Eilene Zimmerman's Blog

BLOG: The Skeletons In My Closet

I’ve been doing research for a story and as part of that, came across a woman, Nancy Folbre, who wrote a book called “Valuing Children.” She’s an economist at UMass, and her book isn’t so technical that a layperson like me can’t understand it. One thing she writes in her introduction that struck me—and for any parents reading, it will resonate with you too–is that as a society we produce things in order to care for our families and ourselves. We sometimes forget, Folbre writes, that the process of caring is also a process of production.

She says the language we use in describing how we raise and educate our kids makes it appear that we are doing it so that our children will produce more things–ultimately increasing the country’s gross domestic product. Maybe not even a bad thing, since the purpose of GDP “is to make our lives better now and for generations to come,” she says. But here’s the part where Folbre sounds more like a poet than an economist.

“Children look ahead,” she writes. “They tug us away from our immediate self-interest toward a longer-run concern for the future of something bigger and more difficult to define.” Which likely explains why we invest so much of our money, time and selves into said kids—we are, at heart, hopeful people. We want our kids to have rich, full lives but we also want them to contribute to the rich, full lives of others. I don’t know if what I just spent at the Halloween Superstore will guarantee the future success of my kids, but it certainly should.

Last week, after we finished Halloween shopping and stopped at In-N-Out to eat–of all things to eat at a burger place– grilled cheese sandwiches and fries, I was thinking how my spending on costumes and decorations for the house would benefit my kids in the long run. Or how it might benefit society. I decided my spending might be helping the GDP (which, by the way, is the total monetary value of all goods and services produced in the U.S.) The more illuminated skeletons in shrouds people like me buy to hang on the front door, the more will be produced. Money made from those decorations—and paychecks received by the people who make them–will be spent on other things.

In reality of course, my spending this year was done without a thought to the nation’s GDP. It’s really more the act of a desperate parent. This week my kids turn 12 and 14, rapidly approaching the age limit on trick-or-treating. For years, we have had a big group of parents and children walk our neighborhood on Halloween night. In recent years, they come back to our house afterwards for soup, chili, beer, wine and whatever other parents care to bring. We eat and talk and watch the kids in costumes spill their loot out onto the family room floor, make trades with one another, throw candy at one another and gorge themselves on various configurations of sugar. It’s the most wonderful thing, because it’s a group of children outside of school pressures and adolescent cliques just being kids.

I realize this will inevitably end. Already my daughter is making noises about trick-or-treating next year with some friends from her school. It’s another one of those moments that have been written about ad nauseum by others. The problem is universal. We want them to grow up, of course, but then again, we don’t. I want Halloween to last for the next twenty years. I want my children to someday bring their children here to trick-or-treat. I’ll still make the soup. And the chili. And let the kids throw tootsie rolls behind the television. I know it’s fleeting. I know I know the money I spent on the fake blood, the light-up skull, the ridiculous “Danger: Haunted Zone” sign in the family room, was probably overkill. We already had ghost lights and a fake half-decayed skull on the piano. Was overpriced skeleton garland also necessary? No. I should have stuck to a Halloween budget. We do it for Christmas and Hanukah, don’t we?

But there’s something about Halloween—even more than the winter holidays for me—that screams “children.” Christmas, for example, isn’t limited by age. Gifts under the tree don’t disappear after you turn 15. But there are few 17-year-olds that want to dress up as witches or vampires and trick-or-treat. Which means the joy I feel when I see my kids and my friend’s kids so earnestly inhabiting their costumes, trying hard to embody the green M&M shell their mom made, adjusting the wig, or the fangs or the hat… running with the frenetic, crazy joy only a 10-year-old can when faced with yet another front door, and the possibility that this candy will be better than the last.

So this year may be our transitioning year. Nothing’s for certain. Next year I could wind up spending almost nothing on Halloween. My son might lose his enthusiasm and just throw a white sheet over his head, cut some holes for eyes and call it a day. Or I could actually spend more, hoping that by throwing money at Halloween, it will charm my children into staying children a little longer.

Posted by Eilene Zimmerman on Mon, Oct 18th, 2010
Last updated Mon, Oct 18th, 2010

«	Previous post: BLOG: Grateful For My House And, Yes, Even My Mortgage
»	Next post: Taking My Own Advice

PRINT EMAIL SHARE Tweet

More posts by this blogger

blog comments powered by Disqus