"store-bought"
I remember my mother and some of the more anti-consumerist parents getting worked up about the trend of children wearing store-bought costumes like these. I thought it would be horrible to have the exact same costume as several other kids at school.
But looking back I can see it was more of a class thing. The kids who ended up with store-bought costumes just didn't have anyone who had the time to help them make something.
My mother spent hours sewing me a Jedi tunic like the black one that Luke wore-- I wanted to be Luke Skywalker of course. It didn't occur to me this presented a challenge for my mom... who was trying to make a costume for a little black girl!
So, I was "A Jedi" and told by the boys at school that there were no "girl-Jedis" but I was right there so they were obviously wrong.
Suburban life was exhausting--
Is all this stuff still a thing? The identical costumes. The competitive suburban moms?
