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My kids' school has a "Don't send in edible treats" policy, and last year I posted a rant against the unintended side effects of this policy. Namely, GARBAGE. Junk FOOD is one thing-- you eat it and it's gone (usually. If you have a child's metabolism). Junk TOYS are something else entirely. They make messes. They eventually only get thrown out. But to be serious about it for a minute, I have a real problem with that much waste. I don't like to throw things out, not because I want them, but because WHY ARE WE DOING THIS TO OUR PLANET, IT'S JUST MAKING ANOTHER MESS IN SOME OVERSTUFFED LANDFILL IF IT'S NOT MAKING A MESS IN MY HOUSE. Not to mention all the waste that goes into manufacturing the crappy things. But if I'm honest with myself, I'm not really taking this stance out of noble environmental concern.* In the immediate present, my reaction is just a selfish "great, more clutter."
So anyway, the thing is, the school's policy is "Don't send in edible treats," not "Send in nonedible treats," so I'm just that grinchy parent who doesn't send in anything, BECAUSE WE WEREN'T ACTUALLY ASKED TO SEND IN ANYTHING, AND NOTHING IS BETTER THAN GARBAGE.** "But what about the CHILDREN?" you ask. And I say, they're at school, they're playing games, they're with their friends, they don't NEED treats there. They will come home and go proper trick or treating later, and then they will have PLENTY OF EDIBLE AND THEREFORE EXPENDABLE TREATS.
So I relinked to that post yesterday when my kids came home from school with a pile of plastic goody bags, and many people agreed BUT.
Of COURSE there are exceptions. Of COURSE there's a reason for the school's policy. So through further discussion I've decided to spell out the RIGHT and WRONG way to deal with what basically comes down to offering non-allergenic options.
First of all, the problem came from school parties, not from trick-or-treating proper. So number one, if there is no policy instructing you to AVOID edible items, here's how you can handle it:
RIGHT:
Offer options. In my house we are serious peanut butter cup fans, so we always offer peanut butter cups so we have leftovers. BUT peanut butter and chocolate are both big allergy problems, so we offer the choice: peanut butter cups OR Skittles.*** You could in fact offer candy OR a non-edible item, but please see below for further guidelines.
Granted, if you have more than one option, a lot of kids will immediately grab one of EACH, so if you're not okay with that you'll have to be immediately clear with your guidelines.
WRONG:
Deciding FOR your visitors. Offering only one type of treat increases the chance that really won't be a treat for someone after all (whether that's because the kid can't eat it, the kid doesn't LIKE it, or the mom doesn't want it in her house). But worse is forcing your ideals on everyone who comes-- if you're against sugar, don't put your porch light on during trick-or-treating at all, and don't you even THINK about doing what that one lady did last year and pass out notes telling kids they're too fat for candy. And you should also probably not use trick-or-treating as an opportunity to, as Kim Aippersbach suggested (jokingly!) in the comments of last year's post, pass out little cards explaining that, instead of spending money on Halloween treats this year, you bought a goat for a family in Africa and I'm sure everyone understands!
Okay, that's trick-or-treating. But what if you ARE under a no-edible-treats policy and you still want to offer treats? Here are some options that, the other people I've talked about it and I agree, do not suck:
RIGHT: Art supplies. Pencils, pens, crayons, markers, paints, coloring books, tablets. I personally would even be okay with Play-doh, but there are probably more parents that would hate you forever for that one, so I might grudgingly put that on the "WRONG" list instead, since I AM trying to give actual advice here.
WRONG: Pencils that don't sharpen. Crayons made out of way more wax than pigment. Teeny stampers. Small plastic stencils that are barely useable. Tiny tablets with approximately five pages in them. Coloring booklets that look like they were drawn by someone who is stuck in the 1950s.
I am undecided about stickers. Nope, I am decided about stickers. It's just stickers are in that nebulous category that kids WILL enjoy and use thoroughly, but probably in ways that parents would rather they not.
RIGHT: GOOD reading materials. My friend Megan recommends the Scholastic sales where you get five paperbacks for five dollars or whatever. It's probably just as expensive as all the junky toys in the long run. Samantha Fisher from the crew at GeekMom (which I am also writing for now, in case you missed it) also suggests bookmarks, and really, it's ridiculous, you'd think you'd eventually own too many bookmarks, but how come you can never find one when you NEED it?
WRONG: Buying dollar books at the dollar STORE. You really can NOT get quality literature there, and you may be of the opinion that the KIDS don't care, but either a kid WILL care, and throw it aside, or a kid WON'T care and will force an adult to read terrible, terrible prose or verses that don't scan right OVER and OVER again and THEY WILL CURSE YOU. Please, check out the Scholastic discount sales, instead!
RIGHT: Consumable toys. Obviously not in the EATING sense. More like bubbles, glow sticks, and balloons. These ARE all things that will be thrown away eventually, but they're only MEANT to be enjoyed for a short period of time, and IN that period of time, they will be enjoyed THOROUGHLY. My daughter actually just said, about a balloon she got yesterday, "This balloon makes me so happy, I love it so much." Personally I think balloons are a bit MORE fun if they're punching balloons, at least.
