This year my son wanted to be an evil wizard for Halloween. Not a good wizard, or a nice little superhero–that’s last year, and the year before. No, he needed to be an evil wizard.
I said no. No, we are not being evil.
He said no, there’s nothing else I want to be. But after much eye rolling and sighing, he consented to be a robot.
So we made this robot costume, which he had more fun making and wearing than he would have with that old evil wizard. Also, he looks dang cute in it. And I thought, this is what Halloween is supposed to be: cute kids wearing cute costumes trotting around the neighborhood begging candy. I can get behind that. I just did, to the tune of four hours constructing a robot out of duct tape and dryer vents.
But it came up again tonight, carving pumpkins: I messed up as I sawed away at the mouth he had designed. It no longer looked evil enough. “Too bad,” I said. “I only do happy pumpkins.” Scowling, he accepted my happy pumpkin as the only one he was going to get.
This year, he really prefers scary pumkins, though: the one he painted at the school carnival has a ghost, a vampire, and a nice long trail of “blood” trickling over it. He’s not alone; he told me his teacher made all the boys stop talking about blood when she was trying to do her cute pumpkin rhymes.
I don’t get it, and I never have. I like the costumes, I like the exuberant kids. I hate the glorification of evil.
What’s the attraction of the gory, evil side of Halloween? Is it a kind of bravado, proving he’s bold enough and bad enough to handle it? Or is it something like what happens when you read Grimm’s fairy tales, a vicarious experience of evil that teaches you? Is there some value inherent in courting fear?
THOSE are great questions. I don’t know what the attraction to evil is all about. I used to be very anti-Halloween, but have begun to like it more the last six years or so. I’ve even got a gorey looking skull on my piano. Spiders and webs are my favorite for Halloween decor.
I will say I love that you discouraged the evil wizard costume–I prefer not too gruesome costumes, and I think clever or cute are great. A young nephew has a grim reaper outfit with a mask made of two layers so blood can pour down the mask between layers. He had a blast squeezing the plastic heart that pumped the blood. I was bothered by the whole thing.
I can’t imagine there is any value in courting evil. I don’t know if there is a good place to draw the line, or where that would be.
Em, my two cents:
All of us have our dark side. Kids like a safe way of exploring/expressing theirs, and I think Halloween costuming, to a large extent, is safe. To try to shut down such normal expressions of being human can lead children to fear themselves. In other words, “If Mom freaks out over me wanting to pretend to be a bad guy, does that mean I’m actually bad?”
Of course, there are lines that can be crossed. I won’t let my daughters dress in those sleazy costumes that are all the rage. I won’t allow gore or anything that might genuinely frighten another child, because that’s not fair to others. But I don’t think a scary face on a pumpkin is courting evil.
It’s also a y-chromosome thing. Is your husband disturbed?
I’m more into the harvest, gratitude, autumn-y side of the season, and for the most part my family has followed me in that. My house is decorated with pumpkins and scarecrows, not spiders and witches. We carved a pumpkin to look like the Angel Moroni this year, and the kids thought it was cool. i do allow a certain amount of scarier Halloween stuff if the kids initiate it. We trick or treat, and I will have one little witch this year. There is a handdrawn cutout of a ghost on the wall from another kid, among rows of pumpkin, apple, etc pictures by the others. Most years the older kids want to try to construct a haunted house. My children have never been deeply interested in the dark side of Halloween, though, so I don’t often have to draw boundaries ( I also have all girls. Connection, Kathy?)
I think the haunted house and the dressing up are about conquoring fear for my kids. I’m comfortable with a certain amount of that, but for me the world of evil is clearly NOT fantasy, and I wouldn’t want to set my kids up for feeling a false sense of security exploring there either. I think it’s a situation for deciding case by case.
BTW, today over breakfast I ended up having a discussion about what a pimp is with my 5 daughters age 10 and under because of the Halloween costume advertisment on the front page of the add section in our newspaper. That kind of stuff really bugs me.
