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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that sparks and a fancy dress costume are a bad combination...

12 replies

Sharonkh76 · 07/10/2019 18:52

Just found my husband helping my 5 year old make sparks with a fire steel while dressed in a halloween costume. It lead to a big row where he was yelling at me for being overprotective and ridiculous. Because 'they are only sparks'.
Am I?
This followed an earlier one when I said I wasn't happy about the 8 year old using it on my new sofa.

OP posts:
ShirleyPhallus · 07/10/2019 18:53

Look in to what happened to Claudia Winkleman’s daughter, I don’t think you can be too overprotective about cheap Halloween costumes and fire

That said, what is a fire steel? And how could you use it on a sofa?

BeanBag7 · 07/10/2019 18:54

YANBU a few years ago there were loads of stories of kids being horribly burnt when Halloween costumes caught fire, because they were called "toys" rather than "clothes" so not subject to the same safety checks.
They may be "only sparks" but surely the whole point of a fire steel is to start a fire with said sparks?

Sharonkh76 · 07/10/2019 18:55

It is a fire lighting thing. You scrape the bits of metal together and it make sparks to light a fire with..

OP posts:
inwood · 07/10/2019 18:55

No YANBU. At all.

ShirleyPhallus · 07/10/2019 18:56

So he is quite literally “playing with fire”

Very stupid

BeanBag7 · 07/10/2019 18:57

"Claudia Winkleman opened up about the moment her daughter went up in flames some time after it happened.

Matilda, then 8, was wearing a witch costume on Halloween last year when it brushed against a candle, setting her alight.

“We couldn’t put her out,” the mum-of-3 told BBC’sWatchdog. “Her tights had melted into her skin.”

Describing how quickly the “5 quid” supermarket-bought costume set ablaze, Claudia said: “It was not like fire I had seen before.

“Like if your shirt caught fire or anything I could put it out. It was the tights that… they came back to life.”

Matilda was trick-or-treating at a neighbour’s house when Claudia heard her scream. “I was talking to somebody, and then I just heard her scream,” Claudia said.

“She just screamed ‘Mummy’ and I turned around and that was that, she was just on fire.

“Everyone was screaming. She was screaming, all the kids there were screaming.

“It feels like she was on fire for hours but the surgeon said that definitely wasn’t the case and it was probably just seconds.”

Since the accident, Matilda has underwent several operations to treat her serious burns at London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital."

BubblesBuddy · 07/10/2019 18:58

Has he no common sense? Get the costume off and get him to do it outside. What 5 year old needs this tuition anyway? Bizarre!

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 07/10/2019 19:04

Sounds like your DH is too immature to have access to a fire steel, lighter or box of matches. They aren't toys.

AnxietyDream · 07/10/2019 19:09

Those costumes are so dangerous around fire, they go up ridiculously fast and 'melt' onto the skin. An unlucky spark could light it. YANBU.

slashlover · 07/10/2019 19:12

I thought all Halloween costumes were now treated as clothing and had to be fire resistant?

Sharonkh76 · 07/10/2019 19:17

Costume is about 4 years old so might not be fire proofed. I just needed some opinions of strangers to show I wasn't crazy.

OP posts:
StillRunningWithScissors · 07/10/2019 19:21

Leaving the costume issue aside (which you are of course right about), who the hell uses a fire steel on a sofa???

Would he think sitting lighting matches on it was a good idea? That would probably be safer, as the sparks from the steel aren't as controlled.

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