{"id":3331,"date":"2011-10-28T17:31:19","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T23:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3331"},"modified":"2011-10-28T19:07:21","modified_gmt":"2011-10-29T01:07:21","slug":"a-parents-choice-at-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3331","title":{"rendered":"A Parent’s Choice at Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"

On one side, the “Occupy Halloween” movement, advocating for free-range trick-or-treaters, whose spokeswoman, Lenore Skenazy, reminds us that\u2014urban legends to the contrary\u2014no kid was ever deliberately poisoned by homemade candy.<\/a><\/p>\n

But that idea isn\u2019t just wrong, \u00a0it\u2019s corrosive. Start thinking of your nice neighbors as potential killers ONE day a year and how are you supposed to trust them the REST of the year? It begins to seem just plain prudent to treat everyone as evil, especially where our kids are concerned.<\/p>\n

Result? A society where we don\u2019t let our kids roam the neighborhood, interact with adults or do much of anything on their own. It just seems \u201ctoo dangerous.\u201d All adults are creeps and killers until proven otherwise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other side, nanny-state government. Big Sister wants you to know that your costume can kill you, your neighbors can kill you, your treats can kill you . . . <\/a><\/p>\n

And, because it can never be repeated too often: There are no verified incidents of poisoned candy<\/a>, and no reported serious injuries from\u00a0razor blades, pins, or needles in candy<\/a>\u00a0despite at five decades worth of annual scare stories.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s the safest day (or night) of the year<\/a>. So take back the night. Celebrate Halloween.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On one side, the “Occupy Halloween” movement, advocating for free-range trick-or-treaters, whose spokeswoman, Lenore Skenazy, reminds us that\u2014urban legends to the contrary\u2014no kid was ever deliberately poisoned by homemade candy. But that idea isn\u2019t just wrong, \u00a0it\u2019s corrosive. Start thinking of your nice neighbors as potential killers ONE day a year and how are you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[66],"class_list":["post-3331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-halloween"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-RJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1846,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1846","url_meta":{"origin":3331,"position":0},"title":"Today Show Goes Silly on Halloween","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's more than silly to Lenore Skenazy, who calls it the \"outrage of the week.\" She is the feisty author and blogger at Free-Range Kids. Anyone who has any contact with kids under 12 ought to be reading her. Imagine if the Today Show guidelines had been in place when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1245,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1245","url_meta":{"origin":3331,"position":1},"title":"Free-Range Kids Have a ‘Scary’ Halloween","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"One last Halloween post, and then I'll shut up.Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry speaks truth to power and rejects the nanny state on October 31.If you want to see something really scary on Halloween, come to my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0470471948","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3369,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3369","url_meta":{"origin":3331,"position":2},"title":"Did You Contribute to the Halloween Economy?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It is worth more than $2 billion annually. Not really that big in the overall holiday picture, though. Halloween's haul was the smallest, accounting for a mere 2.6% of holiday spending. But for a few industries, October 31 is the night to shine. According to the National Confectioners Association, sweets-makers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1934,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1934","url_meta":{"origin":3331,"position":3},"title":"Halloween: “The Safest Day of the Year”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Blogger Lenore Skenazy reprints a valuable article looking at the \"urban myth\" of children being targeted by sexual predators at Halloween. Paul Stern, a deputy prosecutor in Snohomish County, Wash., agrees [that there is zero evidence for such a belief].\u00a0\u201dPeople want to protect kids; they want to do the right\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1236,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1236","url_meta":{"origin":3331,"position":4},"title":"Zippy, the Halloween Slug","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I have heard of most of these Halloween folk customs.The one with the slug is new to me, though, but maybe someone in the Pacific Northwest could try it and report.Meanwhile, Red Witch in Melbourne is in the midst of a Halloween countdown, examining the commercial side of the holiday\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1243,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1243","url_meta":{"origin":3331,"position":5},"title":"How to Celebrate a Christian Halloween","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Writing at First Things, an \"interreligious\" journal (\"inter\" as in Catholics and Protestants, maybe), Sally Thomas faces that annual hurdle of the Christian parent: What To Do About Halloween. How can it be fun and still be doctrinally acceptable? She writes,Halloween\u2019s emphasis on darkness makes many Christians squeamish, but, to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3331"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3334,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331\/revisions\/3334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}