During the larval stage, moms tend to take charge on Halloween costumes. And at that point, it really doesn’t matter. Your baby really doesn’t care if you’ve stuffed him into an Eeyore costume or turned him into a drooling jack o’ lantern. Mom gets the pics to plaster all over Flickr and you potentially have a little candy as a result of the half-assed trick or treating you did as an excuse to show off that which sprang from your collective loins.

At the risk of being devoured by hordes of slavering undead Gloria Steinem’s hungering for man-flesh, it’s fairly safe to say that this state of affairs generally continues if you have a daughter. Various flavors of princess, fairy and other assorted cute costumes will fall in and out of favor over the years — with the occasional deviation into Gothic or, god forbid — Twilight costumes — depending on the personalities involved. Apart from dreading the day that puberty strikes and Halloween becomes a skin to win proposition, dads in these situations often have the opportunity to sit back and allow mom to take the lead on creating and purchasing wings and other sparkly accoutrements.

Not so when a son is involved. As boys age and approach their teenage years, Halloween often becomes an excuse to delve more and more deeply into the hideous and more grotesque side of myth. Where Power Rangers and ninjas once romped with abandon on October 31st, now range werewolves, Grim Reapers and maggot-eaten corpses. As a general rule, dads are left to deal with this new expression of testosterone. For what is man, if not creepy? So deal we do — teaching our children the finer uses of blood capsules, pioneering the use of liquid latex in pursuit of the most realistic putrefied flesh, and visiting untold numbers of Halloween popup stores and surplus hardware outlets to find the crowning touches that will transform our beloved child into a grotesque mockery of the adorable munchkin that once stood in its place. A creature so foul it will, we proudly proclaim as we sip our perfectly mixed Manhattan, cause every preschooler who beholds it to wet themselves and run screaming for their mommas.

And as our creation disappears with his friends into the night to seek their promised treats and the jack o’ lanterns are lit and leering at all who might come to the door, we can sit down and entertain ourselves by turning the family photos into undead carnivals with Photoshop effects until the little monster returns to split the booty with his loving father.

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