Aibu inappropriate Halloween costumes

78 replies

Lemonllama · 27/10/2023 09:31

Am I alone in thinking some parents use Halloween dress up days to show how "cool" they are by dressing up their kids as inappropriate characters?

By inappropriate I mean characters off of TV shows and films that they have never seen. Just seen a 7 year old dressed up as a character with a bottle of wine and fag off a TV show that she hopefully has never heard of . I find it odd, won't the children have to explain all day who they are?

How is a 3 year old meant to tell people she is meant to be Mrs hinch or a politician ect . It's just for the parents clout and to post all over Facebook.

OP posts:

Dramatic · 27/10/2023 15:58

I did dress my 1yo as Chucky, she would have also had no idea what any other costume was though.

Every year from 2 onwards I've let them pick their own costumes.

MapleSyrupWaffles · 27/10/2023 16:15

phoenixrosehere · 27/10/2023 11:06

Yes, in Canada and the States, you dress up for Halloween however you want which I think is the fun part because people can get creative with it. There are Halloween Costume Contests and it is usually one of the creative, handmade types that were often winners. I remember a classmate winning because she went as a bag of jelly beans in primary. She was pretty much wearing a clear plastic trash bag with different coloured balloons and a cardboard with thin string around her neck that hung around the middle with the brand name of the jellybeans in the front.

There’s only so many “scary” age-appropriate things you can be for Halloween as children.

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In Canada (possibly America) one of the reasons for this is that is meant to be a disguise (so that the spirits roaming around on Hallowe'en night don't recognise you) - so anything and everything is fine, doesn't have to be scary or Hallowe'en themed; it's the disguise that is the point.

It seems like here is the oddness - like a superficial version of the whole idea, just taking some bits from it and making it as gory as possible.

In Canada (at least some places, I'm sure not everywhere) you don't ring doorbells - you shout trick or treat, or Hallowe'en apples, and if it's loud enough the door is answered. you might get asked to sing a song or tell a joke (kind of nursery rhyme song or simple joke is fine). Pretty much everyone in the community takes part (again, at least in some areas) and it's not seen as begging, or intimidating, or anything like that - it's much more a fun night, mostly for children. They wear Hallowe'en costumes to school, there are parties at Brownies or other activities, the supermarkets are full of bags of treats that are specifically 'Hallowe'en candy'. You also can (or could, no idea if it's still true) collect money at each house with special Unicef charity boxes that were given out and returned to school, with coin slots in the top, that you wore on a string round your neck.

And the actual trick or treating was only on the 31st.

MyBlueDiary · 27/10/2023 17:27

SleepingStandingUp · 27/10/2023 15:03

Do you think all kids should be dressed in plain white until their old enough to express a preference? Otherwise babies are always a billboard for their parents tastes. The baby doesn't care if it's clothes come from the White Company or Lidl, is muted shades of green or covered in zebras.

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Well, to some extent it’s unavoidable- parent chooses White Company or Lidl for baby clothes and that says something to the world about that baby’s parent. But there’s a big difference between that and thinking “I like the Ramones, therefore I’ll put a Ramones Tshirt on my baby”. Not least because I think people often do this as a sort of ironic joke, like dressing your kid as Mrs Hinch or Liz Truss. I find it really cringeworthy, at best.

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