Meghan Harmening | Opinion Co-Editor

Oh, Halloween. I remember the days when it seemed like good, clean fun. I would dress up in an old theater costume I had or a makeshift homemade outfit that seemed to fit the bill as a “costume” in my head. Halloween was always spent at my grandma’s house passing out candy, watching the different neighborhood children walk past the front door in a variety of costumes.

It all seemed harmless at the time – children dressing up as someone or something foreign to them and receiving candy for no good reason. However, in college I am beginning to see a completely different side to Halloween. It is all just a bad excuse. An excuse to dress slutty. An excuse to get drunk. An excuse to flaunt that body you have – or wish you had.

And for children and teenagers, it is just as bad of an excuse to dress up. What are we as young adults, aunts, uncles, or even parents teaching the children in our lives? It’s okay to be someone you aren’t… that’s not right. It doesn’t make sense that we teach our children to be unique, independent, and to work for the things they need and want. Halloween defies all of those lessons. Children should be unique yet many buy the same princess costume as hundreds of other little trick-or-treaters. Teenagers should be independent yet society strives to group them all into a single category and to not challenge others’ views. Our kids should be working hard for the things they want rather than just giving them handouts. Yet Halloween is a prime example of handouts. If you dress up as someone or something else and conform to society’s idea of the perfect Halloween night, you get a prize – candy!

How does all of this lead to a generation of unique, independent, and hardworking individuals? It doesn’t. I’m not saying that one night dictates an entire generation’s future. However, it isn’t just kids who dress up. As we’ve seen, it flows over into the college years where the costumes get skimpier, tighter, and with one goal in mind for young ladies – how much sexiness can I get away with?

Society has allowed both the young and the even younger to get away with more and more. Where does it stop? When can kids go back to being rewarded for actually being successful in a skill rather than getting candy for wearing a costume? When can young adults go back to wearing unique and creative costumes that show more dignity and less skin? Halloween won’t be the sole blow to a generation of hard-working individuals, but rather one step on the journey to entitlement syndrome. So when Halloween comes around next time, who will you choose to be: a super-slutty sailor or a modest Rosie the Riveter?