BSA POV
Perhaps one of the most beloved childhood rituals in America is dressing up in costume, going door-to-door throughout one’s neighborhood and demanding candy from whomever opens the door for an hour or two on Halloween night. However, trick-or-treating is generally associated with smaller children, and as such when children enter adolescence and then adulthood, they often discard trick-or-treating along with such customs as Easter Egg hunts, presents at birthday parties and having any will to live as too puerile for them. At what age children stop trick-or-treating, if they ever do, has a significant variation, as do the opinions of Seabury students and faculty regarding how old is too go trick-or-treating.
Some contend that it is fine for people of any age to enjoy trick-or-treating. Faculty member Cris Bryan, for instance, suggests that one’s Halloween spirit and willingness to don a costume may matter more than one’s age: “At any age, if you're in a costume, you can come to my house, and I will give you a treat,” says Bryan.
Her roommate at Seabury, faculty member Vanessa Eicher, corroborates her opinion, saying, “I think if you're willing to totally dress up, you deserve to trick-or-treat.” Eicher and Bryan, however, both express that older children ought not to trick-or-treat without a costume or with a very minimal costume.
Sixth grader Sebastian Borjas has a similar opinion regarding aging out of trick-or-treating, which he expressed concisely: “You are never too old to trick-or-treat.” In general, while most people probably stop trick-or-treating at some point in their lives, a number of people at Seabury believe that they are never required to.
However, not everyone thinks that trick-or-treating should be for everyone. For one, freshman Cael Berkland says, “I’d say once you start making your own money, like 17 or so” is when a person becomes too old to trick-or-treat. While he does not consider that to be a absolute limit, he generalizes that “The point of trick-or-treating is for kids to have fun dressing up and not so much for older people to get candy.”
Junior Emily Heinz, however, is more on the fence as to whether anyone can be too old to trick-or-treat. She says, “The spooky season part of me is like, ‘you're never too old to go trick-or-treating,’ but the logical side of me says around this age, so like 16, 17, maybe.” Overall, a major part of growing up is letting go of things from your childhood. However, it remains a topic of contention whether or not giving up such childhood rituals as trick-or-treating should be socially required or whether people should be allowed to choose if they want to hold on to pieces of their youth like that.
