Bellyitch Rewind

My fellow Washington Times Communities columnist, Rebekah Kuschmider, had a thing or two to say about the trend of sexy Halloween costumes for tween girls on her “So Here’s the Thing” blog recently:

So here’s the thing: kids aren’t sexy.

We’re nearing the peak of the Halloween revelry and little kids everywhere are strutting their stuff in costumes. My son is dressing as an astronaut. Because I suck at all things crafty, I got his costume at one of those temporary Halloween stores that spring up like orange toadstools on Rockville Pike every fall.

The costume is surprisingly awesome and comes complete with a NASA badge on it. (It did not come with a helmet but Amazon remedied that!) When my little boy appeared at Boo at the Zoo in his astronaut gear, complete with his snow boots to simulate space boots, he got lots of positive attention from other Zoo Booers.

A three-year old being an astronaut is cute, age-appropriate, consistent with my son’s current set of life-goals and non-commercial. Not that I would have minded much if he wanted to be Buzz Lightyear, but it was nice to escape the bonds of Disney and pay homage to real astronauts instead of the Space Rangers. And it was REALLY nice that nothing in the boys aisle of that costume superstore would have looked at home on a stripper pole.

Sure, the girl’s section had the requisite witches, princesses, and superheroes but there were also “flirty” costumes which were just tweened-down versions of the “sexy” genre so popular among women who are old enough to make informed choices. I don’t know about you, but putting a ten-year-old in a “flirty” cop’s outfit doesn’t make me want to smile with pride that this child aspires to be a law enforcement office. It makes me cringe that her parents are sending out of the house dressed like the entertainment for a bachelor party.

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