‘Halloween Prude’ Mom Has One Request This Spooky Season: ‘Don’t Scare My Kids’

If there’s one thing that brings out my inner Karen, it’s Halloween displays in stores.

Australia has fully embraced Halloween and we can’t put that genie back in the bottle.

Of course, it is good for children to experience fear; it’s fun!

Grimm’s fairy tales were full of dismemberment and eating of internal organs with all sorts of moral warnings for children, such as: “Don’t trust the snarling wolf that just ate your grandmother.”

These are important life lessons.

“A little scary for a three year old?”

But as a self-confessed child, on the imagination that was traumatized after watching Back to Oz (1985) with a creepy woman who collects other women’s heads to wear interchangeably with her own like a collection of hats, there’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle when kids get scary images in their heads. their (irreplaceable).

Looking around Spotlight the other day, which was full of ghosts with glowing red eyes, zombies, the Grim Reaper, skeletons hanging from the roof in cobwebs and creepy clowns, I politely asked the woman at the till if any other parents had complained about terrible decor.

“I’m a Halloween Prude”

My three year old almost wet himself and asked me if the ‘skull-e-tons’ were real, which led to a confusing and even more disturbing conversation when I tried to tell him that they actually were in a sneaky way to him.

He had some follow-up questions, and I had to tell him he did note even have a scary clown inside him.

“A bit scary for a three year old, don’t you think?” I told the checkout lady.

She narrowed her eyes as she recognized me for what I truly was, a shapeshifter.

Posing as a respectable 30-year-old mother, when in fact I was a Karen. A member of the entertainment police.

A Halloween Prude.

And you know what? I will own it this year.

Stop scaring my children.

How about you create a dark corridor somewhere with creepy music and a sign that says ‘Enter if you dare’ and put all your goblins, wolves and ghouls in there; this would be much more fun for teenagers anyway, and parents with little ones could skip it.

When I’m going to Bunnings with my kids to buy fertiliser, there’s absolutely no reason for the bloody zombies that pop up with motion sensors to give us all a little heart attack.

Parenting is scary enough without waking your kids up every half hour because their little minds are being rattled by creepy creatures in their dreams.

So you want to know what’s really terrible?

Having a weak pelvic floor. Being so sleep deprived, you put a pair of dirty socks in the fridge instead of the laundry basket. Calling your husband by your son’s name. Being completely consumed with rage one minute and so in love with your children that you cry for no reason the next.

Scaring your kids once in a while is fine, but parents should be able to decide when and where it will be and what KIND the scares are age appropriate for them.

Jumping out of the closet when they’re moving forward = finally; dismembered corpses dripping fake blood hanging from the ceiling, resulting in my child’s nightmares and anxiety questions = not good.

This is really scary.

If you really want to terrify your kids this Halloween, sit down and tell them about inflation.