My husband is amused by the whole gore thing. “It’s a boy thing” he keeps telling me. And these days, we all freak out about kids dressing up with anything that comes with a weapon, but I remember playing fairly “violent” games as a kid (cowboys and indians, cops and robbers…lots of totally un-p.c. games)
I do think there’s a point at which it is gross. I’m with you Wendy about the gross bloody mask; that was way too much. But to a certain extent, I’m ok with boys wanting to be gross…cuz’ boys are gonna be gross with or without our permission…
Kathy…am I disturbed?…a very probing question that will be left unanswered in this forum…
First of all, I think that there is definitely a Y-chromosome link that brings out a fascination with all things related to guns, violence, blood, and ick in general. There just won’t be that many witches running around with blood on their faces tonight.
However, I’m not convinced that setting boundaries on evil will cause children to wonder if they are evil. Will your not allowing your girls to dress like sluts cause them to doubt their own moral integrity? I don’t think it happens that way. (As an aside, I took my little girl to her dance class Halloween Party, and I was appalled at how many of the teen girls there were dressed in those costumes. Stay strong, Kathy!)
At one end of costume the scale are the princesses and cowboys (and robots). No problems there. In the middle are the “fun scary” costumes like vampires and Frankensteins, which I personally have no qualms about, but there are some who may. At the other end are the gory chainsaw murderers and hatchets-in-head murder victims, which don’t score any points with me. Why can’t Halloween just be fun? When the cute costumes don’t appeal to you anymore, you’re just too old to play this game.
Our home teacher commented that the scariest costume would be a kid holding a roll of toilet paper in one hand, and a carton of eggs in another: “trick or treat,” indeed!
I was waiting for that slut question, Matt. The difference is this: It is not evil to pretend to be an evil wizard. But it is slutty to dress like a slut. See what I mean?
So, I don’t think nixing the evil wizard costume “sets boundaries on evil.” Saying no to a grotesque costume might fall into that category, because one could argue that it has an evil element (e.g. it causes icky feelings in others)
I like your costume scale.
I agree that things can be taken too far–but that goes both ways. To try to squelch all violence, grossness, and “bad guy” play can backfire. I do think it’s possible to cause hang-ups in kids by being overly cautious. Of course, if I’m going to err on one side or the other, I’ll settle for over-cautious rather than under-cautious anyday… but I try to find the sweet spot in the middle.
p.s. As for whether you’re disturbed, we’ll take a vote on Friday.
First off, major props for the robot costume. Fun topic. Now I will soapbox:
Why not an evil wizard? Wouldn’t you let a daughter dress as a witch? How would an outsider even know the wizard is evil?
Of course he needs your guidance. But some experience with the me/not me aspect of wearing a costume, that you’ve kept within a moderate range, is a fun and good thing.
Last year was the first time I let my boy dress in a scary costume. He was in 2nd grade, and he really, really, really wanted to scare someone this time. I resisted at first, and then I figured out it *is* a boy thing. I steered him away from gruesome, I’m horrified by the blood mask you describe. “Besides,” I would say to my son, “that’s so boring.” He wanted to be the Grim Reaper (there was a lot of that last year.) He happens to play chess, so we watched some Seventh Seal, and I sewed him a cloak for non-zombie, non-decaying Death. He carried some chess pieces, and a scythe. Sometimes he crossed the line, talking too much about death or how someone would die, and I was glad because then we had occasion to talk about it.
This year he told me he wanted to be “a Hippie Harpooner” who says “Peace, Man; Except for the Fish.” Then well before Halloween he changed his mind, so he’s a Helium Atom. So, being the Bad Guy doesn’t mean you’ll always do it or do it more, though I expect it will come up again before he’s 18.
I know your pumpkin incident was an accident, but seriously, let him carve some scary evil pumpkins now, while anything he carves turns out cute anyway. Remind him that a strand of hair on an ice cream cone will gross more people out than theatric blood. And know that when boys are 10, they may spend a lot of time drawing boogers and lost eyeballs, usually on some comically disgusting monster driving a hot rod. It’s not the glorification of evil.
