Is it now time to do away with the traditional trick or treating?

It should be illegal.
Children are being encouraged to hide their identities, and then extort valuables from their victims under threat of causing property damage.
They are taught to become criminals, and what is worse, their victims are not even allowed to defend themselves and their property with lethal force.
What is the 2nd Amendment really for, if not for this?

This is a myth: ”...people being evil and hurting kids.”

Why take away something kids enjoy and get to cut loose one short period every year?

Who the fuck is being evil and hurting kids? Psychos? I think you’ll see the stats on them diminishing steadily since they took lead out of gasoline.

Don’t feel safe in your crime ridden neighborhood? Go to a better one and redistribute some candy.

Nobody where I live is “being evil and hurting kids.” Kids here love Halloween and the small kids go around with parents in groups. The teens go in groups without parents. There is also “trunk or treat” events where they get candy from parking lots where people give it out from their cars. Trick or Treating is definitely not going away where I live. It’s a fun tradition and I think it should continue. I don’t hear anything bad, here, about bad things happening to kids.

Even though I get tired of answering the door, I really like the folk tradition of trick or treating and hope it continues into the future. Ther have always been stories of razor blades in apples but I don’t think the danger is any worse now. As @jca2 says, parents go around with the younger kids in groups as we did with neighbors when our kids were young.

Damn @Smashley, chill out.
I figured since so many businesses were going out of their way to have trick or treat to “keep your kids safe” somewhere kids weren’t safe.

I agree with you, @chyna, for a number of reasons. As a single parent, I couldn’t always arrange to have someone at my house to greet Trick or Treaters, which was a bit of a problem. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let my kid go out alone or with people I didn’t know well. Sometimes kids go missing, or get “mugged” by other kids for their swag. And the whole weeknight Halloween thing made me nuts, it affects schools, work, and general schedules for a lot of people.
I am all for the stroll around to business thing, and the Trunk or Treat thing. I wish they had been doing that when mine was little.

And doing it on Saturdays is a great idea.

I don’t participate but it’s still very much a tradition here. As long as an adult supervises, I see nothing wrong with it.

@chyna – fear sells. Telling parents to come to your store instead of that awful, dangerous door to door thing, is an obvious ploy to remove you from your money. A store cannot do anything for the people without it being a form of advertising and indoctrination.

Not everyone who says fuck is unchill. It was just a reaction against your “I hear it’s really dangerous these days” regurgitations. Like people haven’t been saying that for literally forever. It’s just a damaging, unfounded position that is self reinforcing, and thus must be clapped back at.

Oh please, @Smashley, no one is changing their shopping habits for this. No one will be going into businesses to spend their money while shepherding costumed children about.

I appreciate the trick-or-treating events held by businesses for the younger kids who can’t really stay out late. (And most houses aren’t ready for trick-or-treaters until a bit later.)

But Halloween is HUGE where I live. And I’m excited for my kids to be able to experience that.

This year will be the first time we are allowing our oldest to go trick-or-treating without any adults. Just with a group of friends. I’m a little bit nervous. But mostly I’m excited for her!

I loved trick-or-treating and the annual manufactured fear/panic over it (this year it’s “rainbow fentanyl” disguised as Halloween candy because apparently profit is no longer a motive for drug dealers/smugglers, they just want to kill kids for some reason) just makes me more determined to not let the old tradition die. Trick-or-treating is still done where I live. I see little evidence that kids aren’t safe as long as they’re accompanied by an adult (my siblings and I always were).

I have nothing against kids going other places like schools or malls to get candy (my high school always hosted a trick-or-treat event for neighborhood kids and it was fun). I just hope media-driven fear isn’t the reason for it.

@Demosthenes Mostly I see the changes as a convenience thing, not a media-driven-fear thing.

No, it’s not time to do away with it. It’s a safe tradition that children and young teens love.

I hate the trunk or treat thing. It steals kids away from the neighborhoods. Pretty much the kids turn in a slow circle and an avalanche of candy falls on them. It’s a practice in unmitigated greed. Hate it.

I know I’ll have at least 4 trick or treaters in the form of my grandkids. I’m ready! I got a magic light bulb for the front porch, that I can set to any one of 9 colors. I can set it to cycle through the colors slowly or quickly, like a party bus! Also it has a strobe effect. Also I’ll have Thriller cued up!

No.

Is there even a surge in “people being evil and hurting kids”? Seems to me that’s been a possibility forever.

There has certainly been an increase in fear in vocal parents and the media. Kids used to be outside more doing more things, without people being scared about it and wanting to confine them. And this is with the supposed benefits of a billion security cameras everywhere, cell phones with cameras, etc.

What I think should be stopped, is people trying to control too many things with laws and rules and not letting kids outside to do things unsupervised.

Wha? No. Look safety paranoia is part and parcel of being a parent. And in many places…well, is it paranoia if the danger is real?

But outside the inner cities, America is still pretty damn safe contrary to the media hype. Especially compared to the past. And on Halloween when DROVES of parents are out with their kids, I would argue those kids are SAFER than on an average day when they’re wandering around on their own.

I NEVER liked Halloween…even as a kid. I did it because I was told I was supposed to & I did enjoy the free candy!!! Then when I married my ex & a beautiful daughter came along with the deal, I took her out just as soon as it became dark & I ONLY took her to homes that I knew. That was around 1972 & the razor blades in candy had just begun to become the creepy thing to do!!! The day after Halloween, she always threw away her candy out of fear that somebody wanted to hurt her. I offered to buy her a huge bag of candy IF she’d stop trick or treating; but she enjoyed the getting dressed up & being scared by some of the adults, so I continued to protect my little Casper on her one fun night of the year!!!

