What the hell happened to us as a country?

Here's this year's story about millions of kids not being able to trick or treat because their parents are too terrified to let them leave the house lazy to go accompany and supervise them properly

is more like it. I don't remember ever going trick-or-treating without my mom hanging around. Keeps your candy from getting stolen by bigger kids, although that wasn't a problem in my neighbourhood out in the boonies.

eddyatwork: What the hell happened to us as a country?

Thats from the UK.

We will get our article on tues or wed.

Trunk or Treat is where it's at now anyway. My church has been doing it for years.
1) Line up cars in the parking lot with the trunks facing towards each other.
2) Decorate
3) Hand out (and have your kids get) a huge sack of candy from people you know.
All done in about an hour. And at 30 degree weather, it's juuuust right. If you're a parent you know, the less out in cold weather with little kids, the better.
Last year a guy brought a horse trailer and made a small haunted house to go through. It was awesome.


/last years Trunk or Treat.

Heroic Poser: /last years Trunk or Treat.

Ok, while Trunk or Treat sounds completely lame, I have to admit that yours is chock full o' win.

This year it's on a Friday, and the long-range forecast for Chicago is that it'll be a warm evening.

That will be a long night of miscreant teenagers smashing pumpkins and egging houses. At least when it's cold, they pack it in earlier.

My mom is expecting between 400-500 kids this year. She is across the street from an elementary school and lives in a high middle class neighborhood. On the other side of the main street near her house there is a trailer park. No kid wants to trick or treat in a huge trailer park so all the kids make there way to my mom's neighborhood for some good loot.

Cue the Chances motifake

I decided to reabsorb my children back into my vagina for the winter so they don't get cold/abducted.

cerote: This year it's on a Friday, and the long-range forecast for Chicago is that it'll be a warm evening.

That will be a long night of miscreant teenagers smashing pumpkins and egging houses. At least when it's cold, they pack it in earlier.

This. and then those same teens get into politics.

My former next door neighbors wouldn't let their kids trick-or-treat, but that was because they were jesus freaks.

/glad they're gone

Terrified? How about lazy.

Barakku: I decided to reabsorb my children back into my vagina for the winter so they don't get cold/abducted.

That's gotta hurt

Barakku: I decided to reabsorb my children back into my vagina for the winter so they don't get cold/abducted.

Mom?

Kids usually go Trick or Treating together as a group usually with adult supervision if they're kiddies or there's some teen who's in the group with his teenage pals who want to load up on free candy.

Halloween is safe, people just make up crap like razors and needles and pedophiles just to get kids in the scary mood.

Barakku: I decided to reabsorb my children back into my vagina uterus for the winter so they don't get cold/abducted.

FTFY

Tell me how that can be accomplished.. I have one I'd like to do the same with.

/you owe me a new keyboard.

Barakku: I decided to reabsorb my children back into my vagina for the winter so they don't get cold/abducted.

Wait... we can do that?

One response to both Heroic Poser and Barakku:

HOT!!

When I was a kid, I would trick or treat with friends (no adult supervision) after dark in Queens, NY. Not the most dangerous place, but not the safest either in the 70s and 80s. I also lived three blocks from a mental hospital.

I somehow survived.

And I thought my mom was overprotective. She'd never tell us we couldn't go trick-or-treating!

Barakku: I decided to reabsorb my children back into my vagina for the winter so they don't get cold/abducted.

any candy?

To this generation of parents, I have one message for you...

Grow a bloody spine and let your kids be real kids. Pretty soon kids will be terrified to walk out of the front door. If you are really that scared of the 'hood, perhaps you ought to talk to your neighbors and work together to clean it up.

Yes, the real world is scary but it's the only one ya got, live in it.

Eventually these families will make a custom of hiding in the basement from Santa every year. When that happens, it will be easy for someone like me to rob their homes. No police reports will be filed, because of the fear of elven omniscience and retribution. There's a bright side to everything.

Barakku: I decided to reabsorb my children back into my vagina for the winter so they don't get cold/abducted.

Can I put my kids in there too?

I live in a gated condo complex. Not one trick-or-treater comes a-knocking. But across the street from us is a huge, somewhat well-to-do neighborhood where a lot of the houses are decorated wildly and hundreds of kids go trick-or-treating. We take the kids around, freeze our asses off, and then go to a friend's house for hot cider while the kids make themselves sick on candy.

