The Kids Take Charge

Newsletter 2024-09-27

Spooky season is upon us. This year, I have an extra reason to be scared: My kids are taking the lead. From decorations to costume themes, this is their world. My only purpose is to pay for stuff and carry up heavy items from the basement. The girls could easily replace me with a credit card and a hand cart. Until they figure that out, I’m still part of the celebration. I better make this the best Halloween ever. It might be the last one I get. 

With my children in charge, preparations are going about as smoothly as you would expect. Negotiations over the theme for this year’s group Halloween costume had all the civility of a world war. The kids were two disagreements away from fire bombing Berlin. Tradition dictates that, because we did something a certain way once, we should do it that way every year until the end of time. The alternative is change, which is the wrong kind of scary. I want to be unsettled by ancient ghosts, not new experiences. Our group costume themes have covered nearly every major franchise. We did Star Wars, Harry Potter, super heroes, Minions, Pokémon, and beauty queens. Those were our best ideas. Each year, it gets harder to pick from what’s left. This season, my four daughters had four different opinions about what we should do. My ten-year-old, Lucy, wanted to do Harry Potter again. She said it wasn’t fair that we did it when she was too young to remember it. I barely remember it, either. I mentally blocked out almost all the years when I had toddlers. It’s a survival skill. If parents didn’t have selective memories, no one would have more kids.

My twelve-year-old, Mae, wanted us to be condiments. She brings it up every year, even though the suggestion manages to be both unpopular and insulting. You don’t truly know what it means to have your feelings hurt until your kids tell you what condiment defines you as a person. According to them, I’m mayonnaise. I’m white and smell vaguely of eggs. My eight-year-old, Waffle, teamed up with Lucy for Lucy’s second pitch, which was Bob’s Burgers. The problem there was that the main family has three kids, not four. Whichever child we loved the least would have to be aunt Gayle. Meanwhile, my fourteen-year-old, Betsy, didn’t contribute any ideas but helpfully chimed in about how much she hated everyone else’s. It seemed our only real theme would be a family that fights a lot. We’re the WWE by default.

Then, miraculously, my children all agreed.