"You can be anything you want to be" and other lies we tell our children

Good tidings and Happy Halloween! This week on Mom.me I wrote about how Bo wanted to be "a bathroom" for Halloween but I had to tell her, "no" because I am a terrible person who occasionally has to shatter the dreams of her children. 

Here’s the thing: I really want her to feel like she can be a bathroom for Halloween. I want to her to feel like she can BE ANYTHING in this life, but also, there’s a part of me that realizes the reality, and the thing is, she will never be a bathroom. Not in real life and not for Halloween either, because I am not that crafty of a person, nor do I have the time to build a bathroom costume for a small child. Perhaps in my next life.

And so, after much hand wringing and deliberation, I sat Bo down and told her straight up that a bathroom wasn’t going to happen.

“It’s a great idea and I think you would make a BEAUTIFUL and completely entertaining bathroom, but there’s no time to make one and there are no stores that sell them and, well … unless you want a white T-shirt with the words 'I’m a bathroom' written on them with a Sharpie, you might want to wear something else as your costume.”

Bo still hasn't settled on a costume for tonight, although she decided this morning, at 6:55am, that she wanted to wear the spider costume she refused to wear last year to school. And THEN she wanted to be a "spider riding a bike" and tried to bring her bike with her into the car which, No. Sorry, sister. And then we got to school and she's like, "I think I want to be a dragon, now. Or Elsa. Or The Three Amigos." 

(Two nights ago Bo insisted on sleeping in the Three Amigos costume I found at a thrift store a few weeks back. Something tells me it won't make the cut for tonight's outing, however. Hey, there's always Brian Krakow.)

In the meantime, I will leave you with this and wish you all well on tonight's tricks and treats. 

Halloween, much like life, isn’t about being whatever we want to be, but understanding that while we can be MOST anything we want to be, there will always be things we cannot be, places we cannot reach, bathroom costumes we cannot build ... and that’s OK, too.

Rules are made to be broken, of course. But limitations are an important thing to communicate as well. For me, this is one of the hardest parts of parenting because, with all my heart, I want my kids to be able to be 'bathrooms for Halloween' if that’s what makes them happy.

Unfortunately, when that happiness depends on my ability to build a bathroom costume in five days with 89087908 other things on a plate overflowing with insanity, I have to rain on their parades.

“Welcome to life, kid,” I say, smoking a cigar. “Welcome to life.”

You can read more of this week's column, here.

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Happy Halloween!

GGC