I swear to God, it's like stepping into a time machine and visiting 1960!

Gives me hope.

Something I thought of, but it seems like it might be a hassle. Keep the kids at home, and have the parents walk the neighborhood giving candy to the houses with kids. Kind of a reverse trick-or-treat. I like Heroic Poser's idea too, but I'm not the church type.

Here's my advice ...

Broadcastdave: My mom is expecting between 400-500 kids this year. She is across the street from an elementary school and lives in a high middle class neighborhood. On the other side of the main street near her house there is a trailer park. No kid wants to trick or treat in a huge trailer park so all the kids make there way to my mom's neighborhood for some good loot.

Well your mom is pretty good at turning tricks for 400-500 people so it should be a snap!

/Oblig
//Luke warm, not hot...

The whole notion of children blackmailing adults with the threats of tricks in order to obtain treats is a bizarre ritual that should be limited to Organized Religion.

Have a party instead. After the kids crash, break out the naughty adult costumes.

Good. I don't want these useless crotchspawn on my lawn or doorstep.

pnjunction: Here's this year's story about millions of kids not being able to trick or treat because their parents are too terrified to let them leave the house lazy to go accompany and supervise them properly

is more like it. I don't remember ever going trick-or-treating without my mom hanging around. Keeps your candy from getting stolen by bigger kids, although that wasn't a problem in my neighbourhood out in the boonies.

A million times this. Just peel your arse off the sofa and walk your kids around. Christ.

Don't worry about Halloween. When your precious snow flake grows up to be 18, they will have the pleasure of getting killed by little Akmed here in some god forsaken country.

RandomExcess: The whole notion of children blackmailing adults with the threats of tricks in order to obtain treats is a bizarre ritual that should be limited to Organized Religion.

Have a party instead. After the kids crash, break out the naughty adult costumes.

You realize that's a direct quote from the cranky old man whose house you egged when you were twelve.

kevinboehm: I like Heroic Poser's idea too, but I'm not the church type.

You don't have to be. A lot of these have been springing up all over.
Mainly because it gets so cold around here. Last year was near 20 degrees.
I hear Cub scout packs and other neighborhoods are doing it.
I still take them to some homes after it's over, but the great thing is, ours starts at 6, we get over at 7 and we're home in time to hand out treats to other kids.
I luvs me some Halloween.

Fine. I don't really want to give those punks all my candy anyway.

/off my lawn, etc

If the Republicans get their way, all the kids will be packing heat anyway.

Heroic Poser: Trunk or Treat is where it's at now anyway. My church has been doing it for years.
1) Line up cars in the parking lot with the trunks facing towards each other.
2) Decorate
3) Hand out (and have your kids get) a huge sack of candy from people you know.
All done in about an hour. And at 30 degree weather, it's juuuust right. If you're a parent you know, the less out in cold weather with little kids, the better.
Last year a guy brought a horse trailer and made a small haunted house to go through. It was awesome.


/last years Trunk or Treat.

That's just sad. But oh well, guess times are a changin'

Got my decorations up.
Along with the fog machine, strobe light, & the booming sound effects a lot of little kids won't come to the house. Scared a parent or two as well.


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The safety concern is one thing, but the religious fundies spouting off the ol' "Oh Halloween is the Devil's holiday" are another thing. But both need to be cock/coont punched.

scott88008: RandomExcess: The whole notion of children blackmailing adults with the threats of tricks in order to obtain treats is a bizarre ritual that should be limited to Organized Religion.

Have a party instead. After the kids crash, break out the naughty adult costumes.

You realize that's a direct quote from the cranky old man whose house you egged when you were twelve.

That doesn't make it wrong.

When I was little, one of my parents would walk with me around our subdivision, which had about 70 houses in it. More than enough candy for me as an elementary school kid. When I got to middle school, I would spend the night over at one of my friend's houses, where they lived in bigger subdivisions, and therefore there was more candy to be had. We were good kids (for the most part), so parental supervision was lax, but it was fun. When I was in high school, I'd dress up along with my friends, and we'd take their younger siblings trick-or-treating to the safe (and high-end) neighborhoods, because those were the places that gave out the best candy, and usually they'd hand out treats to us older teens too. We very rarely went to the trailer park after dark, because it was (and still is) the most dangerous place in town, so we never went trick or treating there, unless we were there to pick up a friend before going to someplace nicer (and much less likely to have razorblades in the treats).

