Trick or Treat, Kids

I have to admit, I never really understood Halloween. Oh, as a kid it was fun to dress up in costumes, and the candy… I understand all that. I just don’t get the idea of having a day to celebrate scary things. Christmas, Fourth of July, New Years Day, Labor Day… pretty much all the other holidays celebrate good or even great and wonderful things; but Halloween, scary, mischievous, or even evil nasty things. Who thought of that? There seems to be something in the way our brains are made that makes us like being frightened when it’s not real. I put Halloween in the category of horror movies, and heart-stopping thrill rides… neither of which do I likewise understand. It may be, as some of my readers have implied, that my brain is defective!

Being frightened would seem to be an experience that is only enjoyed by most in the imagination, and fiction. Only a few adrenaline junkies seem to enjoy being scared by actual reality, like running with bulls, surfing monster waves, or enrolling in Obamacare. Those who enjoy Halloween might be amused by the little ghosts and goblins visiting their homes in search of treats; those with Peter Pan complexes might themselves dress up as somewhat larger ghosts and goblins. “Haunted houses” are a popular diversion, but few would volunteer to spend the night in the Amityville Horror house, nor would they appreciate a visit to their home by an actual ghostly specter or demonic apparition. A holiday to celebrate cancer, AIDS, and child abuse would be shunned, because these are real and scary things, and we only celebrate things that we don’t fear in the real world. I guess that’s why very religious people might sometimes shun Halloween, and maybe they’re right. There really are vampires, zombies, and devils… they are today’s Americans.

Whether as an evolutionary imperative or as a reflection of the image of God, it has been the norm for one generation to sacrifice for the next. Immigrants left their homes in the old country to come to America in the hopes of making a better life for their children. Those children endured difficult menial jobs, humble homes, austere lifestyles; in the hopes that their children could go to college and have a yet better life. My story is likely a familiar one to many of you; Mom up early to make our lunches for school, and breakfast pancakes as well… Oh, one burned? That’s OK, she would eat that one… she liked the burnt ones. Dad got all his clothes at the Salvation Army, he was thrifty, and that way we could have those expensive sneakers. He worked so much! I wonder why he wasn’t too tired to play with us? I know I am not alone, it was at one time a way of life… your comfort, your career, your life… these were secondary; you lived for your children, that was your gift, that was your calling.

Parents who sacrifice for their children are not unheard of today, and of course bad parents existed in the past as well. But the model has changed. Children are no longer the apple of our eye, the desire of our hearts. They must share the spotlight with many other things; our careers, our homes, our social lives, our pets. We as a nation talk the talk when it comes to the next generation, but we don’t walk the walk. Cases like Susan Smith, who drowned her own children in the hopes her boyfriend would marry her, or Casey Anthony who either accidentally killed her little girl, or was simply a world-class moron, in order to go out and party… well, thank God such cases are relatively rare. What is not rare is children that grow up with the understanding that they are not their parents priority.

And we don’t just run our families that way, we run our government that way. Having looted the “lock box” of Social Security we are now burdening the next generation to pay the price of our theft. Like alcoholics breaking into our children’s piggy banks our addiction to spending more than we have has extended to spending more than we will ever have. The piggy banks are empty, so now we write IOU’s in their names, 17 trillion dollars worth. We excuse our behavior by insisting that all our borrowing is for the sake of the children themselves, and that by some macro-economic alchemy we can go on borrowing forever. What looks suspiciously like a teetering grand Ponzi scheme is portrayed as a magical perpetual economy machine where money is taken from one end of the economy and put in to the other by a government that wastes or burns much of what it takes. Like the con-artist selling you on some pyramid investing plan, it sounds reasonable until you remember the laws of nature; in the end, someone has to pay.

No, the truth is more sinister. We have become a vampire nation, with one generation living by sucking the blood of the next. Our “plan” for affordable health-care is that it is funded on the idea of over-charging the young and healthy for insurance, so that the older can get a break on their insurance… we need their blood! We are the witch luring little Hansel and Gretel. It’s nothing personal, it’s not like we are actually stealing from our own children (though that too is happening, so pervasive is the change), it’s a cultural, societal turn-around where one generation is no longer living for the next; indeed, they are counting on the next generation to provide for them. It’s happening on a level that overwhelms us. We shrug our shoulders and go along with the rest, like a mob of zombies in search of brains, where brains are increasingly rare. There are a few good people in elected office, but so many are devils with their own wicked agenda. They care for us only insofar as how we will vote in the next election, and for our children only for how they can be used. Truly standing up for the next generation isn’t easy in a world that is living for today. The temptation is to just go along, it’s so hard to fight it, but real parents will, real parents must… real parents always have. The calling has not changed.

IMHO: I’ll leave my light on for the kids this Halloween; I don’t understand the holiday, but I understand the promise in the little ones who come, and I don’t mind spending a little extra to see their smiles. In today’s America, Halloween is real; vampires, witches, zombies, and devils. It’s the adults now saying, “Trick or Treat”, give us the candy or we’ll make you pay! In this present darkness, the next generation will need those who keep their lights on, heroes who will fight, parents who will sacrifice, because the scary stuff is real… BOO!