Have you ever had to put your foot down.....

Ever have to put your foot down with your kids and feel bad doing it?

My 13 year old has reached the age where Mom is old and dumb and doesn't know anything, least of all how a young girl should dress.

For Halloween this year she decided she wanted to be a jailbird. We discussed the details very little but I told her that I would look for fabric, but if it wasn't cheap enough, we'd probably buy the costume at the store. Well, turns out that a local fabric store had a pink and black stripe fabric on clearance for $3 a yard, so I snatched it up knowing that she would love it. I was right, she was really excited. Then we started discussing the costume that she wanted to make.

Turns out, her idea of a jailbird and my idea of a jailbird are two very different things. I saw the big baggy pants and long sleeve top. She saw the cute minidress, sleeveless with matching arm sleeves and pink wings to go with it (where does that fit in with a jailbird?). It was something that after careful investigation I could only find under the category of SEXY FEMALE COSTUMES. So I told her it wasn't appropriate and she said the baggy costume I had in mind wasn't "CUTE"! Well after discussing it a couple times, I finally put my foot down. She could either do the pants and shirt combination, or a sack dress style with sleeves (knee length of course), or she would not have a costume at all, since I had already spent the money on fabric.

I felt kind of bad, like I was taking all the fun out of it, but personally going for the cutsie costumes instead of being creative and creating something from scratch takes all the fun out of Halloween.

Guess what she chose.........NO COSTUME at all. I think she thought that I would cave when she told me that and allow her what she wanted. Not a chance. I think that Halloween has been so heavily commercialized that it's no longer a fun holiday for the kids. I really don't care whether we celebrate it or not. Gone are the days of cute kids dressed up like bunnies and lions and Cinderella. Gone are the days of kids putting together their own costumes from Goodwill or the trunk in Grandma's attic.

So what would you have done? How are you feeling about Halloween these days? Have you noticed that the costumes have gotten sexier and sexier even for the little ones? I think its high time that more of us put our foot down and refuse to let our little girls dress like that. How about you?