir of an advertising guru's journey into and through sobriety, friendship, and mortality. It seems real enough to pass for autobiographical .