Thursday, October 8, 2009

Halloween Costumes or Prostitots-in-Training Wear?


I realize many of you have found your way to my blog recently. First and foremost, I want to express my appreciation for taking the time to read my silly little blog. Until recently, wandering to this blog has always been a like a box of chocolates - sometimes you get the delicious nougat centers. Other times you get the one filled with toothpaste. But I've sort got a groove going on here now, and so far I dig it the most. Here's what you'll find and when you'll find it:

Sunday:
A post that (hopefully) honors God

Monday:
A guest post from Billy Coffey

Tuesday:
Something

Wednesday:
An awesomatastic post from a fabulous guest blogger (or one of my friends - SNORT! - just kidding, they're all awesome.)

Thursday:
Something else

Friday:
The epic twitter update

Saturday:
A repost of something that has appeared on this blog previously, typically something ridiculous. Because I'm all up in ridiculous.

So...according to my schedule, today is "Something Else":

My 8-year old daughter informed me last week that she wants to dress as a devil cat for Halloween. What's a devil cat? I have no idea. But it sounds sort of slutty to me, so she will most likely NOT be dressing as a devil cat.

Did I miss something? Since when is it acceptable for pre-pubescent little girls to dress like hookers? Or as Erin, winner of my first ever Super Skanktacular Saturday Giveaway might call them, Prostitots?



I suppose I could play the blame game here. Kids are constantly bombarded with inappropriate images from TV and other media outlets. When was the last time you tried to buy your daughter a pair of shorts? It's becoming increasingly difficult to find plain, knit or cotton shorts without words like "Juicy" or "Jail Bait" emblazoned across the butt. Lovely...

But here's the thing - if you don't want your daughter to dress provocatively, man up and put your foot down. Don't give in to their incessant whining. Just say no to skanky kids costumes.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi-larious!
I took the kids to the mall to grab something this afternoon, and we were at one of the Skanky Jr. stores. There were many costumes being tried on and most of them didn't cover *ahem* much.
Fortunately my daughter thought they were trampy...I pray she continues to think this way until she's 35!

Wendy said...

Yeah, I don't sew, but that's not going to stop me from making my daughter's Halloween costumes until she's at least 40. Possibly longer. Who makes those horrible costumes anyway? No really. I need to know, because I will cut them.

Anonymous said...

Why not train the kids to attend the church functions ie Harvest Party or whatever they call it. Costumes are usually geared around things God made. It's a good time to come apart and be separate - establish values from a worldview of what God thinks is good, acceptable, and perfect.

Heather Sunseri said...

I love it, "Man up and put your foot down." Isn't it amazing how so many parents are afraid to say "no" to their kids? I'm not judging, because I know it's very difficult, but our kids don't learn anything if we're saying "yes" to things that we know in our hearts we should really be saying "no" to.

Annie K said...

So instead of 'just say ho' we should encourage, 'just say no'.

~*Michelle*~ said...

I cringe at Prostitots.

......and right there with you with that obnoxious trampy "Juicy" butt thing.

*sigh*

Tina said...

In the regular world Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy" In girl world halloween is the one night of the year when a girl can dress like a total slut and other no other girls can say anything about it" from the movie Mean Girls

so true and so sad

its pathetic enough when teen girls embrace the skankiness but when the skimpy costumes are labeled for 5 to ten yr olds something has just gone terribly wrong!!

"just say no to skanky kids costumes" Yes Kat!!

Beth said...

Don't even get me started, dude.
I'd better leave it at that.

Ken said...

If one of my girls wanted to wear that, they could wear it under the stripe prison jumpsuit that I give them right before I lock them their room for the night. :)

Unknown said...

I'm usually pretty low-key about worries about clothing, etc, but this Halloween's offerings are really over the top trashy! My daughter wanted to be a "devil" like her little friend, and the costumes are really trampy. We tried to talk her into pairing with her friend as an angel but she would not have it. We ended up with a way too big costume of a different sort that I will pare down to fit. . . so that it covers her bum. Sheesh! Something has got to give.

Unknown said...

Oh my ~ I had no idea those things were out there!! And to think I had an issue with all the princess costumes out there ~ like I really want my child to think she's a PRINCESS. Little did I know how harmless THAT idea was after all...

Billy Coffey said...

YES!! The day my daughter informs me this is the sort of thing she wants to dress up as for Halloween is the day I die inside. And also the day she gets a spanking. Sometimes the very best thing you can tell a child is, "No."

Jeff Selph said...

Have I mentioned how glad I am that Sarah and I have a son? If we had a daughter, she would have only loved me till she was 12-ish.

I hate when I see little girls out and about dressed like little hookerlings. Then again, usually one look at their mom will tell you where that's coming from.

And I hate Harvest Parties. Halloween or bust. I think I will blog about this in the near future.

Marni said...

I live in a nice, quiet, middle-class neighborhood. The kids ride their bikes, we have block parties, neighbors know everyone's name and wave as we go by in our SUV's.

BUT THEN IT COMES HALLOWEEN. The junior high and high school girls in our subdivison become skanks and the neighbors I thought seemed so smart, clearly become pod-people and let their daughters out of the house looking like they're about to work a corner.

My top favorites last year were:

naughty cop
naughty nurse
naughty soldier
naughty fairy

I was a one-woman judging machine as I walked around last year thinking "where was your dad when you walked out of the house like that?"

Helen said...

Such mixed messages girls receive today.

"You are just as valuable as any boy. Now put on this skanky outfit and show us some skin...."

Not a fan of slutty outfits.

When we all get together to do our Single Ladies dance video, my vote is that we wear long sleeved blouses with doily collars covering our necks, paired with ankle length dresses.

Marni said...

Anon...

I like your "it's a good time to come apart" line. That's what I want to do when I see prostitots.

