A Frightening Experience w/ my Son Turned me Into ‘Mamaween’

I went on a haunted hayride over the weekend and it was great. But what's included in the hayride is five haunted houses that you walk through. We had the option to just exit after the hayride but we were with another family with two boys Ryan's age. Ryan is ten and he's not fond of haunted houses and neither am I. We both sucked it up and went in.

Here's the thing, I scare very easily and I usually scream and swing at the actors inside these haunted houses out of pure terror. In we went and Ryan was very nervous. He was situated right in front of me and I was literally hugging him and he had my arms across his body. Something came over me, I wasn't scared anymore. I realized that Ryan was terrified so in order to calm him down, I had to be very brave.

I said things that I usually say to myself. "Don't be scared, they can't touch you." "They are just regular people in make-up."  "And my favorite one, "Oh look, Ryan, she's a baker, just like our neighbor, Diane." to which the actor replied..."Diane is dead!" So that one backfired. But a real calm came over me, I was in mama bear mode. Nothing was going to scare Ryan, not if I was in charge of keeping him safe.

Let me say this, though, Ryan will never go into another haunted house. It's not like I cured him from being scared, but I think that experience cured me. I used to be deathly afraid and now that I had to go through that with Ryan, something changed in me. I am calling it the Mamaween effect. This is when a mom realizes you can't act like a weenie and show that you are scared in a haunted attraction during Halloween for the sake of your kid.