I agree that it would be a mistake to squeltch all role play. When I imagine a little boy who has never played war games in the backyard, I imagine a fairly maladjusted little boy. (Of course, that may be because my husband and his brothers still play paint ball, ninentendo and the like. But that’s another issue.)
I don’t think setting boundaries for me is about fearing my children’s shadow sides. It’s about recognizing the darkness OUT THERE and trying to figure out the best way keep them safe while teaching them to navigate in it. I wouldn’t let my daughters do slut costumes because it puts them at risk–other people will perceive and treat them differently if they dress that way, regardless of their own intents. It has nothing to do with wanting to repress their budding sexuality.
For me evil themed costumes are the same thing. I might let a kid be an wizard if I thought that kid was having fun role playing a passing idea, and that the kids would be on to cowboys, aliens, or firefighters the next week. (Letting my daughter dress up as a witch is the same thing in my mind). I would be more cautious if I thought for some particular reason that that child was at risk for being pulled into to a real new age or Satanic movement. For example, I knew someone from England who ended up putting very tight limits on that sort of thing with her kids because there were so many people trying to seriously practice dark magic in her town. (side note: my kids have read and enjoyed Harry , discussed the books with me, and moved on. I would only get concerned if that had turned into an ongoing fixation).
I think it’s possible, even neccessary, to teach kids the difference between fantasy and reality. In most cases LDS kids can understand that if someone puts on red horns for a Halloween party, that person probably has no interest in actually following Satan, and there is not a need to feel threatened. I want my kids to be able to laugh with me (or someone else) if over lunch some day I do a fake evil laugh and tell them I’m cooking frog eyes for them. They should have a clear enough idea of right and wrong and what I seriously believe based on all of my other teaching and interactions with them.
Thanks for the great discussion, everyone–it has given me some things to think about.
The pumpkin was an accident–I didn’t mean to mess up, and the design he drew wasn’t really evil to begin with. And if he wants to carve a pumpkin that looks wicked when he’s older, I won’t make a stink about it. But for now, I’ll carve something that looks mean, or maybe even scary, but I won’t do evil.
The thing I don’t like in this situation comes down to semantics, really: the use of the word “evil.” “Scary” is one thing. But “evil,” that I don’t like. The evil wizard costumes he hankered after had nasty evil masks with leering eyes and wicked smiles. Old-fashioned scary, or cute-scary, is one thing. But I just don’t like it when a pumpkin or a costume isn’t “evil enough,” to quote my son.
I don’t feel like we squelch all his aggressive impulses–he plays fighting games with his friends, he even polishes them in his tae kwon do classes. If he’d called it a “scary” wizard, it’s possible I might have gone for it, sans mask. But I ain’t gonna do evil.
P.S. My son won the drawing for the class pumpkin. The class voted, 17 to 6, that it would have an angry face. He was thrilled. It sat on our porch all night, a scary-but-not-evil jack-0-lantern.
Well, as a mom whose boys were “whatever is left in the dressup closet” for halloween this year, I guess I don’t have any credentials for best Halloween-mom-ever.
However, I think we (as moms concerned for our children’s spiritual welfare) can be too prudish about this subject. But, I also think we can let our kids go too far and explore evil in a harmful way. I will always lean on the “let them explore, role play” side. But more importantly, I desire to help them be creative (the robot costume is a great example of this). A gory guy who kills people is NOT creative. A helium atom? Now, THAT is a good use of a Halloween costume.
I love the helium atom too. Also, I think a grim reaper costume that involves chess is much, much cooler than the typical grim reaper you see.
I think kids equate evil with scary. They don’t want to be bad. They just want to make little girls scream.
Sue– I agree that it is much too simplistic to assume evil/scary for a little one is the same thing as Evil in the real sense.
