Really Want to Know a Parent? Then Watch How They Do Halloween

But Halloween is the ultimate litmus test for parenting. How you deal with the various facets of the holiday tell people more about your parenting than any playground pow-wow. Really want to know a mom? Know how she does Halloween.

• The Hippie-Dippy Mom: No store-bought costumes here. She got her kids’ stunning costumes off Etsy and they look so good and homemade you sort of hate her. They are inevitably owl-themed. Her kids carry reusuable bags instead of those plastic pumpkins (the waste!), and she not only roasted the (locally grown, organic) pumpkin seeds from the jack o’ lantern, she also made cookies from the innards. She caved and lets her kids trick-or-treat. But they know they have to trade their candy for either a toy or dye-free, organic candy that never tastes as good as the real thing. That’s okay. Her kids have no idea. She does though, and sneaks all the Milky Ways out of their bags.

• The Pinterest Mom: Like the Hippie-Dippy mom, she doesn’t buy her costumes. She makes them out of popsicle sticks, an old t-shirt, mod podge, and spray glitter and they look fabulous. Her kids carry the classic plastic pumpkins for nostalgic photo ops during their exhaustively documented trick-or-treating. She used a drill to make reusable jack o’ lanterns out of fake pumpkins. One of them features the first letter of her family’s last name. In fact, she’s decorated her entire house, from mantle to porch, singlehandedly driving both the Halloween and glitter economies. Everyone knows she gives out the best candy.

• The Horror-Show Mom: She has a sign that says, “Eat Local” featuring a zombie. This stays up all year. She goes all-out gore for the decorations and delights in dressing up to actually scare the trick-or-treaters. She also has that candy bowl where the hand pops out when you reach inside. Her kids probably dress like extras from The Walking Dead complete with realistic zombie makeup. She’s bought a lot of fake blood and she’s not afraid to use it.

• The Overprotective Mom: Trick-or-treating must take place in a controlled environment, probably at a trunk-or-treat where she knows practically everyone. She’s never more than two feet from her little monsters who have dressed in generic Target costumes. She’s modified the eyeholes of any masks, however, so everyone can see, and trimmed any costume hems to prevent tripping. After the fun’s over, she exhaustively checks over any piece of candy for tampering, spoilage, or slight unwrapping. During this process, she eats all the Reese’s Cups.

• The Really, Really, Really Festive Mom: She likes Halloween more than her kids and she’s not afraid to show it. Her house is stuffed with cutesy witches, smiling ghosts and cartoon skeletons. Ever wonder who buys all those 20 foot blow-up black cats? She’s got two in her yard. Hocus Pocus has been playing on a loop for weeks as has Thriller and The Monster Mash. She’s known for her giant Halloween party, which features homemade gingerbread men skeletons, actual bobbing for apples, and pumpkin spice everything. Her kids scrounge whatever costumes they can.

• The Slack-Ass Mom: She knows it’s Halloween because her kids won’t shut up about it. She puts off costume buying ’til the last minute when they’re forced to A) raid the dress-up clothes, or B) dress as hobos (the bindle makes them inoffensive!). She takes her kids to whatever trick-or-treat’s around, either the neighborhood or some church fall festival (she doesn’t belong to the church). Afterwards, she raids their loot for Jolly Ranchers and tells them it’s their Halloween tithe.

• The Star Wars/Hogwarts family: These are geeks with a plan. Everyone, down to the smallest baby, has an assigned costume they’ve been planning/buying/making for months; the more realistic, the better. They trick-or-treat en masse, reveling in the ooh’s and ah’s. Their house isn’t much decorated, and they aren’t home to hand out candy, but damn if they aren’t having a great time letting their nerd flag fly. Dad steals all the retro candy.

• The “Normal” Mom: Her kids are dressed as some superhero she’s only marginally comfortable with and brandishing plastic weapons she really wishes they hadn’t noticed. She trick-or-treats wherever she can get this over with as soon as possible, and probably turns off her lights against the hordes of trick-or-treaters. Not because she’s a Halloween scrooge; she just forgot to buy candy. She spends the next month raiding the Halloween goodies, with a special eye towards the Three Musketeers. But on any given day, she knows exactly how many Reese’s Cups are left.

Most likely you’re a mashup of a few different moms, and maybe you have changed from year to year, but we all know we’ve seen these kids and their parents at Halloween. Where do you fall on the Halloween spectrum?

A mama to three sons, 4 and under, Elizabeth dropped out of academia to procreate and spend way too much time tie-dying. A certified educator with Babywearing International, she still misses teaching freshman English. Elizabeth practices attachment parenting out of sheer laziness, and writes about social justice and crunchy parenting at Manic Pixie Dream Mama. Her work has appeared on the Huffington Post, xojane, Mamapedia, Today Show Parents, and Time.com.