Stranger Danger

[MacGyver]

So I'm interested in you guys take on Halloween from a different perspective than we've discussed so far.

I remember as a child being able to trick-or-treat with my friends, and just my friends - with no parents tagging along. Certainly this wasn't as a very young child, but I know I did it all through elementary school. Yet, today it seems to be considered anathma to even consider letting your child do the same.

It's not just Halloween, either. I'm amazed every morning leaving my neighborhood to see older middle school students waiting in their parents car at the end of the street for the bus. I know my parents were concerned about my safety, but we waited for the bus standing on the curb with our friends - rain or shine. My mom wouldn't have driven me to the bus stop at the end of the next street in a hundred years.

Today, violent crimes against persons are at significantly lower levels than they were when I was growing up in the seventies, yet our kids are locked up tight.

Here is an article to stir your thinking from yesterday's Op Ed page in the Wall Street Journal. It is by Lenore Skenazy, the mom who was both praised and accused of child abuse a few years ago for allowing her 9 year old son to ride the subway a few stops home from a department store by himself.

Stranger Danger' and the Decline of Halloween

No child has ever been killed by poisoned candy. Ever.

By LENORE SKENAZY

Halloween is the day when America market-tests parental paranoia. If a new fear flies on Halloween, it's probably going to catch on the rest of the year, too.

Take "stranger danger," the classic Halloween horror. Even when I was a kid, back in the "Bewitched" and "Brady Bunch" costume era, parents were already worried about neighbors poisoning candy. 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.

That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger's Halloween candy. (Oh, yes, he concedes, there was once a Texas boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix. But his dad did it for the insurance money. He was executed.)

Anyway, you'd think that word would get out: poisoned candy not happening. But instead, most Halloween articles to this day tell parents to feed children a big meal before they go trick-or-treating, so they won't be tempted to eat any candy before bringing it home for inspection. As if being full has ever stopped any kid from eating free candy!

So stranger danger is still going strong, and it's even spread beyond Halloween to the rest of the year. Now parents consider their neighbors potential killers all year round. That's why they don't let their kids play on the lawn, or wait alone for the school bus: "You never know!" The psycho-next-door fear went viral.

Then along came new fears. Parents are warned annually not to let their children wear costumes that are too tight—those could seriously restrict breathing! But not too loose either—kids could trip! Fall! Die!

Treating parents like idiots who couldn't possibly notice that their kid is turning blue or falling on his face might seem like a losing proposition, but it caught on too.

Halloween taught marketers that parents are willing to be warned about anything, no matter how preposterous, and then they're willing to be sold whatever solutions the market can come up with. Face paint so no mask will obscure a child's vision. Purell, so no child touches a germ. And the biggest boondoggle of all: an adult-supervised party, so no child encounters anything exciting, er, "dangerous."

Think of how Halloween used to be the one day of the year when gaggles of kids took to the streets by themselves—at night even. Big fun! Low cost! But once the party moved inside, to keep kids safe from the nonexistent poisoners, in came all the nonsense. The battery-operated caskets. The hired witch. The Costco veggie trays and plastic everything else. Halloween went from hobo holiday to $6 billion extravaganza.

And it blazed the way for adult-supervised everything else. Let kids make their own fun? Not anymore! Let's sign our toddlers up for "movement" classes! Let's bring on the extracurricular activities, travel soccer and manicure parties for the older kids. Once Halloween got outsourced to adults, no kids-only activity was safe. Goodbye sandlot, hello batting coach!

And now comes the latest Halloween terror: Across the country, cities and states are passing waves of laws preventing registered sex offenders from leaving their homes—or sometimes even turning on their lights—on Halloween.

The reason? Same old same old: safety. As a panel of "experts" on the "Today" show warned viewers recently: Don't let your children trick-or-treat without you "any earlier than [age] 13, because people put on masks, they put on disguises, and there are still people who do bad things."

Perhaps there are. But Elizabeth Letourneau, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, studied crime statistics from 30 states and found, "There is zero evidence to support the idea that Halloween is a dangerous date for children in terms of child molestation."

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.

Ms. Skenazy is the author of "Free-Range Kids" (Jossey-Bass, 2010). She blogs at Free Range Kids.

[Murgatroy]

Good read.

It would do my wife well to read this, but then again, I think I might be more paranoid than her.

[Guest KimberChick]

Key words here "Media incited panic"

You've got folks like Nancy Grace making whole segments of the population believe there's some sort of crime ring targeting cute little white girls. The sex offender registry has made people hyper-aware of the pervs who've always lived amongst us. I remember the big "needle scare" that had parents LINING UP at LeBonheur to have their kids' candy haul X-rayed!

