Does Halloween Do More Harm Than Good for Our Children?
How bad could it be?
I’ve performed enough funerals to know that death is no laughing matter even in the best of circumstances. Even for the believer in Christ. This is just one of the reasons why my least favorite “holiday” is Halloween. Other reasons should be obvious. But just in case they aren’t, let me just say there’s not much biblical about it. Except the parts about death and dying and gravestones. But who wants to celebrate that? Obviously, millions.
This blog entry is not a personal attack on anyone so don’t be offended by anything I say here. Nor is it intended to be a casting of doubt upon anyone’s Christianity. It is merely an observation about ideas. It seems to me that multitudes of people either can’t see, or don’t want to see, or simply choose to ignore the loud and clear idea behind Halloween. It’s not just about the candy.
The majority of Halloween decorations have a common theme: death. Ghosts are the spirits of dead people, and with the exception of Casper the Friendly Ghost, they carry rather unpleasant connotations: Disembodied wandering spirits that haunt abandoned houses and scare the bejeebies out of people.
Skeletons require no explanation except to ask how they move around so much with nary a muscle to be found on them. Witches also need no explanation, especially the ones riding brooms. They are bad news. “The Wicked Witch of the West” comes to mind, with the emphasis on “wicked”.
Jack-o-lanterns have been historically associated with equally not-good stuff. Then throw in the warlocks and the vampires and the headless horsemen and the mummies and the zombies and the vampires and the Frankensteins and the werewolves, etc. etc. and you have a fairly unsavory cast of characters that make for a good Halloween Trick or Treat outing.
I’ve seen decorations that consist of tombstones and plastic semi-decomposed bodies sticking out of the ground, and even little grave stones in a baby stroller complete with plastic rats; a particularly distasteful if not cruel display of the Halloween spirit of death.
On the more pragmatic side of things, there is a ton of money wasted on all of this. I’m sure there are more than a few families being fed from the revenues generated, which may be the only redeeming value of this “holiday”. But certainly we would be flabbergasted that so many Americans, supposedly in the midst of the worst economic recession since forever, could waste so much perfectly good money totally unnecessarily. Really. Halloween is entirely unnecessary. There is just no good, legitimate reason to do the Halloween thing. “Fun” doesn’t count as a legitimate reason for Halloween when you don’t have a job and you can’t keep the lights on.
But that is all secondary to my main point in writing this blog. My main concern is the effect all of this celebration over death and the dead must surely have on at least some of the myriads of kids who are led up and down the streets of suburban America from the time they are old enough to walk and simultaneously carry a plastic jack-o-lantern to haul in tons of sugary cavity-inducing booty.
Here’s my question: Do (at least some) children who participate in Halloween get the sense that death, while it may be scary, isn’t real? Kinda like the whole Santa Claus thing? It’s only make-believe?
This issue strikes close to home for me. Sharon and I have buried two children. It was no fun at all. Death is very real, and it very really affects children everywhere, not just in so-called third-world countries. Halloween strongly suggests that death and the grave are a joke, a source of weird, scary entertainment. If this mindset is reinforced by the popular vampire culture that has taken our youth by storm, and by the multitudes of horror flicks out there, I strongly suspect there is more than a little bit of callousness, or at the very least, a serious lack of concern towards the reality that is death, on the part of millions of kids.
In other words, Death and Hell and the grave are great fun until someone dies. I’ve witnessed with my own eyes the obvious lack of preparation on the part of many teens and young adults to deal with the sudden termination of someone’s life. But you don’t need to perform funeral services to see it. All that is needed a school shooting. Be patient. Sadly it won’t be long enough before it happens again. But when it does, we’ll see yet again the instantaneous arrival of hoards of grief and trauma counselors being trucked in to deal with the gigantic emotional trauma these kids go through when their friends are killed. I suspect Halloween and other forms of entertainment that capitalize on death contribute greatly to this inability to cope with death when it actually happens.
Just how much does Halloween contribute to this? Who knows? I certainly don’t. But I’m fairly certain that at least in some cases, it contributes far, far more to the problem than it does to the solution. Almost no children are in any way prepared to face death. I suspect this is primarily true because their parents are equally unprepared.
I understand Halloween is fun. I knocked on more than a few doors myself as a child, and I’ve rung doorbells for my own children in years past. There is no doubt about it: Halloween is fun, and parents get a kick out of dressing their kiddos up and taking pictures of them in their ridiculousness. The costumes are often very cute and even pets get in on the festivities.
But is it really a subliminal message that we communicate to children who are too young to understand the finality of death and the prospects of Heaven and Hell beyond this life? I believe it is an overt and obvious message. When we make light of death and treat life as though it is a trivial matter, then what will happen when a boyfriend is hit by a truck, or a girlfriend dies from a serious illness? It’s all fun and games until someone is suddenly ripped away and their life vanishes.
There are various ways in which we can help our children understand the realities of life and death and prepare them for the inevitability of the cessation of life. While I don’t want to sound morbid, I sincerely believe we do our children great harm by sheltering them from these realities by making death just another make-believe game. Undoubtedly we do particular damage by pretending once a year that death and the grave are just the product of someone’s imagination. No. Death is real. Grandparents die. Pets die. Children die. Parents die. Eventually, we all die. Our mortality rate is 100%.
Even Jesus Christ, the Son of God died. But His death, burial, and resurrection are the most glorious realities of all! While Halloween tries to treat death as a fiction in order to protect or insulate children from its reality, the death and resurrection of Christ teaches us all that there is hope for an eternal and joyous life beyond the grave.
Listen to the words of the One who died, who rose again, and who now lives forever in glory: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:21&24 ESV)
Any time is a good time, but maybe Halloween would be a particularly good time to pull your kids aside and reflect on death, and life, and eternal life in Jesus Christ. And on November 1st, go buy as much candy as you want on sale!
