Helicopter parenting: Trunk vs Trick or Treating
Having grown up in the 70’s and 80’s, I love Trunk or Treating for my three year old. Supposedly that makes me a helicopter parent who’s afraid of my child being kidnapped or poisoned however.
That last bit was news to me, and lordy I wish I could find the link I was reading earlier which indicated that the rise of parking lot festivals was due to scared parents wanting to watch over their kid’s every move. But I can’t… rassafrassa.
No, for me it’s about laziness. Well, that and not wanting to spend four hours going neighborhood to neighborhood attempting to find the people who are actually home and have candy. It’s also about not wanting to send a kid who’s not the best walker down an unlit walkway in a mask that restricts vision to go and knock on a door.
Trunk or Treat doesn’t offer any more safety regarding poison candy (of which there is none except in some instances by relatives). It actually offers fewer protections from randy candy because in every Trunk or Treat I’ve seen you have no idea generally who anyone there is.
With Trick or Treating you’ve generally got a good idea of the houses you went to. Trunk or Treating unless you’re getting the tag numbers of every vehicle chances are you don’t have an actual source for candy origin.
I live in a neighborhood with no sidewalks and drunk drivers with a very high number of people who go out on Halloween and are not there to answer a door. My three year old is not going to walk to a neighborhood that has sidewalks and then start trick or treating.
On the flip side, my house has in the past few years received 12 Trick or Treaters. That’s about the equivalent of the first five minutes of the worst Trunk or Treat I’ve ever been to. The best year ever since the 90s was about 20 kids from 5pm-10pm which suuuuuucked.
Utility and efficiency vs futility and candy deficiency.
Then again for me it was always about seeing the costumes and getting candy, not engaging in a diatribe about how my superhero costume was not what the character looked like when they were good, or my personal favorite the cranky person who was ticked off you were there on October 30th because the city asked people to Trick or Treat on that date due to school calendar or some such.
Participating as a vehicle in a Trunk or Treat generally gives you a reason to clean out the trunk, which is a bonus. It also gives you a plausible excuse of why there’s all that blood back there (just leave the bowl of candy handy).
