The Worst Halloween Costumes for Kids

As we all know, Halloween costumes for kids have really deteriorated - in every sense of the word - in recent years.

Just look at what my Native American girl costume of the 1970s has morphed into over the past thirty years:

I've complained about the sexualizing of costumes for girls ever since I bought my then 3-year-old a scarecrow outfit in a bag from Wal-Mart only to get it home and find out it was pageant-worthy (and I don't mean that in the good way).

Not to be outdone by the inappropriateness of the scarecrow choice, her older sister chose to be a Blood Ninja that year.



My 2009 blog rant about girls costumes got me an email from a reporter at The New York Post when Halloween came around the next year. She interviewed me and used my quotes in her article  Would you let your child trick or treat in this? In addition to getting the chance to share my thoughts on the inappropriate scarecrow costume it was also the welcome first evidence that anyone ever read my blog.

Last year I was happy to see others also sharing my disdain for the costume options for us ladies. The Bloggess shared some seriously scary stuff for grown-ups at Skanky-Ween. and Scary Mommy got right to the point with Dress Your Daughter Like a Whore Day!

I would like to add the following costumes to ever growing list of The Worst Halloween Costumes for Kids:

The entire Monster High collection, shown below with the also hideously wrong Gothic "Cheerless" Cheerleader and the Zombie Cheerleader:

A big no also to this witch:

And this cowgirl, look at her! Is nothing sacred, Sears?

And boys? Ick and double-ick to so many of their choices, too. And why do so many options emphasize the "bloody skull?" Or, pictured here, the bleeding ghost:

The thought of my son wearing these costumes sends the same chills down my spine as does the thought of my daughter choosing from one of the crappy options for girls.

So tell me if these are the worst ideas for kids Halloween costumes, what are some of the best ideas?

This is the fourth post in my Week of Halloween, for all the posts click here.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 19 - Halloween Today Vs. Halloween 1970s Style

Below I show you what passes today in 2012 as a Native American "Indian" Halloween costume for girls and tweens:

 

And below here, I show you how it looked when I rocked "Indian girl" back in the late 1970s... along with my creepy brother:

I think I liked Halloween better when things were old-school.

My, how the times have changed.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 17 - A Painted Witch Cauldron

My son is going as a witch this year for Halloween - and after last year's whole cat debacle.... I'll take it.

Since he is planning to wear his sister's hand-me-down witch outfit, I thought he should at least personalize some of the other elements of the costume. I'm not proud to say that one of the adjustments I hope he makes is to be a pants-wearing witch, but he's been adamant the dress part of being a witch is a positive, not a negative.

Today my lil witch and I went to the drug store and picked-up this cauldron in iron-tough black, and added a few festive purple touches.

He couldn't be happier.

Happy Halloween!

31 Days of Halloween: Day 13 - Toddler in the Pumpkin Patch

When my third and youngest child Ziggy was a year and a couple months old, I was seriously wracked with guilt. Whereas I had taken his older sisters to all kinds and fashions of pumpkin patches, apple orchards, hay rides and haunted mazes, I had taken him... nowhere. I had no iconic photo of him as a baby in the pumpkin patch, no cute pics of him amongst the corn.

It was killing me.

I went and bought Ziggy a pumpkin outfit (which for the record, I had never done for his sisters despite the other autumn excesses they enjoyed) and invited my mom to join us for the sole reason of documenting our clearly-going-to-be-perfect trip to the pumpkin patch.

So you can imagine how it was a complete and utter surprise - and downer - when it was raining on the day this was all supposed to go down.

"Should I still come?" my mom called to ask in the morning, "Of course!" I screamed. "He's going to the pumpkin patch. Today!"

Off we went, on a miserable day and with a child who it quickly became apparent had a cold, and wanted to be anywhere else but the frickin' pumpkin patch.

I remember all of the actual truth of that day when I look at these photos. But I also believe in this total fiction we managed to capture in film.

And I love these photos as much as I thought I would, and then some.

I'm writing this tonight, with nostalgia, as we prepare to take a family trip to the same pumpkin patch tomorrow. Be back tomorrow with this year's crop of pumpkin photos!

P.S. This is my own little contribution to The Mom Stays in the Picture.

31 Days of Hallowen: Day 12 - Halloween Pasts and Who Wore It Better?

For awhile I was doing a Who Wore It Better? theme on the blog - it wasn't so popular so I retired it, but as I'm a big hand-me-down fan there are still plenty of opportunities to compare siblings in cast-offs, so if any regulars would like to see it come back, just say the word!

Here are the Halloween-themed face-offs, feel free to leave a comment with your choice for the winner in any of the match-ups below.

The hard-to-call black winter coat stand-off:

The perhaps even more difficult to decide frog costume comparison:



And last?

A tough three-way competition between my son, my daughter and a stuffed panda bear.

Choices for winners? Or are we all winning?

31 Days of Halloween: Day 2 - The Cat Halloween Costume

Yesterday for the first day of 31 Days of Halloween, I took a look back to the cat costume choices that my two-year-old son had to choose from for Halloween last year - it wasn't pretty. Or, actually, the choices were too pretty.

So, while sparkly, we were quite happy when we found this cat costume for our young wannabe cat:

His costume of choice this year? That's still anyone's guess....

31 Days of Halloween: Day 1 - Cat Halloween Costumes

Last year, my toddler son wanted to go as a cat for Halloween. It did not seem to me to be an outlandish request. Nor, did it seem to be a particularly gender-specific one.

I was wrong. Googling "Cat Halloween Costume" gets you this:

Now, that's scary.

If you'd like to see the (sparkly, but not pink) Halloween costume my son ended-up with last year, it'll be up tomorrow for Day 2 of 31 Days of Halloween.

I'm doing Halloween all day every day for the month of October. If you'd like to share your Halloween photos, thoughts, rants or recipes just email me at anna (at) randomhandprints.com and join the fun!