If the people in TFA are so scared, they need to find out where the good neighborhoods are, and then if they're still skittish because of all the 'what if' scenarios they've concocted in their heads, then they should buy some pepper spray and make sure their cell phone has a full charge before leaving the house. Honestly, it's an hour or less of being outside with your kids while they have fun; suck it up and be a good parent.

RandomExcess:
The whole notion of children blackmailing adults with the threats of tricks in order to obtain treats is a bizarre ritual that should be limited to Organized Religion.

Actually it apparently originated with a ritualization of the giving of charity to the poor, in order to prevent retribution by them against the rich.

Sounds pretty par for the course for the Nanny State^TM

In our neighborhood, kids still go trick of treating, and I love it--have already bought 300 pieces of candy to rot their teeth and keep them up all night. No wussy parents around here.

No Such Agency: RandomExcess:
The whole notion of children blackmailing adults with the threats of tricks in order to obtain treats is a bizarre ritual that should be limited to Organized Religion.

Actually it apparently originated with a ritualization of the giving of charity to the poor, in order to prevent retribution by them against the rich.

And being a Canadian, you would know that. Canadian kids, once upon a time, would yell "Alms to the poor" at people's doors. In Detroit, we did it too, but we didn't really know why. Apparently a bad habit we got from across the river. :)

Heroic Poser: Trunk or Treat is where it's at now anyway. My church has been doing it for years.
1) Line up cars in the parking lot with the trunks facing towards each other.
2) Decorate
3) Hand out (and have your kids get) a huge sack of candy from people you know.
All done in about an hour. And at 30 degree weather, it's juuuust right. If you're a parent you know, the less out in cold weather with little kids, the better.
Last year a guy brought a horse trailer and made a small haunted house to go through. It was awesome.


/last years Trunk or Treat.

where is the "trick" part? should I slash your tires?

but you clearly do not GET halloween, the best part was having the guts to go to the 'scary grumpy' guys house only to find out he gave out 5 dollar bills and the 'chicken' kids got none.It has to do with having the balls to face your fears. there is no fear in your moms minivan. yes as a paranoid parent you can stand on the sidewalk, and find out your own fears were bunk,and your kid has more guts than you. At some point in life we all have to 'face our fears' and apparently some of you still have not. Maybe you should have your child knock for you.

//here is an idea for paranoid parents,"get to know your neighbors!" then you will know who they are knocking on the door of

Jesus, if parents today were able to rewind just ONE summer day from my youth, they would die:

At five, I would grab my cane pole and swipe some bacon from the fridge and go fishing at the creek a mile from our house whenever I wanted. Unsupervised, mostly, or I might get my dad to join me if he promised not to talk too much.

Regularly biked five miles across town to see my pals.

Played on playground equipment that today could never be approved by any oversight committee.

At eight, made a super tree house thirty feet up with no adult supervision (or knowledge).

I loved reading all sorts of stuff. I read most of John Irving's stuff (up through The Hotel New Hampshire, as much as he had written). Some kid books, some decidedly adult-oriented; read whatever I pleased.

At twelve, biked forty-five miles to a state park to camp in a wilderness area (no facilities, just a water spigot in four acres of forest) - couple times with friends and once by myself.

Never had a curfew. My parents worked all the time, so I pretty much took care of myself. Taught myself to cook and build computers as a kid. Never drank, smoked, took drugs or even cursed. Never got caught doing anything else.*

If kids were seen doing any of these things nowadays, their parents would be locked up.

----

*Actually, I was nabbed by the cops ONCE for driving on a roadway without a license. I was taken home and put in my mom's custody after a nosy old lady narced on me for enjoying a leisurely drive down the block. Nobody got hurt, but the fuzz still detained me and put me in their cop car. My mom told me this story, as I don't remember it happening. I was 4. The car was similar to this:

Death by Misadventure: Don't worry about Halloween. When your precious snow flake grows up to be 18, they will have the pleasure of getting killed by little Akmed here in some god forsaken country.

I take it you are going as a troll this year?

Broadcastdave: My mom is expecting between 400-500 kids this year. She is across the street from an elementary school and lives in a high middle class neighborhood. On the other side of the main street near her house there is a trailer park. No kid wants to trick or treat in a huge trailer park so all the kids make there way to my mom's neighborhood for some good loot.

that's not why they come to your mom's neighborhood...