The Halloween grumpies
I loved Halloween when I was a little kid. Like many of you, I have very fond memories of trick-or-treating through the neighborhood with my dad hovering in the background, while my mom stayed home to hand out candy to kids who came to our house. As I got older and began to make the rounds with my friends instead of my dad, my parents began to gently hint that there wouldn't be that many more years of trick-or-treating left. By the time I was in eighth grade, they openly disagreed with it on the grounds that I was too old, and in fact I did feel weird about it as a thirteen-year-old. It's all lost back in the fog of time now, but I think we all felt a little strange and quit early. That was my last year trick-or-treating.
In recent years, I've handed out candy at the door. It was great for a while, but in the last couple of years the cute little Power Rangers and witches have given way to much older kids, many of whom are a lot bigger than I am and don't really bother much with costumes. I've never, ever turned a kid away on Halloween, but the biggest kids make it feel more like a shakedown than a holiday.
This year, I managed to get myself invited out to the suburbs to help take a couple of great kids out. The kids are getting a little old for trick-or-treating themselves (fifth grade and eighth grade), and I mentioned as much to their dad. He laughed and informed me that he fully expected his kids to insist on trick-or-treating for years to come. He then mentioned to the eighth grader that I figured it was her last year going out, and she was horrified at the thought.
Are you kidding me? she asked. It's FREE CANDY! Why wouldn't I go until I'm TWENTY-FIVE???
Meanwhile, this kid towers over me.
I don't really approve, but I'm not the parent here so I decided not to say anything.
The kids put on their costumes at six, and Dad and I went out to make the rounds with the neighbors and their kids. The kids ranged in age from a tiny little thing in a stroller, dressed up like a pumpkin (hilarious and very, very cute) to the oldest, both in the eighth grade and very quickly fed up with being stuck with a bunch of littler kids. At their age, my parents would have been way too embarrassed to take me around trick-or-treating on the grounds that I was too old (they only grudgingly agreed to let me go out with my friends as it was), but in this case the parents wouldn't let the oldest out of their sight.
I know, I know. The world is a more dangerous place than it used to be.
Meanwhile, nearly every parent was dressed up in a costume of his or her own, and several of them were towing wagons filled with coolers. I edged close to the wagons to see what was in them and discovered that the coolers were full of cheese, crackers, and bottles of wine. The parents themselves were clutching plastic cups filled to the brim, and several of them made repeated trips to the wagons in short succession. As we meandered through the neighborhood, I noticed that although a few of the kids said Thank you! at every house, this was by no means universal and the parents only prompted sporadically when the kids forgot. Our paths crossed several times with those of some big, rambunctious high school age kids and I wondered if the people whose bells they were ringing felt as shaken down as I think I would have.
There were also houses where no one was home but a bowl of candy was left out front. (This is what the people I was with did since no one was home while we were out.) I don't think you can really expect kids not to empty close to the entire bowl into their bags, but I saw this happen more than once right in front of the parents, and the parents didn't say anything. I didn't say anything either, because I didn't think it was my battle to fight.
I like kids. Don't want my own, but I do like them. Either I've got a serious case of memory blinders on, though, or Halloween culture has changed significantly. There's much more greed and much less courtesy than I remember, and I found it a little distasteful. It makes me not want to shell out money to participate next year.
Am I off base with my perspective here?
18 retorts:
I haven't done Halloween anything since I was 10 so I cannot say.. but kids not saying thanks, and parents DRINKING with their kids out, is grounds for quitting the whole situation
You are definitely not off base. But you may forget you felt this way next year. Good thing you blogged about it! I wouldn't want my money feeding the next generation's greed.
8th grade is about 14 years old right? If I've got that right they're way too old. And there's no excuse for no thank-yous. But the drinking while wandering round the neighbourhood and chatting seems like a sociable type of thing to me .... unless it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon or something.
I don't remember the "unmanned bowl o'candy" situation from when I was a kid, but have noticed when you do offer the bowl they'll all take one and palm another one or two with a fair amount of guile. Even the politest most humble kids. It's pretty funny.
Things have changed a lot. I didn't much like it as a kid either (about 50 years ago) ...... never trusted anybody who changed their appearance, unless they were really little. Then there were all the fireworks with all that danger. We held firecrackers in our hands as they went off. We did stupid stuff. When we were older it was vandalism ..... not on today's scale. Soaping a car window, throwing eggs etc.
Nobody poisoned the candy then and there was a lot of home baking. People couldn't afford a full size candy bar for each kid. My Mom used to get 350 kids at the door!! We lived in a post-war housing area. Everyone had 3 or more kids.
