Colman Noctor: Has comparison driven parents to make rods for their own backs?

"An elaborate Halloween costume does not necessarily make someone a better parent, just as a last-minute costume does not mean someone cares any less about their child."

Earlier this week, I saw my neighbour putting plastic pumpkins outside his house and felt that familiar dread. It’s that time of year again when I have to face my lack of enthusiasm for Halloween. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a total ‘killjoy’. I absolutely love Christmas and am one of those people who puts their tree up far too early, but there’s something about Halloween I just don’t get.

Every year, I promise myself I’ll be more excited and perhaps even a little more creative when it comes to my children’s costumes. And every year, I find myself rummaging through whatever is left in the shops, or searching for whichever Amazon retailer will deliver within two days, desperately hoping to find something that bears at least a passing resemblance to what my child is looking for.

The real horror of Halloween for me comes at the school gates, where you see other children arrive wearing elaborate homemade masterpieces, professionally styled outfits, and costumes that seem to have required more preparation than Jim Carrey’s transformation into the Grinch.

What makes it worse is that my children are usually perfectly happy with their costumes. It’s me who feels inadequate when I compare my efforts with those of other parents, and I always feel I should have done more.

And that’s what’s interesting about modern parenting: sometimes, we’re not so much trying to be the best parent in the room as we are terrified of seeming like the worst.

Halloween offers a rather amusing illustration of a wider phenomenon in modern parenting. We appear to have developed a culture of parental comparison in which ordinary childhood experiences become opportunities for adults to compare themselves with each other.

It also happens with birthday parties, Christmas presents, school projects, family holidays, and extracurricular activities. There always seems to be another parent who has organised something more impressive, invested more time, or gone to extraordinary lengths to create a memorable experience for their child. While we might admire their efforts, it can be hard not to question whether we are doing enough.

I don’t believe most parents are consciously trying to outdo one another. The parent who spends several evenings crafting an elaborate Halloween costume may simply enjoy making things. The parent who organises an extravagant birthday party may genuinely love celebrating their child’s birthday. Neither is necessarily driven by competition.

Yet when these individual efforts become visible, they can create expectations no one intended. One parent’s enthusiasm can inadvertently become another parent’s sense of inadequacy.

Psychologically, there is an important distinction between doing something because we genuinely want to and doing it because we are anxious about what might happen if we don’t. Two parents might spend exactly the same amount on a Halloween costume, but for entirely different reasons. One might enjoy treating their child, while the other worries about being judged for not making enough effort.

The behaviour looks the same, but the motivation is very different. One is driven by enjoyment, while the other is driven by fear of falling short.

Endless comparison opportunities 

Of course, social comparison is nothing new. However, modern parenting offers almost endless opportunities for comparison. I don’t remember my mother being perturbed in the 1980s about sending my sisters and me out on Halloween in an old sheet and a black plastic bag, but that was because all the other children were wearing the same ‘costumes’. We seem to have made our own rods for our own backs when it comes to parental competition.

But social media has dramatically intensified the parental competition dynamic. We are no longer comparing ourselves only with parents at the school gate. We are exposed to carefully curated highlights from family lives around the world, where birthday parties look like corporate events, school lunches resemble works of art, and Halloween costumes appear to have required the help of Jim Henson and a professional design team.

Halloween aside, the difficulty is that we compare the ordinary reality of our family life with the most impressive moments in someone else’s life.

There is also a collective trap emerging. When enough parents begin making extraordinary efforts, what was once considered exceptional can gradually seem normal.

Others may then feel pressured to match that standard, not because they particularly want to, but because they don’t want their child to stand out for the wrong reasons.

Parental competition can therefore arise without anyone consciously deciding to compete. Everyone may simply be trying to keep up with what they believe others are doing.

This is where the financial and emotional costs become significant. Not all parents have the same resources, time or energy.

A parent working long hours, managing financial pressures or raising children with little support may have considerably less capacity to organise elaborate celebrations than someone in different circumstances.

Yet when we see the finished costume, the spectacular birthday party or the expensive family holiday, we rarely see the circumstances behind them. We see the outcome rather than the resources or sacrifices that went into them.

We should be careful not to confuse visible effort with parental commitment. An elaborate Halloween costume does not necessarily make someone a better parent, just as a last-minute costume does not mean someone cares any less about their child.

It’s easy to say that all this pressure comes from children demanding too much these days. But often, when we think about it, the pressure comes not from children’s expectations, but from our own.

This doesn’t mean parents should stop making an effort or that elaborate celebrations are harmful. There is enormous value in family traditions, creativity, and in parents taking pleasure in doing something special for their children. For some families, Halloween is a much-loved occasion, and making costumes together may be a highlight of the year.

My issue is not how much effort we put in, but what drives that effort and whether we are creating a dynamic that adds pressure without actually enhancing family life.

One way to manage these pressures is to become more aware of the comparisons we make. Before committing money, time, or energy to something, we might ask whether we are doing it because our child genuinely wants it, because we enjoy it, or because we worry about how it might look if we don’t.

We might also resist the temptation to make every childhood occasion extraordinary.

Not every birthday needs to be unforgettable, every holiday spectacular, or every Halloween costume impressive. Sometimes an ordinary experience can be perfectly enjoyable, especially when the adults involved are relaxed enough to enjoy it too.

No competition 

Perhaps we should also be more generous towards ourselves and other parents. The parent who appears to have everything organised may be struggling in another aspect of family life we know nothing about.

Equally, the parent who arrives with a hastily assembled costume may have spent the week managing responsibilities far more important than Halloween.

As for me, there is every possibility I will once again find myself searching for costumes at the last minute. I may even feel that familiar pang of inadequacy when I see the extraordinary costumes from more enthusiastic parents.

But I will try to remind myself that my children are not entering a competition to prove how much effort their father has put in. They are simply dressing up for Halloween.

And if they are happy with their costumes, enjoying themselves and looking forward to spending time with their friends, perhaps I should resist turning my own sense of inadequacy into a problem for them.

Perhaps the broader challenge isn’t to become a better competitor in the parenting race, but to recognise that we don’t need to enter it.