Say it With Me: "Booing is Bad"

My nine year old came to me a few minutes ago and uttered these ominous words:

“Who are we ‘Booing’ this year?”

My response was “We’re not fucking ‘Booing’ anybody because ‘Booing’ is the stupidest fucking thing ever.” I am probably paraphrasing.

If you’re lucky enough not to know what Booing is, let me enlighten you. Booing consists of gathering up a bunch of Halloween-related crap—candy, plastic spider rings, shit with pictures of Frankenstein on it—putting it in some kind of autumn-themed container, taking it to someone’s house, ringing their door bell and running away. You’re supposed to include a piece of paper with a droll and adorable poem about how they’ve been “ Booed” and now they’re burdened with sharing the love in the form of Booing some new people. Once you’ve been “Booed” you tape a piece of paper with another charming Halloween-themed image on your front door so your neighbors know you’ve already been screwed. I mean, Booed.

This happened to us about three years ago, and since the kids were younger, and it was a novelty, we played along. We bought some cheap junk and a few plastic pumpkins and brushed up on our ringing-the-doorbell-before-running-away skills. The kids had fun at school the next couple of days, listening to their mystified schoolmates try to figure out who could have done this, before they finally ‘fessd up as the culprits. Ha ha, we got you.

Then Christmas rolled around. And Booing became Elfing. And then just before Easter, Elfing morphed into Egging. This shit was getting out of control.

I have a plea for you parents. Please, please can we stop the fucking Booing? It’s cute. Once. But isn’t it bad enough that I have to buy Halloween costumes and candy, and make giant spider webs out of twine on my front porch from which to hang enormous fake spiders, and dig the nasty slimy guts of out unsuspecting gourds and hack faces into them without also having to spend $30 on cheap plastic shit that no one wants in their houses anyway for putting in “boo buckets”?

I’d also appreciate it if we could knock that shit off for all the other holidays—Christmas and Easter and St. Patrick’s Day. The day I open my front door and find a “pot of gold” with a lot of shamrock themed garbage in it on my doormat, along with a note that says, “You’ve been visited by Lachlan the Leprechaun!” it’s highly likely I will beat the shit out of someone.

I realize there are going to be parents who label me a grouchy bitch who wants my children to grow up without any joyous memories of carefree holiday delights. I suspect these are the same parents who insist on giving out birthday party goodie bags, celebrate shit like National Rubber Band Day, and who have personally authored three lists of “101 Elf on a Shelf Ideas.” But you know, we all spent our childhoods without Booing and Egging and all that other crap and I don’t personally feel that I was in any way deprived or missed out. Despite what these parents would think was a clearly disadvantaged upbringing, I did not grow up to rip off liquor stores, or set fire to orphanages. I am a respected member of my community. I don’t have a police record, a history of visits to rehab, or watch “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”

I just hate the overboard. I am not the first parent to complain of this. In fact, as much as any other debate—sugar consumption, sleep habits, spanking—I think the parenting world may most quickly choose up sides over the excessive celebration of holidays versus the more restrained let’s-set-the-bar-low-to-make-it-easier-for-ourselves-to-achieve-success  camps. My position is that kids who spend their childhoods constantly surrounded by confetti, glitter, and cupcakes decorated like Duncan Butterflies to celebrate National Yoyo Day are children who are going to face crushing disappointment as adults when no one else in their office thinks their announcement that June is Accordion Awareness Month, and therefore the “hold music” on the company’s phone system should be switched over to polka tunes for the next 30 days is a fantastic idea. That’s the kind of thing that almost guarantees they’ll be labeled assholes. I think this is something we should strive to spare our children.