There aren’t too many Halloween costumes I would forbid my kids from choosing.  The more horrific costumes and characters are out, as are overtly sexual ones.  Other than that, however, pretty much anything goes.  I also have no problem with the kids crossing gender lines, if they so desire.  My youngest loves putting on his older sister’s outgrown princess costumes and ballet skirts.  I don’t have any problem with that, nor do a lot of other parents — including one who went so far as to write a book on the subject.

So I didn’t particularly feel a need to address the story of a boy who decided to be Daphne from the Scooby Doo television show nor the way his mother handled it.  Both were perfectly fine, as far as I’m concerned.  What did prompt my ire, however, was the way other moms dealt with the situation.

It’s generally considered rude to put people down.  One wouldn’t walk up to a coworker and tell them their outfit is horrible or that they’re ugly or that they have poor taste in friends, would one?  Well, perhaps one might, but then one would rightly be considered an ass.  To treat a child that way is, in my opinion, quite clearly abuse.

I will say that the mother of this boy showed admirable restraint in dealing with these women.  I would not have been anywhere near as nice.  In the end, I hope her son learned a lesson from his mother’s reaction rather than those other women.  It seems to me that the civilized thing to do would have been to smile and say how wonderful he looked and just kept any negativity to themselves.  I guess those moms have yet to learn that classic mom advice:  if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

Tags: costumes, gay, gender, glbt, halloween, lgbt, transgender

This entry was posted on Friday, November 5th, 2010 at 11:00 am and is filed under Bad Parenting 101, Holidays, Parenting News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.