I once watched this talk show, although I forget which one it was, where people faced their worst fears. A woman somewhere in her forties confessed that she was terrified of clowns and had been since she was six years old. I’ll never forget the way she cried and whimpered when the host brought a clown on stage to help her face this fear. She was telling the truth when she said that she didn’t like clowns.

A British survey conducted by the University of Sheffield quizzed 250 children between the ages of 4 and 16 about how they felt about clowns. The vote was unanimous: every child in that survey was afraid of clowns.

The researchers determined that clowns are “universally disliked” by children, and that some kids find them “unknowable.”

I disagree with the above statement because I’ve always liked clowns, even the scary ones on Killer Clowns from Outer Space and the one in Stephen King’s It. Curious, I asked my boys how they felt. The older one shrugged with indifference, while the younger one felt that they were stupid. I feel much better knowing that I hadn’t given them permanent nightmares when I hired a clown for my oldest’s fifth birthday party.

Both literature and movies have depicted clowns as evil creatures that lure children to their doom, whether portraying them as mythical monsters or sickos. It’s no wonder that children and adults are terrified of them.