Ghouls Gone Wild?

By: Michelle Miller
Topics: Culture Watch

(iStockphoto)

Michelle Miller is a CBS News correspondent based in New York.

It's been going on for years – the adult-ification of Halloween dress-up. We're talking teens and tweens wearing mini mini-skirts, fishnets and midriff-baring tops.

Where does it come from? Pop culture. In every age group, trend-setting girls seek out idols from the next-older group. Example: five- to 10-year-olds are watching Hannah Montana, who's 14. Tweens are looking to Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan. True teens are looking to celebrities solidly in their 20's. (This isn't just on Halloween – it's every day.)

While reporting on the story I'm working on for tonight, I saw costumes for tweens from the slightly-more-revealing-than-necessary (midriff-baring pirates, flirty milkmaids) to what some call slutty (a far-from-full-coverage strawberry? Come on!). Some parents probably long for the days when the costumes their little ones chose looked nothing like something from the pages of Playboy.

It's not just that kids see dressing in a revealing manner as fun, flirty and adult, but sometimes there's little choice. Some mothers I spoke with lamented the state of the costume-store selection. So many are altering these store-bought outfits. One told me her daughter would be wearing a bodysuit under her costume so she doesn't have to show her midriff.

Old favorites, like pumpkins and ghosts, are still going door-to-door, but Freddie Kruger will need to make room for little ghouls gone wild.