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Orson Scott Card is alarmed at family participation in Halloween, and most of all, at the appearance of Big Scary Teenagers at his door Begging for Candy!
He treats all of this as if it is a new phenomenon, sprung from nowhere, and it deeply disturbs him that anyone tall enough to ride the Big Dipper might stroll around the neighborhood in costume and expect the neighbors to give them treats. Halloween is for little kids! If you are not a little kid, you are a blackmailing thug whose very presence threatens reprisal if the quaking homesteader doesn't hand over the candy bar!
Well, this is stupid. I know, I know, it's Orson Scott Card, so "stupid" is a tautology when applied to one of his screeds about Society These Days. But really. Halloween? Trick-or-treating?
All the rituals of Halloween have checkered histories. There were times and places where the trick part of tirck-or-treat was the prominent part, and young men ran around the neighborhood misplacing people's stuff so they'd have to go look for it in the morning. And then there's the traditional Hell Night or Mischief Nightin which youngsters commit various levels of vandalism the night before Halloween (apparently, in the UK, it's on November 4, so an enterprising hooligan could turn over dumpsters and set them on fire in the UK and easily be in the US in time to do the same again).
I don't suppose that would reassure Mr. Card, but it ought to at least calm down his fears that the world is going to hell in a hand basket because teenagers are finding new ocassions for mischief.
Except -- trick or treating teenagers aren't vandalizing. They're giggling politely at the door, kind of embarrassed at how eager they are to continue the tradtions of their childhood. The ones you have to watch out for are the ones who are roaming around with no costume and nothing to do but chug from a bottle they got shoulder-tapping over on the avenue, and taking all your painstakingly carved pumpkins and smashing them in the street. Those guys are only going to get drunker as the night goes on, and they're going to run out of harmless things to smash: so you just hope they crash before they get any ideas they aren't too swozzled to carry out.
Me, I like to see the teenagers in their last-minute cobbled-together zombie costumes, and I like how bizarrely excited they are when I hand out the strange little presents I prefer to give out. I'm not an anti-candy dogmatist, but I figure I should play the role of one, because the whole neighborhood's giving out brand-name chocolate and I think that variety in a trick-or-treat bag is a good thing. Most years it's little playdough packages from Costco, but this year it was glow stick necklaces and bracelets because I went to Costco too early or something and I didn't see them. But you'd be astonished at how much these whopping great young adults enjoy these little kids' treats.
I'm not astonished, Being a teenager is a difficult and burdensome job. You've got to be on time like an adult, people keep telling you that you have to be as responsible as an adult but how can you be when you're not in charge of anything about your life? And if you're a kid who's actually in charge of yourself, it's probably because you aren't getting the kind of care and protection and backup that adults are supposed to give you, so you can't really win on that front. And your hormones and your nervous system are doing dog knows what but they're different every hour and sometimes it physically hurts just to live. If you're in a growth spurt, and nobody can tell you how many of them you're going to get, your bones and muscle fiber might be screaming with pain. And nobody takes you seriously except when you don't want to be taken seriously. And the object of your affections thinks you're pimply, and scrawny or pudgy, and stinky, and immature, and it's true.
So why not grab a chance to totter around the neighborhood in giggly little groups, pretending to be nine, and have the neighboring adults who would normally not give you the time of day actually give you treats? And what kind of wizened, hateful little heart would begrudege them the chance to do it?
And as for the adults who accompany their children. It has certainly arisen out of the puritanical fear machine -- which Mr. Card feeds as often as he decries it -- but the result is that for the tiny kids it has turned into a celebration of family and community, and that's really not a bad thing. Mr. Card objects that some of the parents are carrying an extra bag. Me, I say, don't judge. Maybe it's for a kid who can't be there because they are sick or busy volunteering at the church's haunted house fundraiser, or maybe it's for grandma at home, or maybe it doesn't really even matter because how can you really begrudge a ridiculous little treat to a parent who is parading their wonderstruck child through a sparkly fall night to see all the elaborately creepy decorations and sparkly costumes of their neighbors?
Traditions do change over time. Haloween became a holiday for small children, and now it is becoming a holiday for everyone. I do not see this as a bad thing.
