what is bothering us
Stories about the things we can’t get out of our heads (and feed).
Photo illustration: Stevie Remsburg. Photo Getty Images
When I was a child, my father went all out on Valentine’s Day for me and my four siblings. It was a pancake breakfast, and each plate had a combination of a small teddy bear with a heart, a chocolate rose wrapped in foil, and a Hallmark card. , among other trinkets. My father was not what you would call an OTT parent by today’s standards, or even back then. In some cases, it was clear that the teddy bears had reused last year’s forgotten harvest. Sometimes the cards had sections of someone else’s writing cut out. But it was his and he loved doing it, and for a kid who is by no means privileged but not spoiled on the budget of a family raising five kids, it’s pretty special. It felt like.
But parenting has changed a lot in 30 years. I also started establishing my own holiday traditions for my two children, but I had some hesitation. Things like a sumptuous Valentine’s breakfast, which at the time felt like a private and genuinely motivated holiday good deed, now, when refracted through the fun-house mirror of modern parenting, become performance, perfectionism. , reeks of careless consumerism. Is it no longer possible to experience that sweet “reward your child” moment without the intrusion of the digital gaze?
Naturally, that brings us to “boo baskets,” collections of treats and trinkets that are Halloween’s answer to Christmas stockings. You’ve probably seen it pop up on various feeds, especially if you follow momfluencers. As The Cut columnist Kathryn Jether-Morton wrote earlier this month, Boo Baskets appears to have started as a kind of creepy Secret Santa. Secretly dropping small baskets or buckets filled with candy and plastic toys and trinkets (aka junk) found in the seasonal aisles of CVS on one neighbor’s doorstep, then leaving them on another neighbor’s doorstep (one Reddit user) As a commenter pointed out, the proliferation of Ring cameras has probably ruined some of the fun). This trend has become the gift-giving equivalent of a couple’s costume. Scroll through your Explore feed or FYP right now and you’ll see tons of posts with suggestions for what your husband or BF can put in your boo basket this year (gua sha) tools that scream both creepy and comforting to me (But what do I know?). A never-ending stream of these videos, mostly women, brag about this year’s harvest and encourage the men present (I’m guessing mostly women watching) to boo them. In one TikTok unboxing video, the poster pulls out what he calls an “adoptable ghost.” Her boyfriend said, “I thought it was a waste, so I had to buy it.” Of course.
But now boo baskets have reached a boss level of evolution, becoming another way for parents to add more volume to their childhood magic by buying things and posting about them. Many people probably gift this basket on October 1st as a kind of hype for the season. Do a quick search and you’ll find countless children posing happily in plastic bathtubs painted with jack-o’-lanterns filled with Halloween Mad Libs. and teens with mummy squishy bulls and dainty wicker baskets containing plush orange and brown blankets and pumpkin-scented face masks. They may be cousins of the Switch Witch, a mythical being in which parents are thought to trade their children’s candy for inedible toys and trinkets, or they may be Easter baskets filled with goodies. There are cases. One blog offers 20 different ideas for boobasket themes along with tutorials.
Reading the comments on Reddit threads and Facebook groups where the contents and validity of Boobasket are discussed makes me think we’re talking politics or attending an advanced seminar on feminist ethics. Maybe. Some commenters are appalled at the idea of yet another parental act (let’s be honest, a mother act), but of course, like most child-related acts these days, This involves buying tons of crap (“Totally unnecessary consumerism!” exclaimed one Reddit head). During one heated discussion, someone said, “I’m so grateful that we don’t have to raise small children in this day and age.” Seen from this perspective, this practice helps us as parents (read again, mothers) to make the most of every moment of our childhood and to let others know that we are doing so. It’s a reminder of how we’ve gotten used to it. It’s hard to find joy in that.
Others want to be left alone to enjoy the OTT style. What if you just love Halloween or, as one Reddit poster puts it, come from a “very spooky family”? Kids are only young once. Next year, they’ll have sex, grow beards, and not care about jack-o-lantern pajamas. After all, caring is a sacred act, and if packing popcorn in a spider-shaped bag for your little one feels sacred to you, who are we to judge?
As with most discussions about parenting, there are good points on all sides. And the excitement isn’t just online. In my experience, it comes from honest overwhelming the endless barrage of messages that confuse our parenting instincts. Many of its messages are actually supported by corporations and confuse our parenting instincts (This blog post about Boo Basket is sponsored by Mars Corporation. If you live near Erie, Pennsylvania explains how to make it at Millcreek Mall). We’re not talking politics or feminist ethics here. Isn’t Boo Basket’s “theme” just unpaid care work?
The part of my father’s parenting brain that was preparing for the holidays was missing a lot of things that mine wasn’t. Social media influencers sharing pictures of their happy kids, Instagram ads promoting matching pajamas, Target Dollar Spot calling out to me with its seasonal siren song. It’s complete garbage. I am convinced that, momentarily, I will make my children feel loved and ameliorate some of the effects of terrible parenting that the ambient soundtrack of the internet tells me.
Where does all this leave us? As parents, we’re back to where we’ve always been. We are trying to understand what is important to us, where our joy lies, and what we can throw away because it is no longer useful. For us, actually having fun isn’t as easy as making heart-shaped pancakes. It’s about sifting the crap out of the joy. Honestly, we’re trying to listen to ourselves and our children in a level of noise that’s a little scary.
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