Jeff Selph said...

I should remember not to be taking a drink of anything while reading comments on this blog. My life was almost cut short this morning by Marni's "I was a one-woman judging machine as I walked around last year thinking "where was your dad when you walked out of the house like that?"" and Helen's, ""You are just as valuable as any boy. Now put on this skanky outfit and show us some skin....""

Sherri Murphy said...

I'm just happy to have boys. They're pretty easy. (As in easy to find a regular costume for.) What were you thinkin'?

Nick the Geek said...

My daughter wants to be SuperGirl. In general I'm ok with this, but on some level it bothers me because superhero women are not known for wholesome figures/clothing. Target audience and all that.

On the other hand my youngest wants to be a dragon. I think she actually wants to be a dragon, not dress up like a dragon. She roots for Malificent in Sleeping Beauty. I'm a little concerned.

Jeanne Damoff said...

Ha! Great post. "Prostitots" is the perfect label for child skankwear. I love Helen's Single Girls costume suggestion.

My daughter is 26 now, a professional musician performing in Seattle clubs, and yet thankfully she's never wanted to look like a skank. It probably had something to do with the fact that we had no TV, she was raised to think critically, and she met Jesus when she was four. Makes us sound like Puritans, but actually we had tons o' fun in a home filled with creativity and G-Rated laughter. God bless the children who grow up on a steady diet of SNL-type humor and Hollywood values. They're being robbed of a childhood that ends all too soon anyway, even when you let it last as long as possible.

(Wendy, when you find out who makes the costumes, please do go all Bon Qui Qui on them!)

Erin said...

I was desperate for my prostitot to be a slutty pirate since her daddy is a sailor. But she chose some character from Sesame street. She ruins all my fun, and her prudish ways will probably insure I'm not a grandma until my fifties. Drat.

Anonymous said...

I know!!! Halloween has become an excuse for girls to dress up and look like skanks. Its even worse with the teenagers/young adult crowd. What happened to the cute princess's and lions and regular cats???

Ginny (MAD21) said...

Yet another reason we don't even celebrate Halloween (bring on the comments/arguments).

Our girls get to do the costume-thing when we go to our local Renn Fest, and they LOVE it. Then on the actual night of Halloween, we take them out to their favorite restaurant and a movie.

We all look forward to it, and no one is missing out on anything.

Susan Berlien said...

Halloween can be tough. I hate spending a lot of money on it. But I know it's important to the kids. I remember how big of a deal it was. I don't have girls...so I don't worry too much about the skank factor :)

jasonS said...

Nice- and Erin's comment made me laugh hard- double nice.

By the way, whoever decided it would be cool for 12 year old girl's to wear juicy printed across their butt needs jail time and therapy. Something is seriously wrong with that.

Stephanie Wetzel said...

OMGoogle! Lots of comments must mean one thing: Twitter is frozen and we need to read blogs to avoid being productive.

I'm with you Kat. Nothing skanktacular will be worn my two girls. It's really hard to find something cute in size 10(kids) and up for certain costumes. Go ahead, look up "fairy" or "cat" for that age group on a costume site. I dare you!

My problem is that my boy and older girl want to be scary. Like disgusting-scare-neighborhood-children-scary. I had to nix the nasty zombie with bones protruding and the evil clown. Geez.

My youngest wanted to be a bat. But most of THOSE showed too much skin. For a 6 year old.

Okay, I'll go now and check on the Twitter again. Bye.

I'm really leaving.

Bye.

Hey, visit my blog during the outage too!

See ya.





Are you still here?


Have I filled the entire comment page yet?

kthanxbai

Marni said...

I take a day off from Twitter to work only to find out during my union-mandated Google Reader break that Twitter is down? Oh snap!

I just knew I was working while the rest of you were having fun tweeting. I'm sorry you aren't. (and kinda not since I'm not missing the fun)

And thanks Steph, for reminding me of your scary, insane clown link. Again, who has Paxil?

Heather of the EO said...

This Halloween, I'm going to walk the streets (not THAT way, sheesh) and take photos of the prostitot costumes. Then I'm going to email you all the photos. As torture.

No seriously...I don't get why a tiny little skirt and bra-like something or other would be OK for a CHILD. Blech!

Anonymous said...

I think my daughter will want to be a sack of potatoes for Halloween, or she will not want to dress up at all.

Anonymous said...

Halloween is a weird holiday. My daughter wanted her and her friends to dress in there tween wizard of oz costumes. None of the girls were tall, so the skirts covered them. And their make-up was not adult (lion face, stitches on scarecrow). But, I could see how the costumes were borderline if on taller girls and with "prostitot"/"hookerling" make-up.

I told the girls the following when picking out their Halloween costumes:

"Halloween is the time of year when child molesters stay home to take pics of kids dressed inappropriately. All you kids just come right to their door. That child molester will have enough pics and memories to last the whole year. Do you really want to be the skimpy dressed kid in THAT person's mind the whole year?"

They made "ewe gross faces" and started looking at things more appropriate.

On the flip side, Halloween is that one day where it is OK to dress a little risque. If you are a girl who has had puberty and has to deal with a period the rest of your fertile life, then you can have some leeway with Halloween. You want a girl to be comfortable with herself. You don't want to give a girl an issue that develops into some weird repressed sex thing when they grow up (like a closet full of slutty Halloween costumes they wear under their work clothes). Girls are learning to flirt and become aware of their bodies. It is OK, in my opinion, for them to express that A LITTLE. As long as lines of communication are open about "birds and bees" talk, and they have some understanding of how clothes can send the wrong message about you to a person...then it is OK to have (with-in boundaries) a little slack ONE day of the year.

That is just my opinion. Its a fine line and I know not everyone will agree.