Trick-or-Treating: How Old is Too Old?

Most of us have those childhood memories of dressing up for school Halloween parties and going around the neighborhood with our friends to gather as much sugar as possible, then proceeding to take advantage of our eight-year-old metabolisms.

But we’re older now, and sadly, it isn’t quite socially acceptable for us to participate in the activities that we used to. Should it be accepted for kids over the age of, say, twelve to go get dressed up and go trick-or-treating? Given the proper established parameters, I say yes. In our world, with our lack of unity between fellow Americans, I believe there ought to be at least one night out of the year when anyone can go outside and get some candy from their neighbors.

The argument against teenage trick-or-treating is that it could become dangerous to young children if older people are integrating into a space typically not reserved for them. As this is a valid point, and we certainly don’t want to put any kids in a bad situation, parents probably shouldn’t be leaving their young children unsupervised.

Over half of my choir class (17 out of 28) voted that teenagers under the age of 18 ought to be accepted in trick-or-treating traditions. We’re lonely, bored, and a good percentage of us are depressed. Can we at least have this one opportunity during first semester to go back to our elementary roots? We could use a time to be avoid being judged heavily by the Baby Boomers.