Heck, I remember "bobbing for apples" Imagine sticking your head in a cesspool of kid's saliva/water to get a old apple! Yeah, things have changed alright, but they aren't any better. But some people just LOVE dressing up .... you'll never get rid of it. I just ignore it and that's easily done living in our condo.
I don't think you are off base. Here are a couple of my thoughts...
1)Drinking while taking your kids trick-or-treating does not set a good example. Party when you get home. Halloween is not a tailgate.
2) If you are not going to stay home and hand out candy then turn off the outdoor lights or give the candy to a neighbor who is handing out candy. (I don't trust an unguarded bowl and won't let my kids take from it.)
3) Please and thank you are the magic words. (This year I was impressed with the number of kids who used very good manners.)
4) If you trick-or-treat, costumes are mandatory in my mind. They don't need to be expensive.
5) As for age, if of legal age to drive you should not trick-or-treat.
We get a lot of kids and love handing out candy to them. I love seeing the costumes (especially the homemade oness.) This year was better than most with the weather, good manners and great costumes.I saw my first Smurf and he was a cutie. This is a optional event.
It is easy to get discouraged especially after your experience this year.
You're not off base, but I do think you could have provided more "teachable" moments. Many of the children who came to my door on Saturday tried to take more than one candy. I put out my hand and stopped each of them, saying, "Please just take one so there will be candy left for the other kids." Little kids had no problem with this.
I think 12 is the upper age for trick or treating. But I will say that 12 year olds come in all shapes and sizes. One of my daughters (who later topped out at 6'1") was 5'10" at age 11--no way did she look like the sixth grader that she was.
I trick or treated back in the 60s, in the suburbs of an affluent white area, and all of the things you described as negatives were present then. There were houses that had unmanned bowls, there were kids who were “too old” – including me and my friends when we hit junior high and felt like we had pushed the envelope. There were some drinking adults (if you aren’t driving, it seems like a sociable thing to me, too), and the kids who would take more candy than was really polite and not say thank you.
I think it is easy to look back with rose colored glasses. Personally, I really enjoy the little kids, look forward to dressing up and trick or treating, and am having even more fun now that I have a kid of my own. I see some of the same down-side stuff as you, but I also see the fun and the good times. Costumes don’t have to be expensive, but they do take some effort. I like that part of it. I like the parties and the generosity of everyone pitching in and working to make it festive. There is always something creative that I hadn’t thought of or seen before, and I enjoy it.
When it gets too late for the little ones, I’d just turn out my lights and either go out or pretend to be not home any more. That cut down on the “too old” kids to a manageable level. I am glad I now live in an area where kids trick or treat. It’s part of what makes it a fun neighborhood.
I haven't had a trick-or-treater in years and miss it--I've been living in cities and apartment complexes, and I guess there just haven't been any kids in the buildings. Or they go elsewhere to trick-or-treat. I miss the sociable aspect that the others have discussed.
The way my family dealt with the older kids was just by turning off the porch light after a certain hour and stopping giving out candy. Growing up, the teenagers generally seemed to start coming around later in the evening-- shutting things down meant that our house would only get hit by one or two groups of older kids. It didn't seem like that big of a deal as a way to handle it.
And, like Grace said, the Keeper of the Candy can prompt the kids to behave and use their manners. It's unfortunate that the parents aren't stepping up, but they're not the only ones who can do things about it.
Sounds like we're on about the same page with our Halloween posts, FZ.
Although I should own up to the fact that, senior year of high school, my friends and I went trick or treating. There was a certain kitsch-factor appeal, but mainly we figured it was the last time we could really do something that kid-like.
That said, we didn't skimp and went in full costume. The peoples' houses we went to seemed to get a kick out of it. It could just have been that 17 year olds were willing to brave late October temperatures in Anchorage for some free candy. Who knows.
But before that day? I don't think I'd been trick or treating since maybe the 4th or 5th grade.
I think you're completely off base. It depends on where you live. In my neighborhood, we left a bowl of candy out. When we came back, it was not even 1/3 empty. We had older trick or treaters, but they all needed coaxing to take more than one piece of candy. Every child except the very little ones who were new to trick or treating said thank you.
I used to live in NJ and this was not the case. I guess this was a plus to moving to suburbia MD.
You are not off base. I live in Southern California and it is exactly as you described. I never let my kids take from an unguarded bowl. In fact, the candy they do get - I trade them $$ for it (usually $5 for the bucket) and then I take the candy to work. The first high schooler we get at the house - we give them candy and then turn off the light. I then take the left over candy to work. I would rather feed my coworkers than a high schooler out trolling for candy!
I took my 3 and 5 y.o. trick-or-treating in my neighborhood this wkend, and had a very different experience. I did see some jr. high kids, but none older. The bowls that were left out with candy were plenty full when my kids went up to get their share. And the only parents I saw "partying" were those who effectively had halloween tailgates on their driveways so that they didn't have to constantly go to their doors to hand out treats. And since they often were in costume themselves (and one house even provided live entertainment), it seemed to be in good fun.
Maybe it all depends on the neighborhood? The richer, the more obnoxious?
I have not seen what you describe as far as partying parents, but big kids do trick or treat. We live in a small neighborhood in a small town, and parents who live outside of of our town, bus their kids into our area. So instead of just getting a few kids we get hundreds. We decided to opt out of this celebration several years ago. It was just too expensive. So we usually turn our the lights and go to a movie.
When I was growing up, we knew by sight everyone on my parents' street, and we basically kept to that street for trick-or-treating. My birthday is on Halloween, and dressing up and trick-or-treating was always a big part of the fun for me, so I confess to going trick-or-treating a couple of times in high school. (If there was a Halloween party to go to, I'd just dress up and do that instead, but if there wasn't, I still wanted to get dressed up and do something.) At that age it wasn't really about the candy--we always had a bunch leftover at home if I just wanted sugar. I just liked dressing up, and the neighbors, who'd known us since we were little, seemed to get a kick out of it too.
Now that we're on the other end of things, I do see why most people prefer to see only the little kids, but we've had some very polite older kids come trick-or-treating at our house too. Our rules: they must have a costume, and they must actually say "trick or treat" rather than just sullenly holding out a bag. My husband has been known to ask, "Is this go up to random people and demand candy day? No! What do you say?" They laugh and say "trick or treat." The only ones that didn't thank us were the very youngest who weren't really sure what was going on, and then their parents thanked us for them.
So while I don't think you're off case for your situation, I think the Halloween experience must vary widely from place to place. My point of view is different from yours, but if I'd seen the things you're describing, I might feel more like you do.
Thanks for the very interesting comments, everyone. A couple of general feedback points from my perspective:
--I agree that the Keeper of the Candy (I love that term!) has a great opportunity to insist on appropriate behavior. I wasn't the Keeper of the Candy, though: I was touring the neighborhood with my SO, his kids, and the neighbors and their kids. I don't really know any of these people other than my SO, so I felt that trying to do or say anything other than behave appropriately myself would be construed as interfering in other people's parenting. If the parents weren't there, of course, it might be a different story - but they were.
--I'm not wild about leaving a bowl of candy out instead of handing it out, but in my SO's defense there's only one of him and he wasn't going to take his kids out trick-or-treating without reciprocating to the neighbors. He didn't want the kids to go unless he was with them, and I respect that decision. I could have stayed home to hand out candy, but it was my first time to make the rounds in almost thirty years. I didn't want to! In that situation, it was either leave a bowl out and hope for the best, or don't participate at all. Under the circumstances, I think he made the best of a bad set of choices.
--I don't have a problem with adults modeling responsible drinking in front of kids. We were only out for an hour, though, so I thought that towing booze around in wagons was a little unnecessary. YMMV.
--The last thing I want to be is the mean lady who craps on Halloween. I really appreciate hearing about situations where it's considered normal for older kids to go trick-or-treating. I was brought up to think that Halloween is really for little kids, but obviously this mindset is by no means universal.
Here's hoping next year is better!
I got together with my friends for Halloween, no dressing up except for the 13 month old, and we handed out candy on the porch together. With very few exceptions, the children were young, cute, AND polite. Sadly, there were a few oddities like the odd surly teenager, and a few parents who didn't even fake that they were there just for the kids, they were taking candy, too!
One girlfriend turned into the Candy Nazi, prompting the quiet ones to say Trick or Treat, or chastising the grumpy ones. :) There were a few young teens who made up for the attitudes of the rest, though, and were pretty entertaining when they interacted with us.
I guess it says something about how Halloween has changed that I was pleasantly surprised by the experience.
Right before I left Anchorage I did an article on "candy bashing" -- the delightful practice of older kids strong-arming the younger, unaccompanied kids out of their treats. Sheesh.
When I was a kid we were guilted out of doing it after about sixth grade. It was a "baby" thing to do. Also, where I lived you went only to the homes of people you knew. I think that's a better way to do it.
Then again, I'm old and cranky.
I'm way late to the party here, but we had a slightly different take so I thought I'd share. When we were little, we went around to trick or treat. When we got 'too old' for that, we decorated the yard, got dressed up and handed out candy. Now we get dressed up and go to clubs or friend's houses for parties. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I probably won't ever give it up, but I really AM a bit too old to trick or treat now. :)
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