Local Curmudgeon: Trunk-or-Treating Is Robbing Children of Character-Building Misery
Nearly every Michigan youth goes through the same rite of passage: donning a carefully fine-tuned costume for a night of trick-or-treating, only to have the look (and vibe) harshed by a puffy winter jacket your mom makes you put over it because of unpredictable late-October weather in this Great Lakes state.
But gather ’round, my fellow elder millennials, because Halloween is under attack. A spooky good time hasn’t been threatened like this since Salem, 1692.
Instead of letting young people take to the streets, pandering for candy and chocolate door to door in exchange for a promise to spare the household from any nefarious tricks or badly thrown eggs, some families are forcing children into parking lots. Here, they force them to march between scantily decorated Camrys, CR-Vs and Subarus to receive treats with little effort.
Why are we bringing the candy to the children instead of making the children work for their candy?
Some parents seem to think it’s safer.
Lydia Tang is one such parent. In an interview with East Lansing Info, she said she learned about trunk-or-treat events during the pandemic, a time when social distancing was the norm but families still wanted children to experience something like a traditional Halloween.
She touted their flexibility.
“Trunk or treats seem to be scheduled within a span of two weeks prior to Halloween, both on the weekends and sometimes weekday evenings,” she said. “This means that I can plan out my schedule with my kids and hit the rounds visiting several trunk or treats throughout the season instead of on just a single day.”
Tang said that if rain or cold curtail Halloween night festivities, her kids will still have had a chance to experience the season at previous trunk-or-treat events.
“My kids and I will still plan on doing traditional trick or treating on Halloween night,” she said. “It’s wonderful to see the creativity of my neighbors as they decorate their homes, but these trunk or treats are a wonderful alternative, supplemental experiences for the community. As a mom, I’m so grateful for these events, which give kids the chance to celebrate the fun and spookiness of Halloween.”
Paty Jaimes is another parent who supports these motor-induced free-for-alls.
“They’re often more accessible since they’re in parking lots or paved surfaces,” she said, “and that helps trick-or-treaters with disabilities or mobility concerns. Some trunk or treat organizers also create sensory friendly or accessibility focused ones, which is great. These can be welcoming spaces for all.”
She also said the popularity of trunk-or-treats can be overwhelming, creating choice overload for families.
“It can also maybe take away from the fun of trick or treating on Halloween for those that can engage because by the time you get to the end of October, you might be Halloweened out,” she said.
The National Retail Federation explored the changing landscape of Halloween in a recent publication, showing that the United States still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels of trick-or-treating, but participation in Halloween events overall have increased.
If the children aren’t trick-or-treating, where are they?
In trunks across the country! And when children are left digging through the nation’s trunks for treats, they are losing important character-building opportunities.
Walking between homes in 35-degree rain and blustering winds while your mask blows away builds character.
Repeatedly knocking on the door of a home that forgot to turn off its lights, only to be met with silence and walk away without a Twix, teaches you to survive disappointment.
My strong stance is based on one thing: I want to see this proud tradition survive for future generations. I want them to benefit from the struggle, occasional disappointment and hard-earned success of a long night of door-to-door trick-or-treating.
It’s definitely not because I convinced my husband that we should spend $200 on king-size candy bars last year, only to end up with seven trick-or-treaters and a month of ire from my husband every time he saw the leftover bars of chocolate.