WRONG: Toys that are consumable only in the sense that they're so poorly made they don't last, not toys that are MEANT to be used up.
RIGHT: My friend Mandy gave out Lego Mixels as a party treat recently. There are other small building kits that are actually decent that you can buy in bulk around, too.
WRONG: Cheapo building sets that don't fit together, foam airplanes that break when you TRY to put them together, things that come in many tiny pieces but are stored in a thin cardboard box that never shuts again once the shrink wrap comes off. This includes tiny little puzzles. Tiny little puzzles SEEM like they'd be a cool treat, but usually you just end up losing pieces immediately because of the crappy box. Also, the puzzles themselves aren't much sturdier, so the pieces tend to warp and stop fitting, anyway.
WRONG WRONG WRONG: Plastic spider rings. WHO WEARS THOSE, anyway? And even those who DO, WHO WEARS AS MANY OF THEM AS GET ACCUMULATED EVERY HALLOWEEN?
Also wrong: gift bags. I mean if you stick with one DECENT nonedible treat, instead of several crappy ones, you won't need a gift bag, anyway!
If we all follow these guidelines, it's possible that EVERYONE, candy lovers and people with food issues and underpaid factory workers in third world countries and parents that just have to clean up, will have a Happy Halloween.****
----
*Though if I'm REALLY honest, that IS part of the reason I appear to be something of a hoarder. I really DON'T like throwing things out. Waste really DOES disgust me.
**In the sense of "#1 Good Stuff, #2 Nothing, #3 Garbage," of course, not in the sense of "Garbage is the undefeated #1."
***And yes, there are some poor souls who can't eat EITHER, but this is extremely rare and I'm pretty sure those souls will just avoid trick-or-treating period.
****We're not going to please the people who don't celebrate Halloween out of the conviction that traditions started to scare away demons are actually about worshipping demons, but there's nothing you can do about that. Except call it a Harvest Party. I do outreach at a super-conservative-fundamentalist school that was originally scheduled for an outreach yesterday, and I was like, "Oh, good, at least I know THEY won't cancel on me to make room for a Halloween party," but NO, they cancelled on me for their HARVEST PARTY instead. But as it turned out a couple of coworkers had called off so they needed me on desk at the library anyway, so I guess it's all for the best.
So anyway, the thing is, the school's policy is "Don't send in edible treats," not "Send in nonedible treats," so I'm just that grinchy parent who doesn't send in anything, BECAUSE WE WEREN'T ACTUALLY ASKED TO SEND IN ANYTHING, AND NOTHING IS BETTER THAN GARBAGE.** "But what about the CHILDREN?" you ask. And I say, they're at school, they're playing games, they're with their friends, they don't NEED treats there. They will come home and go proper trick or treating later, and then they will have PLENTY OF EDIBLE AND THEREFORE EXPENDABLE TREATS.
So I relinked to that post yesterday when my kids came home from school with a pile of plastic goody bags, and many people agreed BUT.
Of COURSE there are exceptions. Of COURSE there's a reason for the school's policy. So through further discussion I've decided to spell out the RIGHT and WRONG way to deal with what basically comes down to offering non-allergenic options.
First of all, the problem came from school parties, not from trick-or-treating proper. So number one, if there is no policy instructing you to AVOID edible items, here's how you can handle it:
RIGHT:
Offer options. In my house we are serious peanut butter cup fans, so we always offer peanut butter cups so we have leftovers. BUT peanut butter and chocolate are both big allergy problems, so we offer the choice: peanut butter cups OR Skittles.*** You could in fact offer candy OR a non-edible item, but please see below for further guidelines.
Granted, if you have more than one option, a lot of kids will immediately grab one of EACH, so if you're not okay with that you'll have to be immediately clear with your guidelines.
WRONG:
Deciding FOR your visitors. Offering only one type of treat increases the chance that really won't be a treat for someone after all (whether that's because the kid can't eat it, the kid doesn't LIKE it, or the mom doesn't want it in her house). But worse is forcing your ideals on everyone who comes-- if you're against sugar, don't put your porch light on during trick-or-treating at all, and don't you even THINK about doing what that one lady did last year and pass out notes telling kids they're too fat for candy. And you should also probably not use trick-or-treating as an opportunity to, as Kim Aippersbach suggested (jokingly!) in the comments of last year's post, pass out little cards explaining that, instead of spending money on Halloween treats this year, you bought a goat for a family in Africa and I'm sure everyone understands!
Okay, that's trick-or-treating. But what if you ARE under a no-edible-treats policy and you still want to offer treats? Here are some options that, the other people I've talked about it and I agree, do not suck:
RIGHT: Art supplies. Pencils, pens, crayons, markers, paints, coloring books, tablets. I personally would even be okay with Play-doh, but there are probably more parents that would hate you forever for that one, so I might grudgingly put that on the "WRONG" list instead, since I AM trying to give actual advice here.
