When I was a kid, Halloween was awesome. We got to dress up as our favorite character or thing and acquire a shit ton of candy our parents wouldn’t otherwise let us consume that much of the rest of the year. I don’t remember every single costume I’ve worn, but I recall doing Ghostbusters, Spaceman Spiff, Gambit, and the Red Ranger. I am pretty sure every costume was made by my mother, none of the store-bought nonsense, so even though it wasn’t picture-perfect, that was never the point. The point was to run around the neighborhood and collect the good stuff.
An old neighborhood stomping-ground friend of mine penned a response on Facebook earlier on an interesting one-panel imgur comic which isn’t so much interesting as it is a very telling statement of many of our fellow generation.
Normally, I will try and refrain from posting one-dimensional, “trying to make some sort of topical point,” click-baitISH, one-panel comics; however, seeing the flood of idiotic hipsters dressing their kids up as something for internet vanity points I pretty much agree with this.
Really…your THREE YEAR OLD wanted to dress up as the Heath Ledger interpretation of Joker for Halloween? Noooooo, you’re trying to exploit your offspring as a prop to gain web-popularity. Let the kids pick their own damned costume. It’s THEIR HOLIDAY too.
Hell, it’s just like gamer-parents trying to shove Nintendo classic down their kid’s respective throats with some idiotic message like “PARENTING DONE RIGHT.” At least my parents had enough respect for me, they allowed me to develop my own tastes and idiosyncrasies. That’s just as bad as DECLARING THEM A CHRISTIAN right out of the womb, before allowing their brains develop enough to make a rational decision about religion and theology on their own.
I won’t lie, I’ve quipped a few jokes about subjecting my niece to Japanese anime someday, she’s come upstairs as I am watching something and stood there watching it with me. I would love to have a daughter that would spend a Saturday with me watching super robot cartoons. But it’s not really to placate myself in any way, it’s because my childhood was spent embroiled in universes. When I played with Lego, with other toys, I constructed a story, characters, and played them out. I had Star Trek-inspired firefights with myself. We did Power Rangers-style terrible action moves in fourth grade recess. Children are supposed to be able to pick up something they enjoy and interpret it their own way. I am afraid that we, the geek and nerd parents, are taking that control away from them, to placate ourselves. We so very badly want other geek and nerd parents to see how great we are that we force things children do not understand for the purposes of one-upping someone else.
Would I want my kids to enjoy video games, anime, and nerd culture with me? Sure. Why not? I think it is great when I see parents interact with their children with things, and I would love nothing more than to introduce them to the things I grew up enjoying. But I am not going to name my kids after my favorite nerd character, I am not going to slather their baby room or bedroom with nerd themes. I am not going to dress them up in nerd outfits or accessories. But if they ask me to, if they express that desire or interest, then I most certainly will. My children can like whatever they want to like, and dislike whatever they want to dislike, and none of it has to be the same as me.
Unless it is Twilight.