Dad Called 'Selfish' For Refusing To Dress Up In A Barbie-Themed Family Halloween Costume — I'd 'Rather Go As Something More Manly'
Halloween is all about having fun, but this man made it anything but for his family.
Roman Samborskyi | Shutterstock Halloween is a time to have fun and tap into your inner child. One man wasn’t quite on board with this. He was more concerned with looking tough around his friends and neighbors than enjoying fun with family.
He decided to completely ignore his family’s traditions and do his own thing, angering all of them. Not only that, but he lied to his wife and ignored her feelings in the process.
A dad couldn’t bring himself to dress as a character from a Barbie movie for a family Halloween party.
A man shared his decision to not conform to his extended family’s Halloween plans on Reddit.
Criativa Pix Fotografia | Pexels
“I … am married to my wife … and we have … two kids together,” he explained. “Every year my wife’s family does a family theme for Halloween that we all dress up as.”
The theme for this year was something his wife was excited about, but not him.
“This year’s theme is Barbie (any Barbie movie that there is) and my wife decided we would do Princess Charm School since it was her favorite Barbie movie growing up,” he shared. “I hate this theme and would rather go as something more manly that won’t embarrass me in front of my neighbors and friends.”
The dad pretended he was going to dress up according to the Barbie theme and then showed up in his own costume.
“After work one night I stopped at the store and got myself a Batman costume instead,” he continued. “I let my wife believe I was going as Barbie’s love interest from the movie and would arrive later to the party because I was working late, when in all reality I was getting ready to wear the Batman costume.”
After deceiving his wife, things did not go well when he showed up at the party.
“When I arrived at the party, my wife’s sisters happened to meet me by the door and got mad [at] me for wearing this costume,” he said. “I explained that I didn’t like the theme so I chose my own.”
“At that point my wife had found us and started yelling about how selfish I was and how this is the one time a year that she gets to let loose and have fun with the theme,” he stated.
Now, he and his wife are in the middle of a huge fight.
“She told me to leave and I drove to a friend’s house and am spending the night out of anger,” he said. “All of her family is blowing up my phone telling me how selfish I am and calling me every name in the book. I blocked them and told my wife I needed a couple days to cool down.”
Men dressing up in feminine costumes for Halloween is generally accepted.
It’s not uncommon for men to dress up in costumes that are considered “feminine” on Halloween, or vice versa.
A YouGov poll that included 1,106 Americans found that 65% of respondents thought it was fine for a man to dress up as a woman on Halloween. Conversely, the same poll found that 69% were okay with a woman dressing up as a man.
Sami Abdullah | Pexels
These results show that a majority of Americans feel fine with this man taking it even farther than he would have.
After all, the plan was for him to dress up as a male character from a Barbie movie — something that he deemed effeminate but was not actually dressing up as the opposite gender.
Redditors agreed that it was not too much to ask for this man to dress up as a Barbie movie character.
As one fellow Reddit user summed up perfectly, “Dude, you’re 34 now. It’s high time to throw your embarrassment about what people might think out the window, especially about middle school concepts like ‘OMG, that’s so girly.’ You have kids and need to think about the example you’re setting for them.”
Beyond his outdated views and self-esteem issues, he also disrespected and lied to his wife. If anything, he should be spending the time he said he needed to "cool off," thinking about how he can properly apologize for his appalling and juvenile behavior.
At the end of the day, Halloween is about having fun and not taking yourself too seriously. It seems like this dad missed the point.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.