When I was little, we all went trick-or-treating regardless of what night of the week Halloween fell upon. Our parents went with us until we were about 11 or 12, but they usually all hung out on the sidewalks while we ran up to the houses. Imagine a bunch of kids running door-to-door and a bunch of parents strolling along the sidewalk keepping pace with their herd.

Then you've got those parents whose kids are hell-on-wheels already due to serious lack of discipline. You've seen them tearing up the aisles at stores while alpha-mom texts on her iPhone or vacantly peruses the shelves. Those kids can't be let out en masse, in costume, amongst the masses. Not because they are concerned about what others may do to them, but because their kids are not equipped socially to handle such a situation.

Sidenote: One of my co-workers is raising her son in a sort of free-range manner. She gets the stink-eye over things she(and many of them) grew up doing yet he's still respectful, intelligent and well behaved. I don't get it.

Edited October 28, 2010 by KimberChick

[MacGyver]

I really like the idea in the last sentence of her article, that by going outside, knocking on doors, giving out candy and meeting each other - we are building community, which keeps us safe.

[Guest tnxdshooter]

So I'm interested in you guys take on Halloween from a different perspective than we've discussed so far.

I remember as a child being able to trick-or-treat with my friends, and just my friends - with no parents tagging along. Certainly this wasn't as a very young child, but I know I did it all through elementary school. Yet, today it seems to be considered anathma to even consider letting your child do the same.

It's not just Halloween, either. I'm amazed every morning leaving my neighborhood to see older middle school students waiting in their parents car at the end of the street for the bus. I know my parents were concerned about my safety, but we waited for the bus standing on the curb with our friends - rain or shine. My mom wouldn't have driven me to the bus stop at the end of the next street in a hundred years.

Today, violent crimes against persons are at significantly lower levels than they were when I was growing up in the seventies, yet our kids are locked up tight.

Here is an article to stir your thinking from yesterday's Op Ed page in the Wall Street Journal. It is by Lenore Skenazy, the mom who was both praised and accused of child abuse a few years ago for allowing her 9 year old son to ride the subway a few stops home from a department store by himself.

Stranger Danger' and the Decline of Halloween

No child has ever been killed by poisoned candy. Ever.

By LENORE SKENAZY

Halloween is the day when America market-tests parental paranoia. If a new fear flies on Halloween, it's probably going to catch on the rest of the year, too.

Take "stranger danger," the classic Halloween horror. Even when I was a kid, back in the "Bewitched" and "Brady Bunch" costume era, parents were already worried about neighbors poisoning candy. 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.

That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger's Halloween candy. (Oh, yes, he concedes, there was once a Texas boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix. But his dad did it for the insurance money. He was executed.)

Anyway, you'd think that word would get out: poisoned candy not happening. But instead, most Halloween articles to this day tell parents to feed children a big meal before they go trick-or-treating, so they won't be tempted to eat any candy before bringing it home for inspection. As if being full has ever stopped any kid from eating free candy!

So stranger danger is still going strong, and it's even spread beyond Halloween to the rest of the year. Now parents consider their neighbors potential killers all year round. That's why they don't let their kids play on the lawn, or wait alone for the school bus: "You never know!" The psycho-next-door fear went viral.

Then along came new fears. Parents are warned annually not to let their children wear costumes that are too tight—those could seriously restrict breathing! But not too loose either—kids could trip! Fall! Die!

Treating parents like idiots who couldn't possibly notice that their kid is turning blue or falling on his face might seem like a losing proposition, but it caught on too.

Halloween taught marketers that parents are willing to be warned about anything, no matter how preposterous, and then they're willing to be sold whatever solutions the market can come up with. Face paint so no mask will obscure a child's vision. Purell, so no child touches a germ. And the biggest boondoggle of all: an adult-supervised party, so no child encounters anything exciting, er, "dangerous."

Think of how Halloween used to be the one day of the year when gaggles of kids took to the streets by themselves—at night even. Big fun! Low cost! But once the party moved inside, to keep kids safe from the nonexistent poisoners, in came all the nonsense. The battery-operated caskets. The hired witch. The Costco veggie trays and plastic everything else. Halloween went from hobo holiday to $6 billion extravaganza.

And it blazed the way for adult-supervised everything else. Let kids make their own fun? Not anymore! Let's sign our toddlers up for "movement" classes! Let's bring on the extracurricular activities, travel soccer and manicure parties for the older kids. Once Halloween got outsourced to adults, no kids-only activity was safe. Goodbye sandlot, hello batting coach!

And now comes the latest Halloween terror: Across the country, cities and states are passing waves of laws preventing registered sex offenders from leaving their homes—or sometimes even turning on their lights—on Halloween.

The reason? Same old same old: safety. As a panel of "experts" on the "Today" show warned viewers recently: Don't let your children trick-or-treat without you "any earlier than [age] 13, because people put on masks, they put on disguises, and there are still people who do bad things."

