mixed messages

Once again we are approaching the one night of the year when it's perfectly acceptable for women to go out dressed as sluts wearing outfits that would normally be reserved for the bedroom or fetish clubs.
I don't see anything wrong with that, I've done it myself and I have to say going out in a red pvc nurses outfit got me a lot of indecent proposals attention. But it does seem that nowadays the fellas are the ones being creative with fancy dress, the girls just head for the nearest Ann Summers.
Halloween is fast becoming almost as big an event as Christmas and New Year.

The thing that bothers me about it is trick or treat.
I know it's been a long held tradition in the states, but it wasn't even heard of here when I was a child - we had pumpkins and witches hats but that was about it.
Bonfire night was a bigger deal.

Then, I guess, thanks to film and TV the paedophiles dream that is trick or treating caught on over here.

Think about it.

You spend 364 days of the year teaching your kids that they shouldn't talk to strangers or take sweets from them, and most certainly NEVER go into a strangers house.
Apart from the 31st October.
Then it's perfectly fine to knock on strangers doors and ASK for sweets.
In fact you're allowed to threaten them with a 'trick' if they don't have any.

Mixed message if ever I heard one.
Children only hear what they want as it is, so what are you going to do when your kid comes home on November 2nd and tells you he was offered sweets by an old man on the way home from school, when two days ago you let him go begging for them.

I know that most responsible parents will go with their kids on Halloween, or only allow them to knock the doors of the people they know in their neighbourhood, but how well do you really know your neighbours ?
Isn't it often the case that when someone is found out to be a murderer or a wife beater or a fucking nonce most people will say things like "we had no idea. . ."

Peadophiles don't hang a sign outside their door advertising the fact that kids should stay away, but I bet they hang out the bunting, pumpkins and trick or treaters welcome signs for Halloween.

What if someone said to your kid they had nothing today "but if you come back on your own tomorrow and don't tell your friends I'll have chocolate. . ."

And even if you don't let your children go trick or treating there will come a day when they are old enough to go and do it anyway. Although by then they might be a bit too old to appeal to the average pervert, but devious enough to scare the elderly into handing over cash with the threat of a trick.
Halloween can also be the teenage nieghbourhood terrorists idea of heaven.

The rest of the year most decent parents would die of shame if they thought their kids were blackmailing the neighbours into giving them sweets, but at Halloween it's acceptable behaviour ?

We send enough mixed messages to our kids as it is, we spend the first couple of years teaching them to walk and talk and the next 18 wishing they'd sit still and shut the fuck up.
But no real harm will come to them from that, whereas knocking on strangers doors and begging can be very dangerous.

Just ask the ones that dare to knock on my door.
Lets just say this isn't the first time I have voiced this opinion.

I know that a lot of people will say it's just a bit of fun, and I guess it is for the kids who come home safely and spaced out on a sugar rush.
Doesn't change my opinion though.

Scary flaps ??? Now there's a costume I REALLY don't want to see.