Costumes, hanging with friends, and sucrose by the kilo. How could Halloween not be the sweetest holiday of all?
Fathers view Halloween differently. Most dads enjoy the treat and will accidentally steal some candy from their kid’s collection. But the cost and hassle of the costume eventually make the holiday feel like an evil trick.
For young kids, Halloween costume selection is so easy that even dads can handle the parental chore. First, haul the kid to the Halloween store that magically appears in an abandoned corner of the mall. Next, stare at your phone while your child blissfully selects an inexpensive, disposable costume. Finally, avoid a meltdown by having mom announce that the outfit cannot be worn before the holiday.
The artistically gifted parents—the ones we simultaneously hate and envy—create costumes. And obviously, “artistically gifted” means moms. The only time dads play costume designer is when the kid wants to dress up as a soldier.
Dads will eagerly volunteer for a trip to the Army-Navy surplus store. Military retail establishments emit a powerful scent—testosterone—that causes dads to binge shop. The kid’s combat-ready outfit will be so realistic that the school principal bans it. Dad, meanwhile, leaves with tactical gear he doesn’t need and has no idea how to use but proudly deploys while playing Call of Duty.
After kids become Cloud-aware, Halloween becomes a parental headache. The focus shifts from joyful trick-or-treating to a social media contest. The amount of candy no longer determines success—it’s the number of likes on the Instagram costume selfie.
Dads usually don’t worry much about their son’s costume beyond the price. Moms and the PC police might think pouring pig’s blood on a Walking Dead outfit is overkill (pun intended), but dads rarely object.
Daughters are a different story.
Since social media likes define a preteen’s self-worth, daughters tend to push the costume boundaries. She may want to dress like a sex trade worker. Or like a Kardashian. My bad—I repeated myself.
The only upside of a daughter choosing an inappropriate Halloween costume is that it prepares dad for the future prom dress speech.
“You’re wearing that? In public? You can’t even bend over. And those shoes make you look like a stripper. Wait until your mom sees it. Grandma will have a heart attack.”
Like Valentine’s Day, Halloween eventually hits a developmental cap. Most teenagers become too cool to wear costumes and too lazy to walk for candy. They still love sugar, though, so they simply steal it from their younger siblings—just like their dads.
The urge to celebrate Halloween returns when kids leave for college. At that point, fathers no longer worry about the cost of a costume.
Instead, daddy worries about paying for an underage drinking fine, a public intoxication citation, or both.
