I don’t see this as having anything to do with what one believes as a Christian. Even if one were non-Christian, it’s very appropriate for parents to ojectively examine whether immersing their children in ghoulish, “blood scenes, and icons of death and mayhem is appropriate.
Last week I went to pick up some balloons at the local party store. Since it is close to Halloween, of course the entire store was decked out in gross stuff, with tapes of screams etc. blaring.
I noticed a couple of things. The worst was that several cars pulled up and out jumped some young couples with toddlers. The closer they got to the store, the more their children started resisting, then outright crying, then dragging their feet. I heard one mom yelling at her 4 or 5 year old daughter, “Don’t be such a baby, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Well, no. I don’t see any reason to expose a child at that age to something they do not have the ability to understand and, more importantly, don’t WANT to be exposed to.
Same thing with parents exposing their children to scary movies.
What is the point of that? Why drag a child, crying and shaking in fear, through a gauntlet of blaring, gross, stylized “Death, Destruction and Mayhem”? WHY?
I simply don’t see how anyone finds such subjects entertaining or fun. That said, do what you want when you are old enough to not worry about monsters under the bed. In the meantime, I think it’s quite sick to expose-—never mind force kids to expose themselves to-—what to them are frightening images of death and pain that have no redeeming (fun or entertaining) value to them at all.
Frankly, children sometimes react with the same horror to puppies.
Should we legitimize that fear, too?
Good points. Halloween has really ceased to be a "kids only" event. It's now embraced by adults and in many cases they've taken their own particular immature ideas and halloweenized them.