mAlice
professional daydreamer
Thirteen is a good age to stop trick-or-treating for many reasons. There’s the symbolic unluckiness of 13, which seems appropriate for a holiday devoted to death and doom. There’s the fact that 13 is already a transitional age in many cultures, with rites of passage like bar and bat mitzvah marking the metamorphosis from child to adult. Most importantly, there’s the fact that 13 is the last plausible age at which a kid could sincerely get excited about dressing up and trick-or-treating. After 13, children transform into jaded, surly, rebellious jerks, as predictably as the onset of menses and the deepening of boys’ voices.
eens who trick-or-treat, you see, aren’t motivated by the same independence-seeking and joyful self-expression that motivate younger trick-or-treaters. Teen trick-or-treaters see trick-or-treating as a sort of scam—a way of sticking it to the man by obtaining the man’s candy without having to pay the man. It is the role of a functional society to teach teens that such scams are antisocial and unsustainable, and also that it’s pretty lame to appropriate a children’s holiday just to get a few free Snickers bars. (You’re in high school? You’re old enough to buy your own damn Snickers bars.) The cynicism that prompts older teens to throw a sheet over their heads and go ransack the neighbors’ Smarties stash casts a pall over the younger children’s pure-hearted excitement about throwing a sheet over their heads and ransacking the neighbors’ Smarties stash. With trick-or-treating, intention is everything—and if we allow teens with malicious intentions to commandeer this holiday, soon there won’t be any treat left in trick-or-treating.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/normal/2016/10/28/the_trick_or_treat_cut_off_age_should_be_13.html
eens who trick-or-treat, you see, aren’t motivated by the same independence-seeking and joyful self-expression that motivate younger trick-or-treaters. Teen trick-or-treaters see trick-or-treating as a sort of scam—a way of sticking it to the man by obtaining the man’s candy without having to pay the man. It is the role of a functional society to teach teens that such scams are antisocial and unsustainable, and also that it’s pretty lame to appropriate a children’s holiday just to get a few free Snickers bars. (You’re in high school? You’re old enough to buy your own damn Snickers bars.) The cynicism that prompts older teens to throw a sheet over their heads and go ransack the neighbors’ Smarties stash casts a pall over the younger children’s pure-hearted excitement about throwing a sheet over their heads and ransacking the neighbors’ Smarties stash. With trick-or-treating, intention is everything—and if we allow teens with malicious intentions to commandeer this holiday, soon there won’t be any treat left in trick-or-treating.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/normal/2016/10/28/the_trick_or_treat_cut_off_age_should_be_13.html