Trick or Trunk?
Bring back trick or treating for the next generation
Photo courtesy of Silar/Wikimedia Commons
The memory of trick or treating on Halloween night is something that many of us fondly recall from our childhood. Being allowed to run the neighborhood largely unsupervised past your bedtime and surrounded by peers also caught up in the revelry is one of the defining experiences for a quintessential American childhood. But in 2025, many have noticed that their neighborhood seems unusually quiet on Halloween. There are many factors that contribute to this, but one thing is clear: kids need to hit the ground running next Halloween.
First off, kids are spending less time unsupervised in their neighborhoods than ever. Every person above the age of 35 has some sort of anecdote about being turned out from their homes after breakfast and not returning until after the streetlights turned on, and how kids these days get an escort to walk a block down the street to the park. But these same people have prevented their own children from having this experience. Even as they disparage kids for being coddled, they are the ones doing the coddling.
More parents than ever are not only micromanaging their children's Halloween nights, but in some cases, they are replacing them entirely. Children are not allowed the traditional freedoms and are instead taken to “trick-or-treat” events in malls or to trunk-or-treat events—which is when a group of parents organizes a contained event from the trunks of their cars where children walk around an enclosed parking lot. These decisions have resulted in nothing but a misopportunity for memories.
Maybe it is just my inner child speaking, but that sounds like the least fun way possible to spend Halloween night. From my own memories, the best part of Halloween was getting to feel truly part of the world, alone and in power, in a way that children are not usually afforded. What made the day great was running through the streets, house to house and on a mission that, under the surface, has less to do with candy than it does freedom.
In my opinion, this shift in Halloween tradition is a microcosm of a larger shift our society is currently undergoing. Children face more surveillance than ever through apps like Life360 and technology like AirTags. They are pressured to be in constant contact with parents through their devices. Additionally, harmless neighborhood mischief is much harder to get away with when every doorstep has a Ring camera. As the U.S. shifts more and more into a surveillance state, children's already structured lives become even more regulated and sanitized. Of course child safety is important, especially on a busy night like Halloween. Even so, children's lives, from my perspective, have not been improved by this shift in tradition.
Of course, the recent trend of less trick or treaters could simply be an aftereffect of the pandemic, and will be reversed as time goes on. Nonetheless, with more parents feeling nostalgic for their own childhoods, hopefully they will feel invigorated to show their kids the same good time.