Dear Storekeepers of America,

This Halloween, I am putting out a request to America to help me reclaim Halloween for our kids.  With a cultural movement towards ever-increasing violence in the media, the depiction of Halloween has followed suit.  What started in movies has moved into the shopping aisles of nearly every chain store in our country.  When American Moms could once simply turn the channel, we can now scarcely buy the most basic of household items without dodging skeletons that light up in red and scream in our faces as we pass through the front doors of your stores.

Those skeletons are also screaming in the faces of our kids: our babies, our toddlers, and our impressionable young children.  On more than one occasion, I’ve simply turned an about face and walked out of a store, with my crying child in my arms.

ENOUGH Main Street.  The Moms of America have had enough.

If an item you sell would be determined “PG-13” in nature by Hollywood, then it should be moved to a place not likely viewed by children under the age of 13.  If you must sell graphic decorations, do so, but in an aisle cordoned off with black streamers and a sign that reads, “Scary Aisle”, or “For Mature Halloween Audiences Only”.  If you would not want your own 5-year-old daughter staring at it, please move it.

I am encouraging every Mother I know to politely approach you if you haven’t taken note of this issue, and ask you to consider a different take on how you display your Halloween merchandise.  I am asking every Mother in America to let their shopping dollars speak for our children this fall.

So this year, the Halloween of 2012, please join me in reclaiming the spirit of a fun and “age appropriate scary” Halloween for our kids.  We CAN change things.  America is only vast in geography, not in our sense of community.  We share a common interest in supporting healthy and thriving children.  Children should enjoy Halloween, not wake in cold sweats from nightmares about blood-covered devils flying off the ceiling of their neighborhood stores (true story, my daughter, Party City, 2009. They refused to take it down).  I look forward to partnering together to reclaim Halloween in the spirit of holiday fun for our youngest citizens.

Respectfully Submitted,

Lori from Indiana