Boo! Ooops! Sorry I Scared You!

I love Halloween! I don't know if it's always been my favorite holiday, but as an adult I look forward to decorating for this holiday more than Christmas, and have much less stress associated with it, after all there are no presents to buy, just costumes and candy and a few decorations.

That said, I had an interesting conversation with my good girlfriends last night.

As a little background, we all live in the same community here in Minnesota. It's a small first-ring suburb of Minneapolis that has a quality of a small town in that you get to know people in the community by sight just by living here long enough. You can't make it through a Target trip without running into several people you know, and it seems like everyone you know knows several other people you know, even if you did't know they knew them. :)

My aforementioned girlfriends and I all have kids that are roughly the same age, but many of them go to different schools, my kids' school being the strictest and sometimes too PC of them all. I will frequently ask if new policies enacted in our school have been mirrored in theirs and usually the answer is no, with perplexed headshakes and chuckles. Last year it was the institution of a very strict snack policy which allowed only certain very healthy foods in the classroom. Last night, my question was on Halloween in their schools.

Officially I think all or our schools have "Fall Parties," with the understanding that we are really celebrating Halloween, though we're not allowed to say so. The kids are allowed to dress in costume and we play games, have snacks, and do art projects with a leaning towards the Halloween theme. This year, however, is different - at least at my kids' school. It was announced this year that some students find Halloween too scary and therefore our Fall Party will indeed be a Fall Party with no ties to Halloween.

It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal, right? And it's not really, but part of me is really sad about this. Like Thanksgiving (which we are allowed to acknowledge in my children's school even though they go to a Spanish Immersion school where the countries focused on do not celebrate it), Halloween is a distinct American tradition. Sure, it's celebrated in some other countries, but it's as American as football, baseball, and apple pie. The value of dressing up and being able to create another identity for yourself - being able to express some part of you in a way that isn't done so on a daily basis through normal, everyday clothes and routines, is so important and enriching (as said by my friend Rachel, who is a kindergarten teacher).

All of the schools in our community are IB schools - that's International Baccalaureate for those unfamiliar. This means that they have a distinct focus on a global view of the world and their educational focus. Though my kids' school is not an official IB school, we follow they same curriculum and have a global viewpoint simply by being a Spanish school. My friend Jen had a fantastic point, which is, we seem to have adopted such a global point of view that we are no longer able to embrace and celebrate our own culture. We have devalued uniquely American traditions in an effort to embrace everyone else's.

Is there something wrong with being an American in a global society? There are very few things we seem to be able to claim as American. We are such a hodgepodge of other cultures and traditions that we don't have many things that are just ours. We've gotten rid of all ties to religious holidays in the schools, which I see as fine as an effort to include all, regardless of religious affiliation, but Halloween is a completely secular holiday and should be looked at as such.

I've frequently questioned why, as a Spanish Immersion school we don't celebrate Dia de los Muertos, a Mexican holiday which honors and celebrates deceased ancestors and incorporates elaborate skeletons in it's decorations. There is no answer for this question, other than my own assumption that if Halloween is too scary, then the skeletons of Dia de los Muertos would really be too much.

I'm sure these policies will not be reversed now that they are set in motion, but I for one will be mourning the loss of my favorite holiday in my kids' globally minded school.

I Plead Guilty

The dog is whining, the dishes await, dinner isn't cooking itself, and yet I'm here writing this blog. There's this part of me, some rebellious part, that loves that I'm not doing these things I'm "supposed" to be doing. And another that feels guilty for not tackling my long to do list and a million other things that could be done around the house.

This brings me to todays topic. Mom guilt. It's neck and neck with Catholic guilt but unlike being a Catholic if you're really good at being a mom, your guilt probably never goes away. My apologies to Catholics if this offends - I am only speaking from my experience through friends and family with ties to the Catholicism.

We mothers are champions at feeling guilty about everything we do and everything we don't do. We feel guilty about passing along genetic factors that we have no control over. We feel guilty for not spending every moment of the day with our babies. We feel guilty when our children say we're being too harsh or too overprotective, and we feel guilty when we are too lenient or relaxed.

If you're not on high alert every minute of the day, you must be a horrible mom. Right?

Why don't we as mom's seem to talk more about the hard things we go through? I'm not trying to be whiney here, I promise. My point is more one of community building. I meet so many young moms going through the same things I went through 5 or 6 years ago when my kids were toddlers and preschoolers, but I assure them it's all normal and give them advice on how to help their situations. They are so grateful and almost surprised that other moms go through the same things. Are we, as a society too concerned with appearing to have the perfect family that we can't open up to others who could probably use an ear or at least a reassurance that they and their children are normal? That what they are going through is the same thing you are? I wonder if we could get more respite from guilt if we chose to see other mothers not as competition in the game of who's family is better, but rather as other passengers on the same ride down a bumpy and rough road.

It's not easy being a parent. Why not try to help others along the way? You may just wind up helping yourself.