We went to Wal-Mart for curtains and a rug on a typical fall afternoon. On the way to the checkout, the huge Halloween display wasn’t overlooked: an animatronic skeleton with a plaintive glare sitting next to (but not limited to) a wall of masks including (but not limited to) a werewolf with a zombie with fangs and a zombie with half of its gray-green face missing. Everything seemed to be an invitation to start facing our fears.
“Mom! Can we get some scary Halloween stuff for the house?” My seven-year-old daughter, Opal, treated the display of terrorism and wrongful death as if it were as inviting as a row of jolly elves at Christmastime. He put it in the spirit.
The next ten minutes were spent nursing a sign that said “be careful” in what looked like the dripping blood of someone who was actively dying, something less disturbing than, say, a spider made of massive pipe cleaners. He pleaded with the demonic skeleton door knocker and I talked him into a small pumpkin for the front window. She was depressed.
A rack of baby clothes was directly across the aisle from an array of tombstones, weapons and plastic-strewn body parts. Milk happily settles on a princess dress, but not without asking what tombstones are.
There will always be times when Opal’s wishy-washy brain can tell her she’s ready for things her deeper psyche isn’t quite ready for—it’s an inevitable part of growing up.
I explained how bodies are buried in the ground and how families put a headstone with the dead person’s name on it so they would have a place to come, reminisce and bring flowers. The way we buried his pet fish and put a special rock up there to remind us where he was.
By this time, my eight-month-old had pulled down the pet-sized sombrero and was rolling on it like a dog on a leash. It really wasn’t a line of conversation I was ready for at that particular moment.
Opal nodded, as if to say, “Oh, makes sense,” and turned to investigate the shelf of afro wigs. On the way home, he said, “Mom, I want to make the house really spooky for Halloween this year. Can we please?”
Clearly, I’m an autumn fanatic. In fact, Jesse and I got married just three days before Halloween in a huge, wooden room in the mountains with a fire in the fireplace and cornucopias on every table. I love the gradual changing of the leaves, and the cool mornings, evenings and moods. I love the well-bracketed schedule of school days and weekend rituals of hayrides and pumpkin picking. I love celebrating my daughter’s birthday in late October.
And, yes, I love Halloween. I love wearing wigs and I love seeing, for example, a neighborhood dad dressed as a Mexican wrestler—mask and gold tights—when I’m used to seeing him in just jeans and wool. It’s hard to look at it the same way after that, which, frankly, I enjoy. The visual satisfaction of adults going out on Halloween sustains me for the rest of the year when everyone else is going about their day.
But I could do without all the blood and guts and sickness. And turning a blind eye is not an option with an inquisitive child.
Scaring giants from small children is not necessary to make children feel the fear of death and other scary things.
I agreed that, sure, we could decorate the house for Halloween, complete with spider webs and pumpkins, the foot-tall, married skeleton couple we’ve been displaying for years. But not body parts, murder or terrorism. “Awwww, mom! Pleeease!”
When we got home, we found a package of unopened Halloween decorations in the garage—probably sent by an aunt who buys things on clearance after the holiday and then ships them to us. Inside was a cardboard graveyard scene intended for a dinner party. Tombstone Place Cards and Bat Romkin Holders. To be fair, they were cute. And, as far as I can tell, pretty benign. No blood, guts or slippery bits of flesh. So, we got out the scotch tape and went for it. Within half an hour, Opal’s bedroom was a flower with a cardboard tombstone.
Everyone is satisfied
That night, she was up most of the night with nightmares about men crawling out from behind tombstones.
Face your fears with tenderness and wisdom
For most of the year, we censor.
When in Opel’s company, I turn off BBC Radio News in my car as they report on war and death around the world. Jesse is quick to change the channel to the police when Apple enters the room. And yet, for that one brief period each year, the death and terror at the top rises from every other crane—even the aisles of the corner drug store when we stop to buy Q-tips. It is inevitable.
