Free-Range Parenting
"Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!"
I can still hear the echoes of children with normal mothers sing-songing the taunt at recess, dressed up as Strawberry Shortcake, cowgirls, cowboys, skeletons and Luke Skywalker as I sat off to the side in my regular street clothes, seething because my mother would not let us celebrate Halloween.
My mother has some great qualities. She is quirky and can make anyone laugh. She can rock a Snuggie, and writes like nobody's business. But her obsession with the evil of Halloween is incomparable.
"It's Satan's holiday," she would say as she shuffled my younger brothers and me off to the bus with notes instructing our teachers to send us to the library during the Halloween party, lest our pure minds become infected by witnessing the overconsumption of candy corn and cupcakes. "I will not have my children be part of anything to do with the devil. He wants your little souls." Because dressing up and trick-or-treating would certainly lead us down the slippery slope to Santeria and human sacrifice.
After school, two fates awaited us. Either we would turn off the lights, lock up the house and go to a movie and dinner at the Ground Round to avoid revelers begging at our door for candy, or worse, we'd turn off the lights, lock up the house and be forced to go to my grandparents' house to hand out candy to other kids as Nana and Pop shook their heads sadly at our inability to participate and wear cheap Kmart costumes.
I was not a popular child anyway, with my bookworm tendencies, lack of gross motor skills, buck teeth, funny hair and overall weirdness. My only wish was to not stand out in any way, but the no-Halloween policy made that impossible. The teasing that ensued sticks with me to this day, pathetic as that may be.
Fast-forward a few decades to this Halloween. My kids decided months ago what they were going to be this year and the costumes have been purchased — Wolverine, Darth Vader and Hermione Granger from "Harry Potter." We will step out during the prescribed hours to walk the streets of Amesbury and gather loot. The whole time, a little voice will be in my head telling me that I am endangering my children's chances in the afterlife. Amazing, isn't it, how Mom sticks with you!
But my kids will celebrate, if only so they can fit in a little (and bring home candy for me to raid later). There are certainly myriad other ways I am ruining them, though. For example, my daughter came home from school the other day and asked me what a Nintendo DS is. Apparently, she had been teased by a horde of boys from her third-grade class for not knowing what it was and even worse, not owning one. It has never occurred to me to purchase hand-held video game devices, because my kids are not really into games, and we cannot afford them anyway.
After she explained her angst, I told her all about the DS as she begged me to homeschool her again. "No one made fun of me for not liking video games before. It was OK that I would rather read," she said. That kid really knows how to go for the jugular. I had a flashback to being her age and being the one on the fringe of things when it came to Halloween and wondering what she will remember.
She is not me, though. She has a million friends and is, against all odds, very cute with normal hair, teeth and physical coordination. We came up with a comeback for the mean boys and moved on. It's been a week and she hasn't mentioned the DS to me since.
As a parent, what is one to do? I say yes to Halloween, but no to the DS. Yes to books and hikes in the woods, but no to sleepovers on Saturday nights that interfere with church on Sunday mornings. Whatever I decide for them, someone is always unhappy. I look at it this way — at least I am providing them good eye-rolling material to share with their friends someday. They'll thank me then, right?
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Courtney Nguyen of Amesbury covers Georgetown for The Daily News. To read more about the trials and tribulations of an educational anarchist, visit Courtney's blog at www.free-range-parenting.blogspot.com.
