{"id":7589,"date":"2017-11-01T10:52:53","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T16:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=7589"},"modified":"2017-11-01T10:58:08","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T16:58:08","slug":"r-p-trick-treat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/11\/r-p-trick-treat.html","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P., Trick or Treat?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"http:\/\/www.501csw.usafe.af.mil\/News\/Article-Display\/Article\/436731\/trick-or-treaters-converge-on-raf-alconbury\/\"<\/p>\n

Trigger warning \u2014 for those who are triggered by statements without solid data!<\/p>\n

Trick-or-treating, it seems, is dead.<\/p>\n

I offer two pieces of evidence:\u00a0 first, we had about half a dozen trick-or-treaters at our door last night, and, of these, two were families we knew personally and one was my son and his friends.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t even get any of the usual after-dark teenagers, except, again, for my son and his friends.\u00a0 (Yes, they did have costumes \u2013 my son dug out his 7th grade costume<\/a>, though he\u2019s grown quite a bit since then! \u2014 and you know what?\u00a0 I\u2019ve gotten used to teen trick-or-treaters enjoying themselves, so long as they put on a costume.)<\/p>\n

Second, the Washington Post had an opinion piece called \u201cLet your kids go trick-or-treating. It\u2019s good for them.<\/a>\u201d which is meant to encourage parents whose version of trick-or-treating for their children, has become the \u201ctrunk or treat\u201d program sponsored by their local church or town.\u00a0 The author talks about the life lessons learned in trick-or-treating, that is, the need to go up to strangers to ask for the treat, then say thank-you afterwards, and the opportunity, at the right age, to do so with friends instead of family.<\/p>\n

One presumes that the author wouldn\u2019t be writing this unless there was a need.<\/p>\n

Can I find\u00a0concrete evidence that the percentage of children who trick-or-treat has declined; or that fewer of the tween-aged kids are allowed to go on their own, or that families restrict themselves; or kids are restricted by Mom & Dad, to just the houses on their own block or other \u201csafe\u201d houses; or that, because Mom & Dad are supervising, they only get to hit a few houses before they rustle up the kids to go home; or that the prevalence of trunk-or-treat and school Halloween parties means that the kids just lose interest sooner because they have too much candy already?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 The National Retail Federation<\/a> is more interested in total spend, e.g., on costumes and candy, and not in the manner in which the candy is distributed or costumes are used.\u00a0 They do report that 30.8% of adults surveyed planned to take children trick-or-treating, vs. 32.9% in 2011 (the first year for which data was available from their survey online), but\u00a0if this survey category included \u201ctake children trunk<\/em>-or-treating\u201d as well, for instance, it wouldn\u2019t show any real changes, and it\u2019s likewise unclear whether this would capture parents of children who go out by themselves.<\/p>\n

So, yes, it was a cold night last night, but that\u2019s to be expected for Halloween, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 And we\u2019ve never had particularly many trick-or-treaters; there seems to be something about how our street lands, in terms of Halloween traffic patterns, that means that neighboring streets get more.\u00a0 But it\u2019ll be quite the challenge to avoid gaining weight from this year\u2019s leftover candy.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I don\u2019t have a grand reflection on what this means.\u00a0 Maybe it means nothing, and it\u2019s just a fluke and everyone else was running out of candy.\u00a0 Even if not, will it harm kids to lose the trick-or-treat tradition?\u00a0 Not in isolation \u2014 only to the extent that this is one piece of larger social trends in which children and teens are becoming homebodies unprepared to start the process of adulting.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.501csw.usafe.af.mil\/News\/Article-Display\/Article\/436731\/trick-or-treaters-converge-on-raf-alconbury\/<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trigger warning \u2014 for those who are triggered by statements without solid data! Trick-or-treating, it seems, is dead. I offer two pieces of evidence:\u00a0 first, we had about half a dozen trick-or-treaters at our door last night, and, of these, two were families we knew personally and one was my son and his friends.\u00a0 We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":7591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[486],"class_list":["post-7589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-halloween"],"yoast_head":"\nR.I.P., Trick or Treat?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Trigger warning -- for those who are triggered by statements without solid data! Trick-or-treating, it seems, is dead. 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