Dana - Trick or Treating

Trick or treating is an important aspect of halloween, during which children dressed in scary costumes run from door to door asking for candy, hyped up on sugar like midget crackheads. However, I was thinking about the phrase "trick or treat". The word "trick" implies that there could be some possiibility that instead of recieving a candy or treat, the children might recieve a dead spider or rotten egg. Was there a time when trick or treaters had to face that risk, when they were constantly prepared to be tricked or rewarded?

In any case, I think that halloween these days has become too happy and commercialised, like all holidays. There should be more treachery involved. In this society of over-protective parents, kids don't recieve a proper upbringing, which should most definitely involve a halloween with real scares and not just fun and candy. How can you dress up like an evil bloody vampire skeleton or a witch or ghost, and expect to recieve nothing but candy and a fun night. Kids should be let out of their confined protective environments so typical of modern American society and face the real world with some real scares on halloween. After all, the holiday comes out of the tradition of "all hallow's eve", when the evil ghosts and spirits of the underworld came out to wreak havoc upon the living who cowardly retreated indoors. 

Unfortunately, the way our society works right now, there are too many people ready to sue, too many lawyers. Kids can't do anything because of the laws and insurance costs associated with overprotective parents always on the ready to sue if their child gets hurt. For instance, when runnning the timed mile in 8th grade on my public school's blacktop, I was asked to slow down while sprinting in the last 100 yards, in case I might have fallen and hurt myself. That sounded ridiculous to me, but apparently I wasn't legally allowed to run fast on the hard cement because recently I child had fallen and cracked open his head, and the public school system was sued for lots of money. Another example, the diving board was taken off Cate School's pool. No, it isn't because of the water polo season, it is because of "insurance reasons". Cate is not even a public school subject to preposterous state laws. However, the insurance costs associated with having a diving board are incredibly high, and for one reason only. Parents have sued  because their careless child tried to do a triple mctwisty flip off the board into the pool, hit his head and drowned. 

Not only are there these ridiculous laws unnecessarily sheltering American youth, but the general manner in which kids are treated has become out of hand. When I returned to public school in 7th grade, I entered an education system in which teachers and adults treated middle school students like babies. Everything was about self-esteem and self-confidence. Teachers were afraid to criticize our work, for fear of being too harsh and hurting our feelings. That is not how the real world works. Telling kids their work is good when it is actually horrible so as not to hurt their self esteem will only give them a false perspective of real life, where you won't get fired from your job because your boss feels bad for year. Seriously, treating children that way will only make them vulnerable to a hard hit and reality check when they graduate high school. After all, if all kids have high levels of self esteem, who is going to be the strippers? (That was a joke)

Not all societies are like this, you know. New Zealand, for instance, has a much more relaxed approach towards children, allowing them freedom to explore. And, it turns out, when kids are allowed to go bunjy jumping, drive tractors, and learn for themselves the dangers of society, they don't get hurt doing stupid things like American youth. Kiwis are the friendliest, most relaxed people I've ever met.  Maybe America could learn something from them.

Just something to think about