This is a travesty for two reasons. First, while I do acknowledge there are rare times when trick or treating should be moved due to true severe weather, possible rain is not a good reason to move trick or treating. Secondly, who trick or treats from 3-5pm?!?1? To be fair, I should acknowledge that the area of Wisconsin in which Mr. Engineer grew up has done trick or treating from 3-5pm the Sunday closest to Halloween at least since his childhood in the 1980's. However, our city has ALWAYS done trick or treating from 6-8pm. Even on the few occasions when the date has been moved, the time has never changed.
Aside from my love of Halloween and my personal indignation at this change, I feel like it speaks to a larger problem in our society of treating children as super special snowflakes who must be protected not only from every possible harm but from every possible inconvenience. As the mother of two children who have actual, certified special needs I feel the need to speak out against this trend.
My kids have special needs. One needed years of extra help to learn to read and write and will always struggle in that area. In order to concentrate in school, the same child needs to take medication daily. He has a harder time regulating his emotions and controlling his impulses than people without ADHD. My other child has a body that does not produce a hormone necessary for life. She will need to receive insulin through either injections or an infusion pump throughout the day and regularly check her blood sugar for the rest of her life (barring a cure). However, they still live in the real world and they're going to need to learn survive in it without it constantly being rearranged for them. They are not and should not be treated as super special snowflakes
When Squirrelboy grows up, if he works for a traditional company, he will need to get used to the fact that any written work he needs to do for his job will be due when it is due and his boss is not legally required to accommodate his dyslexia or his ADHD with a 504 plan. When Kittygirl grows up, she will need to manage her diabetes completely on her own, even in stressful situations. She can't put off picking up insulin if it runs out just because she doesn't feel like going out in the rain.
The prevailing mindset among today's parents seems to be that everything needs to be arranged to suit their kids. This doesn't just involve trick or treating. Your kid got a bad grade? Time to call a conference at which you pressure the teacher to change the grade or provide extra credit to raise your child's grade. Clearly the bad grade is the teacher's fault. Your kid broke the rules at the trampoline park and got hurt? Time to sue. Clearly it's the corporation's fault that your kid took a swan dive into the foam pit, hit the wall, and chipped his tooth.
When these kids grow up (and some are already there or getting close) they'll go out into the world thinking that everyone is going to bend over backwards to serve their needs. They'll get a nasty surprise. Their employers (and even their college professors) are not going to treat them the way their parents did. The parents of these children are doing them a serious disservice.
We need our children to know that we love them, and we need to provide them with the things they genuinely need. Sometimes these things include a modified educational environment or other changes to meet their needs. However, an effort to protect our children from every single negative experience is not good for them. Let's start by letting them trick or treat in the rain
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