Perhaps there are. But Elizabeth Letourneau, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, studied crime statistics from 30 states and found, "There is zero evidence to support the idea that Halloween is a dangerous date for children in terms of child molestation."

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.

Ms. Skenazy is the author of "Free-Range Kids" (Jossey-Bass, 2010). She blogs at Free Range Kids.

Heck here in rhea county they even have set up a curfew for the kiddies to be in by like 9pm I think. Since halloween falls on a sunday this year we will get out trick or treaters on saturday more than likely. At the time I was a kid I got to go around the neighborhood just me and my younger brother and get candy. It was never an issue.

[Punisher84]

This sums up my feelings about all the Halloween hysteria. This is my favorite episode BTW. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6k9qj56fL8

[LagerHead]

There's definitely a fine line between protecting your family and being a paranoid buzz kill. I try to err on the side of letting my kids have a little fun and experience life. If they fall down and skin their knee it's not a crisis, it's a learning experience. You're only young once and who wants to remember their childhood as a time when you could have had fun if only your parents weren't hovering over you every second?

[MacGyver]

There's definitely a fine line between protecting your family and being a paranoid buzz kill. I try to err on the side of letting my kids have a little fun and experience life. If they fall down and skin their knee it's not a crisis, it's a learning experience. You're only young once and who wants to remember their childhood as a time when you could have had fun if only your parents weren't hovering over you every second?

I'm with you on this. I've been thinking this morning, and trying to think of times when a parent did have to intervene in our affairs as a kid due to some safety concern coming from another person. I can think of two, but in both cases, we kids sought out our parents help dealing with this "stranger". We knew when something wasn't kosher and knew we could go not just to our parents, but to any of our friends parents about something we saw as a risk.

[Guest db99wj]

I was getting ready to post this article!

Seriously, though, Halloween candy has cause lots of sicknesses with kids for years, especially belly aches due to the consumption of WAY too much candy! I for one have had this happen, my kids too!

[Chucktshoes]

Seriously, though, Halloween candy has cause lots of sicknesses with kids for years, especially belly aches due to the consumption of WAY too much candy! I for one have had this happen, my kids too!

I thought that was the point?

[memphismason]

We just recently moved (this July) in a decent neighborhood and I am excited about letting my little girl Trick-Or-Treat like I did when I was a lad.

[-boatman-]

I always heard more about razor blades in apples than poisoned candy. They were supposedly on every street but I never heard of any of them being found.

[peejman]

Good thread!

I too trick-or-treated with a group of friends when I was elementary school aged. When we were a little younger, there would be 1 maybe 2 parents walking down the street while we ran from house to house. If someone's older sibling was there, likely no parents at all. Free to roam about. In the dark.

I've also noticed all the kids waiting at the bus stop in Mom's car. Have you driven past a school at opening time lately (or more correctly, tried to)? The number of parents driving their kids to school is staggering. When I was in middle school, both my parents left for work about the same time I left to catch the bus. And they weren't home yet when it dropped me back off.

However, we only trick-or-treated our own neighborhood. Lots of parents today seem to load the kids up in the van and haul them from subdivision to subdivision. I can understand that if they live out in the sticks, but seems a bit ridiculous for typical suburbanites like us.

I do recall getting a few weird things in my candy bag, but either we threw it away or showed it to our parents and they threw it away.

This will be my 2 yr old's first trick-or-treating experience. We're doing "trunks-n-treats" mainly because it'll involve less walking and is sponsored by our church. I assume he'll want to wander around the neighborhood in a year or two.

[Oh Shoot]

I always heard more about razor blades in apples than poisoned candy. They were supposedly on every street but I never heard of any of them being found.

Yep. Apples were laced with razor blades everywhere.

And all homemade candy had ExLax in it.

And beware the guy with the hook arm at the local lover's lane.

- OS

[JAB]

We lived out in the outskirts of town, not really in a 'neighborhood', when I was young enough to trick or treat. We also had good, solid reasons why we didn't really get along with or trust most of our immediate neighbors any time of the year. My mom did let us go up the road to one neighbor's house to trick or treat. There was an old couple who lived there and with whom we liked to visit (sometimes with our parents and sometimes just myself or my sister and I.) The lady would usually give us little bags of popcorn she had popped and we never worried about eating that.

There was a neighborhood where we would go to trick or treat every year but mom had to drive us there so she would walk around with us. She did usually send us up to the doors while she waited on the sidewalk, though.

My mom feared the 'razor blade in the apple' and 'the needle in the piece of candy.' She (sometimes with dad's 'help') always checked our candy before we were allowed to eat any of it. Of course, that might have just been an excuse to grab one or two of her favorites out and eat them too, "Make sure they are okay."