Is a fascination with “scary stuff” a boy thing? I don’t know. My oldest son (11) still has a hard time going into Party City when all the Halloween stuff is on display–although he did decide he wanted to go to a “scary” corn maze this year. And you know what? I was GLAD he wanted to go to the haunted maze. He has a very active imagination and has always been easily frightened, and I think it shows that he is growing up a bit and developing some maturity that he’s willing to face some of his fears directly.
I, on the other hand, (as girly as I am in many ways), have always liked being scared. I loved going to haunted houses as a teenager and even worked in one at the psychiatric facility in Provo when I was a student at BYU. (I still can’t believe they would have a haunted house there, though. Do they do that any more??). I enjoy a good scary movie, too. John Cusak’s “1408″ was SUPER spooky and a ton of fun. I know a lot of well meaning people disagree with me on this–and I readily acknowledge that there’s an important line to be drawn between spooky and scary and evil–but think that, for some people, Halloween and other similar activities can be a safe way to confront fear. “Fictional” fear. For people like my son, he felt better and braver and more sure of himself after he came out of that haunted maze unscathed (and without embarrassing himself in front of his friends). I wonder if knowledge of his bravery in that instance can translate into the other, more concrete, areas of his life that frighten him.
At any rate, I’m I fan of Halloween! And if any of you want a good scare, rent 1408. It’s even PG-13. But make sure you don’t watch it alone!!! (Or in a hotel room. Bwah hah hah hah.)
It’s true, I guess, that kids equate evil with scary. But I don’t–scary is something that causes fear, but may or may not be bad. Evil is something that intends, unambiguously, to harm. I don’t know if my son picks up on that nuance yet. Likely not. But it’s there for me.
I can see how confronting a haunted house could create bravery that translated over to other aspects of life… I don’t think it’s the only way to create that bravery, though.
What a great discussion Emily!
As a kid, I enjoyed dressing up for Halloween and mainly chose cute, benign costumes. I will never forget the year I chose to dress up as Medusa, though. I was a junior in High School and thought it would be fun to be evil for once. I ratted my long hair and pinned fake rubber worms all over my head. I wore a long black dress and pinned a pointed devil’s tail to the back of it. I painted my face white with black lips.
At first it was fun to pretend to be someone so wicked–particularly since I was normally such a goody-goody. But as the day wore on, I began taking on the nature of my character. I began to feel cruel and ugly enough to really turn people to stone. At the end of the day, I couldn’t get my costume off fast enough. The next year I dressed up as Little Bo Peep.
What I didn’t realize was how wearing an evil costume would make ME feel inside. Fortunately, none of my kids have really had much of an interest in those types of costumes. My daughter was a witch several years ago, though and wore the rubber nose and warts. She didn’t seem bothered at all by the experience. And I went as a witch this year (though I didn’t wear any face makeup.) So maybe a lot of it comes down to individual sensitivity levels. What may creep one person out may not necessarily have the same effect on someone else.
However, having said that, I’m on board with you when it comes to the glorification of evil. I have never quite gotten into Halloween decorations. I loathe all the gory plastic body parts and spider webs and skulls. It just grosses me out. And if my young boys come to me in a couple of years wanting to be something scary and evil, I will say “no,” too!
Emily,
If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty firm on boundaries for costumes. I don’t get into the ghoulish, scary, evil stuff and my kids know that. I personally find little value in it, and I would rather not encourage it in my kids. I have never been a fan of Halloween, though. Never liked scary movies, never liked haunted houses.
It’s only been the last few years when we have had light-hearted and fun (pumpkins and scarecrows and not so much of the other stuff) that I have loosened up. And I don’t personally feel like my kids are worse for the wear.
To show how I feel about it all around, I also refuse to buy swords, and I usually stay away from toy guns as well. I realize fully that my boy and his friends will still turn other things into swords (girls, too, sometimes, but boys more…Y chromosome does bring with it some differences!), but I am not gonna be the one facilitating it. I’m stubborn that way.
I think some of my friends think I’m a nut. But I don’t see the point in facilitating even role-play of dark stuff. Allowing it sometimes, maybe (I know they have played war and other darker stuff). But facilitating it? I personally just can’t do it.