An ad currently running on American TV shows a little boy dressed up like Iron Man. His giddy, camera-wielding mother clearly made the costume: cardboard and felt-pen mask, round utility light taped to his chest. The boy looks miserable, destined to be an outcast. The ad is for the American chain Target, which sells Light-up Iron Man 2 costumes for $30 (U.S.). The tagline might as well be: "Forcing Your Kid to Stand Out is Child Abuse!"
But the mom-made Target costume is kind of great: the mask is expressive and the utility light a touch of inspired design. When you're dealing with something as crassly commercial as a superhero costume, a little weirdness is a good thing. The store-bought version makes kids interchangeable, mired in sameness. It's safe.
How is it that safety has become synonymous with Halloween? "Have a safe Halloween!" a stranger called to my kids the last time we went trick or treating, as if a zombie might eat them. "Safety" is the buzzword of modern parenting and no other holiday seems to poke at this nervous spot more. Web sites, articles and letters from school warn of the imminent dangers on a day when children are encouraged to eat junk food, talk to strangers and carve (pumpkin) flesh with knives. And so we are told to wrap them in reflective tape, watch for suffocating masks and tail them like bodyguards. Later, while they sleep, we are supposed to sniff candy for possible toxins. Health Canada has a lengthy online document about Halloween safety, offering tips for idiots like: "Keep candles, jack-o-lanterns, matches and lighters in a place that children cannot reach." So not on their pillows?
But the potential for physical scarring on Halloween is nothing compared to the lurking psychological damage. The Berkeley Parents Network website is filled with parents wringing their hands over whether or not a small child should attend a potentially traumatic Halloween parade. Keep him home, most parents advise each other. And for God's sake, says Target, don't put him in a costume that might get him teased!
This constant protection from hypothetical threats is the enemy of fun, which used to be the point of Halloween. Shape-shifting and dress-up is a fundamental part of childhood. Around the world, at Day of the Dead and Mardi Gras celebrations, kids are encouraged to flirt with their darker instincts in the (safe) confines of a holiday. Though its origins are contested, many believe that Halloween began as a Celtic event called Samhain, which marked the transition from fall to winter, the collapsing moment between the past and the future, the living and the dead. Philip Carr-Gomm, a British psychologist who has studied the Druids, writes: "Celtic society … was highly structured and organized, everyone knew their place. But to allow that order to be psychologically comfortable, the Celts knew that there had to be a time when order and structure were abolished, when chaos could reign."
When exactly do today's over-scheduled, hyper-organized kids get to play at chaos? A recent panel on the Today show suggested, in all seriousness, that the ideal age for a kid to trick or treat without parents was "13." My rule is: If you might be making out with someone later, you are too old for Halloween. The "expert," however, said: "You don't want to go any earlier than 13 because people put on masks, they put on disguises and there still are people who do bad things."
Law enforcement agencies in Virginia have taken this anxiety to heart: On Halloween, they'll be monitoring thousands of paroled sex offenders in Operation Trick No Treat and Operation Porch Lights Out. But a study examining 67,000 sex crimes in 30 states between 1997 and 2005 showed no increase in sex offenses on or around Halloween. Bogey men are popular at this time of year, though.
In Canada, reported crime rates have been dropping over the last decade, while parental paranoia increases. The repercussions of this better-safe-than-sorry attitude - young people with increased levels of anxiety and a waning ability to look after themselves - are profound. If our kids can't navigate Halloween on their own, how will they handle adulthood?
Lenore Skenazy attracted much attention when she wrote about allowing her nine-year-old to ride the subway in New York. Her book Free Range Kids pleads with parents to back off the constant, often futile attempts at risk reduction. She wants to grant school-aged children the freedom to experience the world on their own, without being mediated by adult panic. Addressing the Today show pearl-clutchers, she recently wrote on her blog: "Is this expert aware that … people do not automatically become evil just because they have dressed up like vampires and witches?" Kids who are told the world is evil every day of the year will be wearing fear for Halloween. And that is a costume made at home.