Trick or Treating Tradition Fading Away

[Odin]

(11-01-2016, 12:43 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: What I mean by Trick or Treating is actual, real Trick or Treating, where people walk down the street, knocking on doors of people who appear to be participating. When I was a kid the participation rate was well over 90%.

Last night we only got single digits of people at our place. We are in a suburb. It's a bit woodsy but it's not a standoffish McMansion place where people are discouraged from access to front doors. We live in a mix of individually built houses ranging from Edwardian to recent. Front doors are easy to get to and we do have street lights.

The reason we only got a handful of trick or treaters is instead of doing traditional trick or treating, the parents all got together in one place with their kids and had a closed party (well, not formally closed, but the idea was, all these people get together and do a sort of lame trick or treat only with each other). It was very tribal - "we are the 'parents-with-elementary-aged-kids' tribe. We won't knock on doors of members of other tribes."

I predict that at least in our corner of the Bay Area, some of the Homies will never know traditional Trick or Treating, and, the next generation of kids won't know it at all.

A lot of residential areas are not designed to be pedestrian-friendly, anymore, especially when those pedestrians are little kids. Also, in many municipalities parents can get into legal trouble if their pre-teenage children are walking around town without adult supervision.