Oh, right, I followed the link from personhead James Nicoll, who had a different bone to pick with Mr. Card. (Hey, James! I proofread! My fingers threw in a stray H and I took it out because I actually do know how to spell your name! there's probably other typoes I missed, though)
He treats all of this as if it is a new phenomenon, sprung from nowhere, and it deeply disturbs him that anyone tall enough to ride the Big Dipper might stroll around the neighborhood in costume and expect the neighbors to give them treats. Halloween is for little kids! If you are not a little kid, you are a blackmailing thug whose very presence threatens reprisal if the quaking homesteader doesn't hand over the candy bar!
Well, this is stupid. I know, I know, it's Orson Scott Card, so "stupid" is a tautology when applied to one of his screeds about Society These Days. But really. Halloween? Trick-or-treating?
All the rituals of Halloween have checkered histories. There were times and places where the trick part of tirck-or-treat was the prominent part, and young men ran around the neighborhood misplacing people's stuff so they'd have to go look for it in the morning. And then there's the traditional Hell Night or Mischief Nightin which youngsters commit various levels of vandalism the night before Halloween (apparently, in the UK, it's on November 4, so an enterprising hooligan could turn over dumpsters and set them on fire in the UK and easily be in the US in time to do the same again).
I don't suppose that would reassure Mr. Card, but it ought to at least calm down his fears that the world is going to hell in a hand basket because teenagers are finding new ocassions for mischief.
Except -- trick or treating teenagers aren't vandalizing. They're giggling politely at the door, kind of embarrassed at how eager they are to continue the tradtions of their childhood. The ones you have to watch out for are the ones who are roaming around with no costume and nothing to do but chug from a bottle they got shoulder-tapping over on the avenue, and taking all your painstakingly carved pumpkins and smashing them in the street. Those guys are only going to get drunker as the night goes on, and they're going to run out of harmless things to smash: so you just hope they crash before they get any ideas they aren't too swozzled to carry out.
Me, I like to see the teenagers in their last-minute cobbled-together zombie costumes, and I like how bizarrely excited they are when I hand out the strange little presents I prefer to give out. I'm not an anti-candy dogmatist, but I figure I should play the role of one, because the whole neighborhood's giving out brand-name chocolate and I think that variety in a trick-or-treat bag is a good thing. Most years it's little playdough packages from Costco, but this year it was glow stick necklaces and bracelets because I went to Costco too early or something and I didn't see them. But you'd be astonished at how much these whopping great young adults enjoy these little kids' treats.
I'm not astonished, Being a teenager is a difficult and burdensome job. You've got to be on time like an adult, people keep telling you that you have to be as responsible as an adult but how can you be when you're not in charge of anything about your life? And if you're a kid who's actually in charge of yourself, it's probably because you aren't getting the kind of care and protection and backup that adults are supposed to give you, so you can't really win on that front. And your hormones and your nervous system are doing dog knows what but they're different every hour and sometimes it physically hurts just to live. If you're in a growth spurt, and nobody can tell you how many of them you're going to get, your bones and muscle fiber might be screaming with pain. And nobody takes you seriously except when you don't want to be taken seriously. And the object of your affections thinks you're pimply, and scrawny or pudgy, and stinky, and immature, and it's true.
So why not grab a chance to totter around the neighborhood in giggly little groups, pretending to be nine, and have the neighboring adults who would normally not give you the time of day actually give you treats? And what kind of wizened, hateful little heart would begrudege them the chance to do it?
And as for the adults who accompany their children. It has certainly arisen out of the puritanical fear machine -- which Mr. Card feeds as often as he decries it -- but the result is that for the tiny kids it has turned into a celebration of family and community, and that's really not a bad thing. Mr. Card objects that some of the parents are carrying an extra bag. Me, I say, don't judge. Maybe it's for a kid who can't be there because they are sick or busy volunteering at the church's haunted house fundraiser, or maybe it's for grandma at home, or maybe it doesn't really even matter because how can you really begrudge a ridiculous little treat to a parent who is parading their wonderstruck child through a sparkly fall night to see all the elaborately creepy decorations and sparkly costumes of their neighbors?
Traditions do change over time. Haloween became a holiday for small children, and now it is becoming a holiday for everyone. I do not see this as a bad thing.
Oh, right, I followed the link from personhead James Nicoll, who had a different bone to pick with Mr. Card. (Hey, James! I proofread! My fingers threw in a stray H and I took it out because I actually do know how to spell your name! there's probably other typoes I missed, though)
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