Happy Uptight Halloween again
Another Halloween has come and gone. Some people spent weeks planning and putting together their costumes. Some costumes were meant to get a laugh, others to maybe be a little risque or naughty.
It once again brings up the annual debate about tasteful and tasteless costumes and then my argument that some people are just too uptight and easily offended.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that kids shouldn’t be sexualized in costume but for a child whose innocence isn’t tainted by the realities of the world, they don’t see they are doing anything wrong by wanting to be a kitty or a nurse or something else that has parents groups going nuts about sex stuff.
It’s when the grownups run around squawking that such costumes are inappropriate that the children start to feel they have done something wrong or shouldn’t want to dress a certain way for Halloween – a one day per year event.
And I get that kids these days are growing up fast but that doesn’t mean they are destined to be what they dress up as.
Just as my brothers didn’t grow up to be chainsaw killers despite them dressing as that for Halloween. I have never been a cross-dresser or done drag but I was a very pretty, busty blond woman in Grade 6 and got lots of laughs. (OK, so maybe I grew up to be comical but it’s not hurting anyone and it pays the bills, so who cares.)
Having a discussion with a mother she said that little girls shouldn’t be wearing anything skin-tight or revealing, but when questioned about what ballerinas wear or females involved in other forms of dance, why is that costume OK — especially considering sometimes the girls are also dancing with boys — GASP — in similar spandex wear, what makes that OK?
Halloween is nothing more than a day of pretending to be something. Young and old enjoy a bit of escapism for one day per year and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that. Though if your six year old wants to dress like a hooker on Nov. 1, and Nov. 2, and Nov. 3, then yes, that might be a problem.
