Candy, costumes and paranoid adults

This Friday, little ghouls and goblins from sea to shining sea will abandon their rigorous… This Friday, little ghouls and goblins from sea to shining sea will abandon their rigorous grade-school curricula for a little good-hearted revelry and candy consumption.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ It’s Halloween again, and the kiddies are ready to have a little fun. But if some grumpy parents have their way, revelry will be curtailed or even eliminated in some public school districts.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ There has always been opposition from a small group of fundamentalist Christians who see the holiday as a celebration of Satanism and paganism. To a little kid, though, Halloween just represents Smarties and makeup. It’s the parents who put the notion of evil in their poor heads. However, if a parent has legitimate religious objections, it’s within their rights to keep the kid from celebrating. The onus should be on them, though, and not the school.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ But the plain old anti-fun sentiment is spreading like caramel candy left in the sun.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Some parents claim schools shouldn’t be supporting a commercial behemoth. Halloween has, after all, become second only to Christmas in consumer spending. Parading kids around in homemade masks and giving them a few sugary snacks is hardly forcing them to participate in an orgy of expenditure.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Other parents object to sacrificing valuable class time to something as frivolous as costumes and sweeties. Heaven forbid little Johnny miss 45 minutes of instruction — that could make all the difference in what boarding school he gets into in eighth grade. That time he wasted eating candy, dressed like SpongeBob and fraternizing with other seven-year-olds could cost him Yale.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Yet other grown-ups object to candy being passed out in schools. We are, after all, in the midst of a childhood obesity epidemic. Of course, any in-shape kid who eats decently and doesn’t have a PlayStation 2 controller grafted to her little paw is immediately going to become horrendously fat after eating four fun-sized Snickers bars once a year.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Halloween is a fun little waste of about an hour at the end of a school day once a year. It’s a secular holiday, motivated by nothing but fun. It’s about nothing more than participating in fundamentally kid activities — eating junk and playing dress-up. It’s a shame some adults have to be such witches about the whole ordeal.