Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

3 Ways Parents are Ruining Halloween
Reason.com ^ | October 29, 2014 | Jim Epstein & Lenore Skenazy

Posted on 11/01/2015 12:30:41 PM PST by Forgotten Amendments

Happy Halloween! It's that time of year when your neighbors are secretly unwrapping candy, brushing lollipops with poison, and inserting razor blades into Snickers bars!

Actually, while it may be a holiday tradition view your neighbors as psychopaths who patiently wait for the one day of the year to kill the local kids, in fact no child has ever been killed by a stranger's poisoned candy. Ever. But facts don't stop fear. Here are three ways in which our misguided terror on Halloween is killing all the fun.

Don't Go Outside

Parents are so scared of letting their kids roam free, that—no joke—there's a trend called "Trunk or Treat." Cars gather in a circle and kids go from one trunk to the next to grab candy, as if walking in a circle in a parking lot and collecting sugar is the whole point of the holiday. Sugar is important, but so is going outside on your own with your friends.

Some towns are so scared of the holiday that they've placed curfews on trick or treating. It's medieval. It's as if they really believe the ghouls come out at night.

(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-70 next last
They did this "Trunk or Treat" nonsense in my little town and I am fuming.

1. We got zero trick-or-treaters. On a practical matter, we are stuck with a bunch of candy that we dare not eat, but probably will.

2. It's just sad. I loved seeing the little kids every year. It's about the only time I get to see them happy. The rest of the time, it's usually watching them get off the school bus, head down, lugging a backpack full of homework, and just flat out miserable. Now, the grownups have to regiment most of the fun out of Haloween.

The more I think about it, the madder I get.

1 posted on 11/01/2015 12:30:41 PM PST by Forgotten Amendments
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments

You could donate it to the local church - they’ll give it away for Christmas, Easter, etc.


2 posted on 11/01/2015 12:35:12 PM PST by scrabblehack
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments
Aw, man. I totally spaced on my annual "Halloween Is a Demonic Uh-holy-Day" rant/thread.

Shoot. Ah, well. Next year will be here soon enough.

3 posted on 11/01/2015 12:38:28 PM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments

Just part of the larger trend: people lacking trust in others.


4 posted on 11/01/2015 12:39:52 PM PST by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible. Complicit in the destruction of this country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments

When I was a kid, my best Halloween involved walking a winding path which eventually reached a point 2 miles from home. Walking back home was hard because my bag was so full of candy. I’m guessing I was about 9 years old. The world has totally changed since then.


5 posted on 11/01/2015 12:39:58 PM PST by ClearCase_guy (Speak TRUZ to power / Tell the TRUZ / No more lies; we want the TRUZ.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments

“your neighbors are secretly unwrapping candy, brushing lollipops with poison, and inserting razor blades into Snickers bars!”

No doubt there is too much paranoia and overreaction out there. That said, it can’t be denied that wierdos and sickos seem to be on the increase.


6 posted on 11/01/2015 12:40:02 PM PST by SharpRightTurn (White, black, and red all over--America's affirmative action, metrosexual president.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments

By telling their children they ate all of their Halloween candy?


7 posted on 11/01/2015 12:40:46 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments

One year, in four hours, I was able to get two paper grocery bags full of candy (with one stop at home to drop the first bag). I was 9 or 10 at the time. It, however, required strategy and hard work to pull off (probably about 6-7 miles of walking).


8 posted on 11/01/2015 12:44:18 PM PST by Thunder90 (All posts soley represent my own opinion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments

We got one group of kids last night (with their ‘rents). Very sad as I have such great memories of Halloween night as a kid. We got chased occasionally by bigger kids trying to steal our candy, but hey thats life.

Yet Obama has assured me this country is far safer now than ever, so that gives me great comfort...(yeah right)


9 posted on 11/01/2015 12:44:33 PM PST by Zack Attack
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments
http://murderpedia.org/male.O/o1/obryan-ronald-clark.htm

This is the guy who ruined Halloween in 1974. I actually remember this happening, and I was just a wee snipe.

