I first got a door slammed in my face in 1987. Looking back, I can’t help but feel that moment, at the age of eight, was my first bit of training as a journalist.
I wasn’t seeking a scoop back then, of course. For eight-year-olds a scoop is something you get two of with your cornet from the ice cream van. Rather I was after a Chomp bar or a bag of Bensons crisps, and all the while hoping beyond hope that I (and my accompanying gaggle of friends) wouldn’t be palmed off with a satsuma. Such was the freewheeling Friedman-esque world of trick or treating – a custom that has dwindled into what, these days, is considered by many parents to be either rude, dangerous, immoral, paganistic or a combination of all four.
The ritual clings on in diminished form. This evening, it may well be that your doorbell rings and, on answering, you’ll find a small group of six-year-olds dressed up as Taylor Swift or Deadpool, with an appropriate adult hovering a few inches behind them. If this happens, be kind and give them chocolate – never nuts or fruit. And be grateful. Because it’s all a lot tamer now than when I was a lad and trick or treating involved half a dozen boys who were probably slightly too old for the pastime running around the neighbourhood wearing Frankenstein masks, brandishing water pistols and lobbing fireworks about.
Yes, my friends and I were fairly feral and, were we born a few years later, we would all probably have got landed with Asbos for our behaviour on 31 October. But I maintain that trick or treating is excellent life experience for kids. Why? Well, you’re essentially trying to get something for nothing, from a person you’ve never met before who, quite reasonably, may well feel unease at the sight of you dressed in your dad’s overcoat and a pumpkin mask. Not only that but, in order to get your desired prize, you have to combine your unsettling appearance with enough charm to ensure that the recipient of your door-knocking is beguiled, rather than just plain scared (or annoyed).
Most importantly, you have to deal with rejection in the form of people slamming the door in your face. Even if you don’t end up becoming a journalist, this is superb training for the world of work, and life in general. In short, trick or treating is a child’s first head-to-head encounter with strangers in the hope of getting something they want – and there’s a whole lot of that to come in the form of job interviews, dates and bickering with building contractors.
Dealing with rejection in the form of people slamming the door in your face is superb training for the world of work, and life in general
As tame and responsible (and parentally monitored) as trick or treaters may now be, they should still be encouraged, particularly in an epoch where, for many children and teenagers, the idea of actually making or receiving even a phone call can prompt something close to an anxiety attack. Despite the best efforts of millennials, the entire world is not yet exclusively digital. And if you don’t learn the value in being able to ask for things that you don’t necessarily deserve, or have the chutzpah to curry favour with a stranger, then your adult life is infinitely more likely to be chock-full of experiences where those trained in the art of exploitation (whether they be landlords, wheedling friends or mobile phone shop employees) will have the upper hand over you.
The parents who complain today that their offspring are glued to screens and incapable of basic human interaction are inevitably the same ones who ban their children from showing a bit of early entrepreneurial spirit and making their own costumes to go trick or treating in. What their kids are missing out on is experience of an unspoken, almost Hobbesian bargain. In essence: ‘You give us sweets, we don’t egg your Volvo.’ The implied threat may not be carried out, but the rules of the exchange are clear; society runs on tacit agreements, reciprocity and the occasional bluff. Trick or treating is a better civics lesson than anything delivered in PSHE class.
So I’m quite looking forward to my buzzer being pressed by a nervous congregation of eight-year-olds tonight. They won’t be receiving what was considered the holy grail of trick or treat rewards in 1987 (a full-size Marathon or Raider), but they will get a handful of M&M’s each for their trouble.
The sad thing is that I suspect nobody will call and we’ll end up eating all the chocolate ourselves. It’s a shame – Halloween should mean that, for one night at least, kids have reason to believe that the world outside their home contains less hostility (and far more free sweets) than they ever thought possible.
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