Thank you! Yes, I am with you on a lot of that. I do not pretend to be able to protect my children fully from the world. I believe in living in the world and not isolated from it. (Which is pretty impossible to do anyway, especially, if you live in a city like us!). In this post I am speaking specifically about protecting young children here. I think most people want to be decent when it comes to this. I realize that with older children and teenagers a lot of these things are not issues. Again, I am not throwing blanket statements out there or trying to get people to put away fully their decorations. I am just trying to get people to think. Consider timing, placement, their neighbors, very circumstantial.

I know our family is different in that we choose not to glorify the dark parts of Halloween. I realize not everyone feels the same way and we cannot expect others to conform to our thinking. Again, just asking people who want to be considerate to think about these things. For the record, my sister has boys and they are very much into Halloween so I totally understand your point of view!

Thanks again for taking the time to comment and get us all thinking, too!

As for Day of the Dead, in theory the celebration is at a graveyard, just as Christmas is to honor the birth of Jesus- not Santa Claus. But the reality is that some of the Mexican families we know in California and the authentic Mexican restaurants decorate with skulls that would probably scare young kids. I guess the question is where do you draw the line and who gets to decide where that line is. This is wonderful opportunity to teach kids that scary isn’t always bad.

I will always error on the side of educating, not sanitizing my kids lives and hope that others will behave in a respectful manner. Your post touched a nerve and I guess I just hope that we never forget that protecting our kids does not mean shielding them but teaching them. I understand how distressing it can be when your child is frightened and we all want to make that go away (yes, even me!). I get it., But we can’t and shouldn’t expect that never to happen. Learning to deal with life if the best gift we can give our kids.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment! Maybe I did not express my thought as clearly as I had intended but I never intended to call for a censoring of celebrations or the doing away with spooky decorations. I am all for freedom of speech and expression! But I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking people to be a considerate in how they do that. Sure a lot of people don’t care, but I think some do. Like you said, putting the horror decorations in the back, not putting them near the sidewalk, waiting until after dark to do the scary stuff to trick or treaters. I am all for that. At the same time, I know I cannot expect everyone to do that so it is up to me as a parent to try to protect my children how I see fit.

As for the Day of the Dead, I addressed that on Facebook today. While there are skeletons involved (which I have no major problem with – my daughter has one in her classroom) the actual holiday is about honoring and bringing gifts to the dead, usually at their actual gravesites or nearby. It is not about celebrating murder and violence and grisly ways to die – which is what I was referring to in my post. Also, it is celebrated on 1-2 days usually, not for an entire month or more out in someone’s front yard. (But correct me if I am wrong!).

Thank you for sharing! I know we have to try to protect the little ones from that stuff, but sometimes it’s hard!

What a thoughtful idea! I never would have thought of that so thank you for sharing. So many children have those allergies….and so many candies are made in facilities with nuts.

I’m glad the Spirit store is at least trying! Maybe others will follow their lead! Thanks for taking the time to comment!