In case you haven’t figured it out already, Heather and I are big Halloween people. This explains why – even after acquiring costumes for ourselves, Annie, and Rigby – we found ourselves at the costume store earlier this week checking out the costume selection yet again.

That’s when we stumbled across something pretty disturbing – costumes for little girls that look like knock-offs of the “sexy” ones adult women wear. The one difference though was that instead of being named things like “Naughty Nurse,” these kid versions were called things like “Lil’ Cutie Nurse.”  There were even photos of little girls striking seductive poses in these skimpy costumes on the packaging. Heather and I just stood there, staring, and wondered, “Is anyone else seeing how inappropriate this is?”

As a bit of a side-note… I told Heather that I was going to write a post about these costumes, so she suggested I find a photo of them online to show you what I was talking about. I surfed the web a bit, but couldn’t find any photos as inappropriate as the ones on the packaging at the costume store, so I grabbed my keys and headed for the door. Heather looked up, surprised.

“Where are you going?”

“I struck out online, so I’m gonna run down to the costume store and take a few snapshots.”

“You’re going to walk into the costume store all by yourself and start taking pictures of the scantily clad little girls on the packaging?”

“That was the plan. Yeah.”

“Gee. That won’t look weird at all.”

“It’ll be fine. If anyone asks me why I’m taking the photos I’ll explain it’s so I can put them on the Internet.”

It was then Heather forcibly took the keys from hand. So I don’t have any photos to show you, but if you’ve been to a costume store lately – and you likely have considering it is October – you’ve probably seen them yourself.

It’s unsettling to see people trying to take the innocence out of Halloween for little girls. Dressing sexy on Halloween has become a big thing with a lot of women, and regardless of what one may think of that, it is their choice to make as they are adults. But little girls should be able to be kids, play make believe, and have fun on Halloween. They shouldn’t have to see this fun rite of passage turned into a day when they have to worry about how they look, or how attractive they are to others.

Heather and I watched a documentary on OWN called “Miss Representation” the other night and it documented just how much pressure the media and society put on women to achieve an unattainable ideal of what a woman should look like. It also talked about how much women are inundated with information telling them their value lies in their physical appearance as opposed to their intellect or talent.

I heartily recommend “Miss Representation” (especially to other men) as it was a real eye opener to what women go through. I have to admit though that it scared/saddened/stressed me out because as Annie’s dad I want her life to be as happy and full of opportunity as possible, and I’m not sure exactly how I can help her drown out the negative messages that will come her way as she grows up.

I’ll have to figure it out fast, I guess, but in the meantime there is one thing I know. Halloween is going to be about fun, make believe, and enjoying some candy… just like we did when we were kids.

counting her candy Enjoying Halloween like a kid should