The Shen-Yun Poster in Your Butterfingers
Halloween, modern parenting, and a coup for women's sports.
Parents are full-on Halloweening. Over at my podcast,
, we just talked for an hour about being a parent in October (How do you know where to go for trick-or-treating? What’s appropriate to wear? Do you let your kids keep their candy?? Why do we care about any of this??), and we could have talked for five.
Parents are researching kids costumes (and having to reorder them when the ones we finally land on are actually out of stock, fuck you Etsy!). We’re going to the g-damned pumpkin patch. We have purchased our bags of candy and are hiding them or, in my case, full-on diving in. We are hunting around the neighborhood with our kids for the scariest decorations, or, depending on our kids, actively avoiding them (my child will need therapy for the rest of her life because of a talking skeleton she encountered when she was three). In theory I love a lot of this stuff. I love candy (see above) and dressing up (see below) and being extra. In theory.
But, when you are a parent in the age of intensive parenting, is Halloween actually fun???
This is the question I attempt to answer in a piece I wrote last week for The Cut, on the latest modern Halloween parenting-pressure goblin, Boo Baskets.
I wrote about how, compared to 30 years ago when my dad was geeking out on our Valentine’s Day breakfasts, today’s parents can’t shake the gaze of advertisers, parenting experts, and other parents from the the pure delight of treating our children, much like you can’t ever get those fake cobwebs off of your front bushes, no matter how hard you try November 1st. I wrote:
As my podcast co-host Miranda Rake reminded me, one of the first things we bonded over was a meme last year of a Shen-yun poster hidden in a candy bar. Everything is a sales attempt. What do you make of it all?
I am also settling into my new home this month, trying not to be stressed about something as inconsequential as what new couch to buy, when there is a school shooting in the US nearly every day. I truly enjoy home design. Even if I try to tease out the nasty ways I’ve been acculturated to care about how my home looks (loved this recent exploration of why women clean from
), I find it artistic, satisfying. But, good lord, the shit the internet is trying to sell me!!! I’m trying to work, trying to research, but the ads are RELENTLESS. Same goes for Halloween stuff. As I explore in The Cut piece, is it possible for anything to feel authentic when we are being tormented by the need to buy shit for it?
Also, Halloween brings up a lot of eating issues, filtered through us to our kids. Wowzers, it’s a ton to unpack.I’ll re-share one of my favorite treatises on Halloween candy and the Switch Witch, courtesy of
.Well, have a happy Halloween? Get out there and pick all of the Peanut M & M’s out of every plastic pumpkin :)
Also, this:
Last night was final game of the WNBA season, and an incredible five-game finals series between the Minnesota Lynx (great name) and the New York Liberty (great mascot). This was fucking peak sports. Everyone giving every little bit they have until the end, stars showing up hard or falling short and bit players rising to the occasion. Hotly debated referee calls. Spike Lee sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor. Like the WNBA lately, this series was wildly popular. But also, we had to ask the bar we were at to switch from having two TVs on a particularly bad football game between two meh teams. So much gained! So far to go! Either way, I realize I need to deepen my WNBA knowledge before the inaugural season of the Golden State Valkyries (and also learn how to pronounce that word), who wants to join my WNBA off-season study group?
, will you be our professor???
Also, are you subscribed to my podcast,
? Miranda and I are well into our SECOND SEASON, and just put out some tremendous episodes on such wide-ranging topics as hobbies in motherhood, guns in schools, and what would happen if we viewed care as a sacred practice. You can listen anywhere you listen to podcasts, but subscribing on Substack gets you in on written posts and conversations. Subscribing is free, but paid subscribers get access to very delightful bonus episodes, and our stunning new tote bags, designed by !
I’m all about half-ass Halloween. The reality is, the kids are in it for the free candy… and me too, so let’s slap some stuff on from the dress up bin and get to it so we can spend the remainder of this year haggling over how much candy you are going to eat on any given day, shall we? BUT I also love all the spooky and the houses that go all out and really scare us or delight us with their decor. Excellent trash truck fam costumes!!
Those tote bags are amazing!