It’s just Halloween, right? It’s just how we do it, how many cultures do it, and will continue to do it year after year. But lately, I’ve wondered if there’s a mindful way to navigate the visual contradictions of the Halloween season.
It is a part of our culture. Not to mention the fact that life has a dark side—namely, the inevitability of death—and Halloween can be an opportunity for children to come face-to-face with other emotions they may feel sheltered from during the rest of the year. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But, when they are young, how can we allow them to flirt with this experience while still feeling protected by reality?
When we go to school with the children and pass a skeleton tangled in a noose on the corner fence, we say, with wide, astonished, grown-up groans, “Oh, so scary!” Then follow it up with, “It’s just pretend” like nothing happened. It just occurs to me that all of this can be downright confusing for our youth.
Fortunately, we live in a small corner of the world where Halloween costumes fall into the category of minions and fairies rather than the blood and grime variety. All of our block truck or behavior kids in an unruly crowd. So, we don’t have to explain yet when a sinister vampire shows up at our door, trick-or-treating in his most diabolical baritone.
But it’s still out there. Looking at Opal and she can’t see him. We cannot completely erase it from its environment, nor would we want to. It is a part of our culture. Not to mention the fact that life has a dark side—namely, the inevitability of death—and Halloween can be an opportunity for kids to come face-to-face with other emotions they may feel sheltered from during the rest of the year. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But, when they are young, how can we allow them to flirt with this experience while still feeling protected by reality?
Cindy Dale Clark, associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State, said parents need to understand that scaring young children with scarecrows is not a way to make children fear death and other scary things.
Perhaps, as she’s saying, there’s a more sensitive way to go about it without feeling the need to sanitize the entire season.
Developmentally, children cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality until the age of six or seven. And yet – and well into adulthood – scenes and images in particular can trigger anxiety, depending on the person’s individual experiences. Like life Pet cemetery The scene in the neighbor’s yard may be especially disturbing to a child who has just lost a pet, while another child who just experienced her grandmother’s funeral may be centered by the sprinkling of caskets and tombstones in the yard of the local rec center.
Still, they had terrifying experiences, especially when large, rooted in community-based traditions, have the ability to help children cope with the fear they are bound to at some point.
In the past, communicating with Opal about what to expect has helped quell her fears ahead of time, and negate those that haven’t yet surfaced. This one is no different – right now our food chats cover everything from Halloween history to the scariest costumes we’ve ever seen!
Fear under fear
The reality is that as a parent, it’s still up to me to decide whether an experience is too intense and inappropriate for my particular teenager. Translation: No fresh casualties, blood dripping from the front window. And yet, there will always be times when Opal’s wishy-washy mind can tell her she’s ready for things her deeper psyche isn’t quite ready for—an inevitable part of growing up.
Choosing where to let Opal choose what she’s ready for and where to intervene is just part of parenting, and it’s certainly not a perfect science.
When I was five years old, I remember the Michael Jackson video, Thrillerwith a room full of neighboring children who were the oldest. One of them even let me sit on his lap and said, “I’ll keep you safe.” I wound up having nightmares for weeks and I still have the horrible memory I felt as that long video made her labor long ago. But I think it’s fair to say that I preferred such terror to the terror of embarrassment that followed on the rare occasion my mother intervened where I was fully included in the big-kid action.
As for Opal, she doesn’t want to take the tombstones out of her room. She absolutely refuses, despite the dreams. She is experimenting in her own way with the fear of the child. For now, we’re letting him hang around in this weak spot. She knows our safe, warm bed is just across the hall.
Having said that, I’m pretty sure there’s more to dreams than just a cardboard tomb: a new school year, a new gymnastics class, fears and expectations, change. Perhaps tombstones give these emotions a name and an outlet?
Maybe that’s why Halloween works against all my logical, protective parental thinking. Because during the month of October she will be surrounded by the all-powerful shield of her friends and family after nursing these miscreants, going to school, shopping with my sister and I, watching moderately scary movies, while on trick-or-treating night. And while we’re facing our fears together, he’ll have a safe, warm bed to climb into at the end of each of those days.
