The Good News About Halloween Candy!

[ParaTed2k]

There has never been a documented case of poison in Halloween Candy given to trick or treaters. Since 1959 there have been around 80 documented cases of sharp objects in Halloween candy, however, all but 10 of them were hoaxes and only one resulted in injury requiring medical attention.... Let's let kids be kids and quit acting like the easily freaked out parents you make fun of! :~D

[Patrysha]

Uh you did know parents do that so we can scam the best candy, right?

[Harold Mansfield]

That's interesting. It's almost as if the legend is the final "BOO!" or "Trick" of the night.

[ParaTed2k]

Of course I know THAT part of it, that's why I'm on a forum telling the adults, not the kids ;~D

[Steve B]

Hopefully, there won't be any this year either.

[billbenson]

I haven't had trick or treaters in years. Quiet safe neighborhood to?

[Patrysha]

I think the whole tradition has changed over the years...candy is not as much of a treat to most of my son's friends as it was when I was a kid, more of the costumes are off-the-shelf storebought with little creativity or created by over-the-top showoff moms (okay, I admit I'm jealous they have the skill and the inclination and the time to do it, but they do make us lazy moms look bad!)...hardly any kids make their own costumes anymore and you have a whole lot more families (or at least seems to me) opting out of the whole TOT scene and doing other things instead. You used to have one or two lights on every block off...now you can walk down some streets and have more than half the block not participating.

[ParaTed2k]

True Patrysha, but I wonder how much of the lack of interest in Halloween stems from the fear of tainted treats? I know some of our favorite places to go used to be the ones that gave out homemade stuff. Now, you get chewed out for even thinking of making something.

It's funny, no one knows anyone who was hurt by halloween treats, but of course, it's happened "so often". lol

[Blessed]

I remember it being a big deal when I was a tricker treater - I don't like all the ugly scary "dark" things of Halloween - and my little ones are still easily frightened and we live on a street with a bunch of teens/"tweens" and we always end up with someone at the door that terrifies my little girl, so we pretty much avoid Halloween around here. We pass out candy to the people who knock on the door even though our light is off and the kids get a bag of candy from the party we usually have at my sister in law's house, it's a good alternative for us right now. We'll see how that changes as the kids get older.

Around here there are places who take your extra candy and send it to the troops overseas in care packages. I think that's a good way to get rid of any "extra" candy you might have!

[Patrysha]

I think it has much less to do with tainted treats and much more to do with marketers figuring out the bigger market was adults with blood and gore decorations and slutty costumes. It's gotten to the point where some parents can't take sensitive children shopping in mainstream stores from mid-September on because the displays are centre stage, motion activated orgies of gruesomeness.

Add that to the trend of overprotectiveness that's infiltrated our culture where children aren't given a spare, unscheduled minute to just be and the parties start to come into play. Can't have the kids cruise the neighbourhood...no one knows their neighbours except the locations of registered sex offenders...

[billbenson]

True Patrysha, but I wonder how much of the lack of interest in Halloween stems from the fear of tainted treats? I know some of our favorite places to go used to be the ones that gave out homemade stuff. Now, you get chewed out for even thinking of making something.

It's funny, no one knows anyone who was hurt by halloween treats, but of course, it's happened "so often". lol

The media play's the danger card a lot. They never state statistics from what I've seen, just the bad stuff that happened to little Johnny. It seems likely this is what the parents focus on.

[Blessed]

isn't that the truth Patrysha! We've had to be very careful over the past month or so - Sugar, my girl, has nightmares and at 3 she hears me when I say "they aren't real" but it's still scary for her - fortunately I've been able to avoid most of the Halloween displays at the stores we have had to go to.

Totally unrelated in a way - but it ties in with your second point. I was very proud of my little girl the other day - we have some neighbors across the street who have resisted all of our overtures of friendliness, but their little girl who is slightly older than Sugar was outside and Sugar started talking to her from across the street and with my permission and the Dad across the street's permission went over and played with her in their front yard for a little while. I like knowing my neighbors so I was glad that Sugar's natural friendliness opened the door for us there. Now that couple waves and smiles at us we know each other's names and we've had inane conversations about the weather and how fast the kids are growing - not much but it's better than the averted glances we had before! We've lived here for almost 12 years and know pretty much everyone on the street by name and occupation.

[Patrysha]

I hear ya Jenn. My boys are older, but the youngest is 7 and still quite sensitive. Though he likes to put on the tough big boy act lately...he's still squeamish and I don't doubt that he'll be hiding behind me as we pass a few houses tomorrow night. He's been known to complain about the images on his brother's video games. He's always been a bit more fearful than my other sons. A couple of years ago he almost went through the ceiling over an animated spider (it was a quick splice and was unexpected and it scared the tar out of him.) And we had to have hubby leave and go home with him during our first attempt at a family movie night a couple of years ago because Spiderman 3 was too intense for him (he finally watched it on regular tv months later and was fine with it...but it was way too much on the big screen.)

We live in a small town, so it seems a bit easier to get to know the neighbours...I think our dog has helped us get introduced to more of them than the kids though...only one of them is an extrovert...the dog, on the other hand, likes to sneak out and make friends with everybody....