'I'm a Halloween Prude. Stop scaring my little kids'

"Jumping out when they’re walking past = fine; dismembered corpses dripping fake blood hanging from the ceiling resulting in nightmares = not fine."

If one thing brings out my inner Karen, it’s Halloween displays in shops. 

Australia has thoroughly embraced Halloween, and there’s no putting that genie back in the bottle.

Sure, it’s good for kids to experience fear; it’s fun! Grimm’s Fairy Tales were full of dismemberment and eating of internal organs with all kinds of moral warnings for children, like, ‘Don’t trust the snarling wolf that just ate your grandmother.’

These are important life lessons.

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"Bit scary for a three year old?"

But as a self-confessed, over imaginative child who was traumatised after watching Return to Oz (1985) with a creepy woman who collects other women’s heads to wear them interchangeably with her own, like a hat collection, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle when kids get scary images in their (non-interchangeable) heads. 

Looking around Spotlight the other day, which was full of ghouls with glowing red eyes, zombies, the Grim Reaper, skeletons hanging from the roof with spiderwebs and spooky clowns, I politely asked the woman at the checkout if any other parents had complained about the terrifying decor.

"I'm a Halloween Prude"

My three-year-old almost wet himself and asked me if ‘skull-e-tons’ were real, which led to a confusing and even more disturbing conversation when I tried to tell him that they were actually inside him.

He had some follow-up questions, and I had to tell him he did not have a scary clown inside him as well.   

“Bit scary for a three-year-old, don’t you think?” I said to the checkout woman.

She narrowed her eyes as she recognised me for what I really was, a shapeshifter. Posing as a respectable 30-something mother, when I was, in fact, a Karen. A member of the fun police.

A Halloween Prude.

And you know what? I’m going to own it this year. STOP SCARING MY KIDS. 

How about you create a dark corridor somewhere with creepy music and a sign that says ‘Enter if You Dare’ and chuck all your ghouls, werewolves and ghosts in there; that would be way more fun for teenagers anyway, and parents with little ones could bypass it. 

When I’m heading into Bunnings with my kids to buy plant fertiliser, there is absolutely no reason for motion-sensor pop-up bloodied zombies to give us all a small heart attack.

Parenting is scary enough without having your kids wake up every half an hour because their little minds are reeling with spooky creatures in their dreams.

Do you want to know what’s truly terrifying? Having a weak pelvic floor. Being so sleep-deprived, you put a dirty pair of socks in the fridge instead of the washing basket. Calling your husband your son’s name. Being utterly consumed by rage one minute and so in love with your kids that you cry for no reason in the next. 

Scaring your kids now and then is fine, but parents should be able to decide when and where that will be and what kind of scaring is age-appropriate for them.

Jumping out of the closet when they’re walking past = fine; dismembered corpses dripping fake blood hanging from the ceiling resulting in my child’s nightmares and anxious questions = not fine.

That’s truly scary.

If you really want to terrify your kids this Halloween, sit down and tell them about inflation. 

Originally published as 'I'm a Halloween Prude. Stop scaring my little kids'