Keep in mind, though, that this was in the mid-'70s to the early 80's. It was before we all became so aware of the existence of urban legends. Combine that with the facts that such legends sometimes become 'legitimized' enough to be reported in the news as 'fact' (which may have been more common in the '70s) and that there was no Internet - much less a Snopes.com - to help research/debunk such 'incidents' and such vague fears begin to sound more rational.

This was also around the time that some people really did die from Tylenol that someone had poisoned and managed to get on a store shelf. That sort of random poisoning had to add weight to a parent's fears. It was during the time that John Waye Gacy was caught and charged with murdering more than thirty teenage boys and burying some of their bodies in his crawlspace. Add in that the teachers and principals were at that time warning students and parents that there were people attempting to expose kids to drugs by lacing those lick-and-rub-on "tattoos" (in our area, they were supposedly using images of Mickey Mouse) with PCP and it becomes easier to understand the fears.

I don't have kids so I don't know how I would handle 'trick or treating' in the modern era. I do have to say, though, that I find it kind of ironic that folks on a firearms board - most of whom carry a firearm because, however unlikely, bad things can happen anytime, anywhere, and when you least expect them - would criticize people for worrying that, however unlikely, bad things might happen to their kids anytime, anywhere and when they are least expected.

Edited October 28, 2010 by JAB

[Guest KimberChick]

Good thread!

However, we only trick-or-treated our own neighborhood. Lots of parents today seem to load the kids up in the van and haul them from subdivision to subdivision. I can understand that if they live out in the sticks, but seems a bit ridiculous for typical suburbanites like us.

I live in the city and my neighborhood ends up being a dump-off point for kids from the surrounding...eh....hoods. I quit giving out candy when bands of 15-20 year olds were walking up, costumeless, and wanting candy. Sorry man, unless you're coming up with your child in-tow, you ain't gettin mah Snickers. [shakes fist] now, get off mah lawn![/shakes fist]

[MacGyver]

I don't have kids so I don't know how I would handle 'trick or treating' in the modern era. I do have to say, though, that I find it kind of ironic that folks on a firearms board - most of whom carry a firearm because, however unlikely, bad things can happen anytime, anywhere, and when you least expect them - would criticize people for worrying that, however unlikely, bad things might happen to their kids anytime, anywhere and when they are least expected.

It's not a criticism by any stretch, just simply wondering what the general feeling was here on a gun board.

I carry a gun pretty much everywhere I go. In my line of work, I certainly know that bad stuff can happen. I wonder though if the tradeoff is worth it. If somehow, what we are taking from our kids in the name of making them safer, isn't robbing them of some of the important things you need to learn as a kid. Stuff like learning to solve your own problems, sticking up for your friends, watching your friend's back and knowing that he'll do the same, learning to judge risks - and experiencing the freedom that comes from being a kid. I know kids in middle and high school whose parents have made every major decision for them, and will likely continue to. I have a colleague who had a recent college graduate's mom show up at the interview with him. It's ridiculous. Kids learn through experiencing the world, and experiencing the consequences of their choices. We all do. I wonder if by sterilizing our kid's childhoods, we don't also somehow sterilize our children.

I do know that there is evil in the world, and that bad things can happen. I will never knowingly put my child or anyone else's in danger. That said, my kids will get to trick-or-treat by themselves when they are old enough. Assuming no one calls DCS, they will wait for the bus by themselves, and know what to do in the case of an emergency. I will let my kids be kids.

[peejman]

I live in the city and my neighborhood ends up being a dump-off point for kids from the surrounding...eh....hoods. I quit giving out candy when bands of 15-20 year olds were walking up, costumeless, and wanting candy. Sorry man, unless you're coming up with your child in-tow, you ain't gettin mah Snickers. [shakes fist] now, get off mah lawn![/shakes fist]

I've done the same thing. Sadly, I wasn't much older than them.

.... I wonder though if the tradeoff is worth it. If somehow, what we are taking from our kids in the name of making them safer, isn't robbing them of some of the important things you need to learn as a kid. Stuff like learning to solve your own problems, sticking up for your friends, watching your friend's back and knowing that he'll do the same, learning to judge risks - and experiencing the freedom that comes from being a kid.

Yep. I recall learning which friends you could trust, and which you couldn't.

I know kids in middle and high school whose parents have made every major decision for them, and will likely continue to. I have a colleague who had a recent college graduate's mom show up at the interview with him.

I heard of this recently from a co-worker. The parents were essentially acting as agents for their kids, negotiating salary, benefits, etc. Unbelievable! I'd find that utterly humiliating.

I will let my kids be kids.

Give them periodic guidance, protect them when they don't know you are, but let kids be kids. That's the best thing for them.