Now days, my town has pretty much canceled Halloween. The Christian Nationalists decided that Halloween was the same thing as worshiping Satan, so most of our churches have stopped having safe Halloween events. Most of the businesses stopped having the t or t events years ago when they figured out how much it was costing them to pay employees overtime to help protect the little monsters & very few parents were shopping choosing to stay out with their kids. I’ve lived in my house for 25 years & I’ve only ever had 1 trick or treater. I used to buy a small bag of candy that I liked so I’d have something…just in case. I forgot to buy the bag of candy for tonight & most of the grandparents of the little ones have died & the parents don’t go slumming in my neighborhood…opting to go to the rich section of town where they can get expensive candy…not the cheep crap!!! I don’t really care as living by myself, I don’t like opening my door to somebody I don’t know…especially IF it’s a teen that I’ve never seen before.

I used to worry about driving on Halloween because I feared some kid running out in front of my car. Now days, I don’t hardly ever see a kid that I need to avoid. A few of the parents are opting to have Halloween parties for their own children & friends so they have some control over who is invited & shows up. So, it seems to me that Halloween is fizzling out all by itself & I’m NOT going to complain one bit!!!

Edited by me

One Halloween I had a passel of grandkids in the house.
Knock at the door and there was a kid, about 4, with her mom. Her eyes lit up when she saw the all the kids! Obviously we were having a Halloween party! She walked right in!
“Well. Oh kay!” I laughed and stepped aside.
Mom absolutely freaked out!!
She kept hissing the child’s name. She’d gone pale.
I cheerfully invited Mom in too.
She wildly shook her head no and kept hissing at her child.
The kid was having so much fun but I ruefully went to her and gently took her by the hand and took back to her apoplectic mother. Mom rushed away like a hoard of vampires was after them.
Poor kid.

Kids can get hurt anywhere, anytime with or without trick-or-treating. It just one of those things society has to live with…

It does seem to be a dying holiday. Even the costumes are being limited due cultural appropriation or violence or some other perceived offense. Once ‘trick or treating’ is eliminated the holiday is gone. I will miss it.

I just gave out a ton of candy and had a great few hours (and it’s still early but it started to rain) here. There were lots of parents, kids, neighbors walking up and down my road. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. Maybe some of them had a beer or a can of something, one dad had some Chinese food. So much fun! I had a huge bowl of candy (Costco, probably 8 lbs), and I had lots of fun handing it out and seeing all the kids.

The temp dropped here about 10 degrees when it was already cold & the rains came with a vengeance, so Halloween was pretty much a bust this year!!! The one thing that I did notice was that this year it appeared to be the older kids (teens) who were all dressed up for Halloween with very few little ones looking all adorable. Maybe the parents just lost interest in taking the time after working all day to dress up their little ones & taking them out for some fun. Most of the older teens aren’t interested in going door to door begging for candy. And, with today’s society insisting on becoming insulted over almost anything anyone does, it’s getting harder to choose a costume that won’t get you attacked. So, now I’m wondering how Halloween is morphing into something new & different???

Halloween was a bust here, too. It poured down the rain. I hate it for the little ones who were really looking forward to trick or treating.

Here’s some pics from our city of 250k. All the homes tagged in the one pic have bonfires in their yard.

https://imgur.com/gallery/aqQ54yJ

No. Of course not. If you don’t want to participate, don’t. Live and let live. Freedom. Remember?

No. Let the kiddos have fun however you prefer to do it. Taking little ones door to door, having a party at home for teens or tweens, just
whatever floats a families stick. I’m just glad that nutzoid clown suit crap is over with. Suicidal in my state anyway.

Go running and scaring folks in a clown suit is a good way to get shot.

This negativity is why I didn’t I didn’t stop at your house.

And too bad for you. I was the one giving treats ;p

Seems like there’s still plenty of Halloween going on . . . in the cool neighborhoods.

” I know in my area they have trick or treating at businesses, at the malls, in large parking lots that are sponsored by businesses.”

Sounds like Halloween is being co-opted by capitalists in order to indoctrinate children under the flimsy pretext of keeping them safe.

Nobody on my cul de sac did Halloween this year. Most of the children have grown up and moved out. My family went to a private party. In past years they went to the mall for the big party there.

@Kropptkin – exactly. Plus a business will write the candy off as a donation or business expense. Translation: you are paying them for the candy.

So much, to my mind, rather silly passion expressed about keeping things exactly as they were.
Really, this is not that big an issue if it changes. No one is advocating eliminating Halloween, just shifting the method of celebrating.

And really, @Smashley, do you simply steal the candy that you pass out to trick or treaters? Is that why you’re upset that ”… you are paying them for the candy.”?
Geez.

@canidmajor – please read my comment again before assuming you know what I meant. A tax write-off is a subsidy payed by the state to the business. The people pay for the candy a business “gives away”.

Wow. I never thought you would get to a point of being that grumpy old person at the end of the street.

Toilet paper and eggs take aim!

I’m not grumpy poop head!!!

Sometimes it’s fun to dress up.

Actually what I like the most about Halloween is that it is a neighborhood tradition and one of the few that has lasted. There’s so little communal culture any more and I don’t see trunk or treats or stores giving out candy as quite the same as going round the neighborhood. I was sad last night that I only got one trick or treater instead of the usual hordes. Part of the reason may be the shifting culture but a large part in my neighborhood is that it has shifted quite radically to being a posh summer neighborhood in recent years and there aren’t many kids around in the Fall and winter any more.

I think the mall thing is more for advertising than anything else.