Changing Halloween Because of Weak Parents
Recently in two Florida counties parents are petitioning for the schools to cancel classes the day after Halloween.
Their reasoning?
It’s because kids are tired from being out late at night. They’re also hyper on sugar the next day, making it more difficult for the teachers to control them.
This just happened to be the topic of the day for my local FOX5 news station.
A day off after Halloween?
The answer is simple. No.
Absolutely not.
No way, Jose.
Are you, the incredibly weak and stupid parents that you are, really going to need me to explain to you why your ideas these days are not only disturbingly lame, but are actually *hurting* your kids instead of helping them?
Fine. Sit down. Let’s go over why you’re not only ruining the great holiday of Halloween and its tradition of trick-or-treating, but that you’re also hurting your kids in the process.
For starters, Halloween is celebrated on October 31st every year. This isn’t one of those floating holidays that always occurs on a certain day of the week, like Memorial Day or Thanksgiving. It’s a fixed date like the Fourth of July (don’t get me started on you people living in Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Canada) and Christmas. You know exactly when it’s going to occur every single year. Deal with it.
The practice of trick-or-treating occurs from dusk to early night on Halloween night. Kids put on their costumes and start going door-to-door, collecting candy around dusk, and they generally return about two (or three) hours later. Since we’re still on daylight time right now, that means that most trick-or-treating takes place between six and eight or nine pm. After nine most people turn off their outdoor lights, blow out their pumpkin, and stop answering the door to give out candy.
More importantly, trick-or-treating also taught us about life in general while being at a young age. For starters, you had to work to get candy. You had to acquire (or make) a costume, and you had to walk from one house to another through the neighborhoods. Here in metro Atlanta you had to deal with hills and sometimes it involved walking up a steep driveway to reach the house. But your work was rewarded with a small piece of candy. The more you worked, then the more candy you received in the end.
We also learned about being on our own at night. When you’re little your mom or dad escorts you around the neighborhood, but when you’re a little older, that’s when you get to be alone with your friends.
You were on your own for making decisions and handling situations. Analyze the problem, study your resources, and then use an appropriate response. It was a brief glimpse of real life set in a mostly fun environment.
Trick-or-treating also taught us about luck.
Sometimes you got lucky and found a house that gave out full-size candy bars. Sometimes you got lucky and Halloween was on a Friday or Saturday, and the whole day was filled with fun spirits and activities. Those were always great. And then there were unlucky times like having your costume fall apart, having to deal with rain or extreme cold, or Halloween occurring on a Monday or Tuesday.
But you know what? We still dealt with it.
Halloween was *our* time, and we still went out there trick-or-treating no matter the day of the week or if it was raining or even snowing. So what? We were tough and would go against turmoil to get our damn candy. We eagerly did all of that in elementary and middle school. And we enjoyed it, too.
The following day at school was also fun as we traded not only candy but tales of trick-or-treating as well. Plus November 1st meant that Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away, what was then the first big break (three days off) from school.
PARENTS ARE RUINING HALLOWEEN
It all started back in the late 1980s when some parents drove their kids and their friends through the neighborhoods. They would drive to a spot and the kids would run to a few houses, get back in the minivan or pickup truck, and then drive part way down the street to the next spot. They would repeat this over and over and those kids would cover a large area and score a bunch of candy, all because they had extra help from a parent. We despised those kids as they were cheating.
It was around that same time period when shopping malls cashed in on trick-or-treating. Parents started taking their kids to the mall on Halloween, and the kids would run from one store to the next and easily get a ton of candy very quickly. Parents loved it as it was all enclosed, it was safe, there weren’t any hills to climb, and they could sit in a chair and always be close to the kids. Some parents would even hit several shopping malls in an area that night. Again, we despised those kids as they were cheating.
Sadly, that shopping mall trend exploded in popularity and by the mid to late 1990s nearly everybody was doing it. Suddenly the neighborhood’s streets were much quieter on Halloween night as the kids were all elsewhere. Since there weren’t nearly as many kids doing trick-or-treating, people stopped decorating their homes like they used to, and that reduction in Halloween participants caused the remaining kids to look elsewhere for their candy, creating a downward cycle.
In the early 2000s there was a rise in small organizations creating their own mini Halloween festivals for kids. These commonly occurred on Saturdays and in the early afternoon, and kids could play games and win prizes. It was a safe and fun atmosphere designed for the younger kids. To help get them into the spirit of trick-or-treating, this is where you saw the start of something called trunk-or-treat.
Trunk-or-treating is quite simple. Part of a parking lot is roped off and people would open their vehicle’s trunk, and use that space for decorations and a place to give away candy. Kids in costume would then go trick-or-treating from one car to the next. Parents love it as it’s a small “safe space,” the kids don’t have to walk much at all, and it’s usually done in the day, normally the early afternoon. Trunk-or-treating has been common for at least ten years now, and it’s still a popular option for parents, especially for those with really small children.
Of course, older kids enjoy trunk-or-treating as it’s a fast and easy way to get candy. They don’t care that it’s lame. All they see is easy candy with very little work to acquire it.
But wait. There’s still more with the ruining of Halloween.
A few years ago people have been pushing for Halloween to be made into a floating holiday that’s only celebrated on the last Saturday of the month. They claim that it’s easier (gee, why am I not surprised?) on both the parents and their kids if it’s transitioned into a Saturday holiday. Parents don’t have to rush home from work to get their kids ready for trick-or-treating, and the kids can easily rest and recover the following day.
Yeah, that’s really a reason they mention. It goes along with the newest trend of pushing for schools to give the kids the day off after Halloween.
Again, it’s asinine and ridiculous.
Can you guess what happens after you walk around for two or so hours collecting candy? It’s very easy to fall asleep that night. You won’t be tossing and turning and struggling to fall asleep. All of that fresh air and mild exercise can do wonders for helping tire out a body so that it can easily rest at night. Waking up early the next day isn’t a problem since you actually had sound sleep, and eating an extra piece of candy or two during lunch doesn’t hurt anything.
At least, the extra candy didn’t hurt us as we didn’t have an overabundance of hyper, ADHD kids that need constant attention, fidget spinners, and other physical activities. We knew how to behave in school. If our parents actually thought that having extra candy around the house was a bad idea, then they would confiscate the candy and then distribute it as they saw fit. It was a technique called “parenting.”
So what’s the big deal with Halloween when it occurs on a weekday?
It seems like way too many modern parents are hardwired to make life as fun and easy as possible for their precious little snowflakes.
I’ve got news for you, parents. Life is not simple. Nor is it fair. When times are difficult, rarely is it fun. When you keep lowering the bar and making it simpler and easier for the kids, what kind of kids do you raise? Your kids will become lazy, incredibly unappreciative, and they’ll expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter. Everybody gets their damn participation trophy at the end of the day. Every student gets passed to the next grade. Each kid gets at least one free meal each day at school.
Mainstream simplification and endless freebies hurt the vast majority of kids rather than helping the very small percentage who actually need it. It’s the same exact thing with Halloween and trick-or-treating.
Halloween and its traditional trick-or-treating (outside, going from one house to the next without assistance) can still be a fantastic experience and a taste of real life for the kids. It’s a friendly way of allowing the kids to escape from the world for a few hours, enjoy themselves, get away from mom and dad, and run around and score some candy. And that’s the way it should stay. Period.