10 posted on 11/01/2015 12:46:02 PM PST by ponygirl (An Appeal to Heaven.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: I want the USA back

What surprised me this year was the number of teenagers-—yes, TEENAGERS!—who had parents with them!! The parents didn’t come to the door, and weren’t in costume, but still...
If my parents insisted on accompanying me when I was a teenager I would’ve died of embarrassment and not gone trick or treating at all!
Weird!!


11 posted on 11/01/2015 12:47:27 PM PST by Radagast the Fool (At my signal, UNLEASH PALIN!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments
You know, there's actually a Biblical holiday celebrated with costumes and outrageously ironic humor.

It's called Purim.

12 posted on 11/01/2015 12:47:37 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator (The "end of history" will be Worldwide Judaic Theocracy.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SharpRightTurn
That said, it can’t be denied that wierdos and sickos seem to be on the increase.

"Seem to be" on the increase and "are" on the increase are two different things.

Fact is, they aren't.

13 posted on 11/01/2015 12:47:57 PM PST by Drew68
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

Cute. One of my grandsons is nine.
Your story proves what I told my parents and they wouldn’t believe me, “it was uphill both ways”


14 posted on 11/01/2015 12:59:31 PM PST by Cold Heart
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Radagast the Fool

Teenagers shouldn’t be trick or treating at all. My rule here is that the kid must be shorter than my front gate. But it doesn’t matter anymore, as I haven’t seen trick or treaters in my neighborhood for 5+ years. I thought we’d get some this year, since we’ve had a few families move in with young kids, but no dice. At 7 I turned off the light and put the candy in the freezer. It probably has to do with those child molester flyers we get in the mailbox at least once a month, and 9 out of 10 of them are Hispanic. (Explain this to me...a nearby apartment complex lets these pedos move in there. There are two elementary schools within 4 blocks each way, and a bus stop right across the street from where they live.)


15 posted on 11/01/2015 1:02:44 PM PST by ponygirl (An Appeal to Heaven.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: ponygirl

I remember that one. Poisoned his own kids pixie sticks or something.

The trick or treating really dropped off after the Tylenol poisoning though (for some reason).


16 posted on 11/01/2015 1:04:32 PM PST by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments
We have always had Trick-or-Treat on Halloween between 6 pm and 8 pm. This has been the routine since before I was a kid way back when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Even though I live in one of the most densely populated cities in an area with well over a 90% occupancy rate, we get very few children at our house and never have in the fourteen years we have been here.

Part of it is the way the street is situated. We have a street that enters ours two doors down and across the road making a pointed corner. The flow of walking naturally has people cutting the corner and missing our house. That means we buy s couple dozen full size Malley’s Bars and those that get to us, get a nice treat!

That being said, yesterday in our neighborhood we had a smaller than normal showing. It was beautiful weather wise, but it was also a Saturday so lots of people where at parties and relatives houses.

My parents live a block away and my sister about five blocks away and they are always swamped with a couple hundred kids a year. We are lucky to get 20 and my sister two blocks from me gets fewer than a dozen. She also buys a box of Malley’s Bars to give out.

None the less we took our kids out and they scored big time. Even going on only three streets.

17 posted on 11/01/2015 1:09:49 PM PST by Jim from C-Town (The government is rarely benevolent, often malevolent and never benign!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments

We had a ton of kids. Got rid of most of our candy including some left from last year. Mostly kids over ten though and all out in groups with parents tagging along. We have lots of kids on our block ages three to eight and few of them were out. Didn’t expect a few of them to come by because we had commented at a neighborhood gathering earlier in the year that they and their children needed to speak English and not Spanish. LOL


18 posted on 11/01/2015 1:13:25 PM PST by Grams A (The Sun will rise in the East in the morning and God is still on his throne.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments

19 posted on 11/01/2015 1:14:41 PM PST by Snickering Hound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jim from C-Town

We had only a handful on our street but I kept the light off cause we had nothing to give out.


20 posted on 11/01/2015 1:15:35 PM PST by darkangel82
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-70 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson