Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year
Decatur Metro | October 30, 2010 | 9:10 amJudd sent me a link yesterday to this Wall Street Journal op-ed by Journal Lenore Skenazy – the “Free Range Kids” lady who we’ve discussed before – about how many parents fear their kids’ few hours of freedom on Halloween despite all evidence to the contrary.
It’s a good, sarcastic and irritated rant. Full of fun facts and assertions. I’m a fan of this line in particular, “Sure, the folks down the street might smile and wave the rest of the year, but apparently they were just biding their time before stuffing us silly with strychnine-laced Smarties.” (However, I’m a sucker for a sentence that starts with “Sure,” truth be told.)
Anyway. Parents, free-range advocates, those annoyed by “nanny-“anything will all find something to cherish in its peevish paragraphs. I strongly recommend it.
But Judd’s right on the money when he remarks that the conclusion reminds him of assertions often made here on DM…
In fact, she says, “We almost called this paper, ‘Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year,’ because it was just so incredibly rare to see anything happen on that day.”
Why is it so safe? Because despite our mounting fears and apoplectic media, it is still the day that many of us, of all ages, go outside. We knock on doors. We meet each other. And all that giving and taking and trick-or-treating is building the very thing that keeps us safe: community.
We can kill off Halloween, or we can accept that it isn’t dangerous and give it back to the kids. Then maybe we can start giving them back the rest of their childhoods, too.
Hell yeah. Take back the night from the apoplectic media.
This women is my hero. L-o-v-e her.
We have to perpetuate the myth of the dangers of Halloween candy. Otherwise what excuse will we have for going through our kids’ trick or treat bags and raiding them of all the good stuff?!!!
Thanks for highlighting a story from the WSJ. It has become my favorite newspaper to read, especially on a morning like today.
Safest day of the year? If you mean that children going door to door in their neighborhood are generally safe from those who want to harm them then I guess it is. Growing up in Decatur in the 50s, I never had a problem with the traditional Halloween activities. One of my older sisters would supervise our neighborhood shakedown. Most of our neighbors knew the Billingsley family (“Yankees, eight kids, Catholics, probably Republicans, but they are not as bad as we feared when they first moved in”) and everyone seem to have a good time. Later we would come home and watch a scary movie on T.V., usually something like Frankenstein, The Wolfman, or Dracula. The next day my parents would drag us to church to celebrate All Saints Day and the priest would remind us that good does triumph over evil.
I think kids today have a very different experience. Last night, I watched a movie called “The Fourth Kind”. Owl-like aliens who speak an ancient Sumerian dialect terrorize the residents of Nome, Alaska. Maybe a harmless piece of fluff except the movie depicts fathers murdering their families, children being abducted and never returned, several torture scenes, and clueless authority figures (Watching the movie, I kept thinking to myself, why don’t these psychologists tell these people to get the hell out of Nome!). But worst of all was the general feeling of hopelessness at the end of the movie. The sadistic aliens triumph, the surviving victims remain helpless, and not once does good triumph. Many Halloween movies and activities like this are very popular with young people today. That’s Scary!
If this is what the festival has become, a day in which evil triumphs over good, then I would suggest that Halloween has become very dangerous. Enjoy Halloween but don’t forget that young people need to hear about hope, love and courage. The holiday needs to return to a more kid friendly celebration. My church, Saint Thomas More, continues to celebrate All Saints Day. I’m sure that other Decatur churches provide similar messages of hope and salvation. There is no better time to check out a Decatur area church or synagogue than this weekend.
Happy Halloween!
I don’t think Halloween is dangerous. I think it’s fun.
Then again, I used to be a Catholic.
Regardless of the day of the year, the idea that kids are at any more risk of random danger than in the past is itself a myth, fueled by a fear-mongering media desperate for ratings (Nancy Grace, for example). The current generation of youth is the most sheltered, over-protected cohort in history. No wonder so many are afraid to leave the nest.
“Many Halloween movies and activities like this are very popular with young people today.”
What activities would those be? I know of know of no Halloween activities where “sadistic aliens triumph and the surviving victims are helpless.” Not even in the metaphorical sense.