At a lecture on religion I attended long ago, the scholar explained that age-old religious symbols stay the same, it’s just their meaning that changes. The torches in a pagan Solstice celebration turn into the candles on the branches of the Hanukah menorah, turn into the bright lights blinking on a Christmas tree.
Similarly, the idea of neighbors giving kids poison on Halloween stays ever on point, except now, instead of a Snickers spiked with strychnine, or cannabis disguised as Swedish fish, this year it’s Ecstasy shaped like Smarties, a fantastical fallacy I discuss over at Let Grow.
Somehow we remain ever desperate to believe there are evil forces out to corrupt or kill our kids on Oct. 31, and no amount of rationality can drive a stake through that conviction. For the same reason, the Patch newspapers publish the addresses of people on the sex offense list, even though there is not only no bump in child sex crimes on Oct. 31, the Johns Hopkins researchers who combed through years of data ended up wanting to call their study, “Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year.”
So send your kids out with this advice:
Wear something reflective.
Be very careful crossing the street.
And DO take candy from strangers.
1 Comment
Well I guess parents needing their fix will just have to get their X the old fashioned way, from teens at Raves.