WRONG: Pencils that don't sharpen. Crayons made out of way more wax than pigment. Teeny stampers. Small plastic stencils that are barely useable. Tiny tablets with approximately five pages in them. Coloring booklets that look like they were drawn by someone who is stuck in the 1950s.
I am undecided about stickers. Nope, I am decided about stickers. It's just stickers are in that nebulous category that kids WILL enjoy and use thoroughly, but probably in ways that parents would rather they not.
RIGHT: GOOD reading materials. My friend Megan recommends the Scholastic sales where you get five paperbacks for five dollars or whatever. It's probably just as expensive as all the junky toys in the long run. Samantha Fisher from the crew at GeekMom (which I am also writing for now, in case you missed it) also suggests bookmarks, and really, it's ridiculous, you'd think you'd eventually own too many bookmarks, but how come you can never find one when you NEED it?
WRONG: Buying dollar books at the dollar STORE. You really can NOT get quality literature there, and you may be of the opinion that the KIDS don't care, but either a kid WILL care, and throw it aside, or a kid WON'T care and will force an adult to read terrible, terrible prose or verses that don't scan right OVER and OVER again and THEY WILL CURSE YOU. Please, check out the Scholastic discount sales, instead!
RIGHT: Consumable toys. Obviously not in the EATING sense. More like bubbles, glow sticks, and balloons. These ARE all things that will be thrown away eventually, but they're only MEANT to be enjoyed for a short period of time, and IN that period of time, they will be enjoyed THOROUGHLY. My daughter actually just said, about a balloon she got yesterday, "This balloon makes me so happy, I love it so much." Personally I think balloons are a bit MORE fun if they're punching balloons, at least.
WRONG: Toys that are consumable only in the sense that they're so poorly made they don't last, not toys that are MEANT to be used up.
RIGHT: My friend Mandy gave out Lego Mixels as a party treat recently. There are other small building kits that are actually decent that you can buy in bulk around, too.
WRONG: Cheapo building sets that don't fit together, foam airplanes that break when you TRY to put them together, things that come in many tiny pieces but are stored in a thin cardboard box that never shuts again once the shrink wrap comes off. This includes tiny little puzzles. Tiny little puzzles SEEM like they'd be a cool treat, but usually you just end up losing pieces immediately because of the crappy box. Also, the puzzles themselves aren't much sturdier, so the pieces tend to warp and stop fitting, anyway.
WRONG WRONG WRONG: Plastic spider rings. WHO WEARS THOSE, anyway? And even those who DO, WHO WEARS AS MANY OF THEM AS GET ACCUMULATED EVERY HALLOWEEN?
Also wrong: gift bags. I mean if you stick with one DECENT nonedible treat, instead of several crappy ones, you won't need a gift bag, anyway!
If we all follow these guidelines, it's possible that EVERYONE, candy lovers and people with food issues and underpaid factory workers in third world countries and parents that just have to clean up, will have a Happy Halloween.****
----
*Though if I'm REALLY honest, that IS part of the reason I appear to be something of a hoarder. I really DON'T like throwing things out. Waste really DOES disgust me.
**In the sense of "#1 Good Stuff, #2 Nothing, #3 Garbage," of course, not in the sense of "Garbage is the undefeated #1."
***And yes, there are some poor souls who can't eat EITHER, but this is extremely rare and I'm pretty sure those souls will just avoid trick-or-treating period.
****We're not going to please the people who don't celebrate Halloween out of the conviction that traditions started to scare away demons are actually about worshipping demons, but there's nothing you can do about that. Except call it a Harvest Party. I do outreach at a super-conservative-fundamentalist school that was originally scheduled for an outreach yesterday, and I was like, "Oh, good, at least I know THEY won't cancel on me to make room for a Halloween party," but NO, they cancelled on me for their HARVEST PARTY instead. But as it turned out a couple of coworkers had called off so they needed me on desk at the library anyway, so I guess it's all for the best.
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no subject
Date: 2015-10-31 04:05 pm (UTC)From:The ethical side of it gets tricky. One of the reasons I don't buy chocolate for trick-or-treating is because fair trade/sustainable chocolate is too expensive to give out by the bucketload, and I'm too horrified at how all other chocolate is procured to spend my money on that. But then, when you think of the factory conditions in which most cheap goods are made, am I really being a more ethical consumer by buying those to give out instead? One could get completely paralyzed. In the end, we all can only do the best we can. I won't spend my money on chocolate or coffee that's unethically produced, but I'm not going to condemn anyone else for doing so - and hopefully those who choose to take a stand against unethically produced pencils and stickers will give me grace as well.
(Which is taking this in a completely different direction from your post, but is something that is always on my mind this time of year.)
no subject
Date: 2015-10-31 06:59 pm (UTC)From:Yeah, ethics is a funny thing. Pretty much everything you do is a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. It's more like you can use ethics (waste and exploited workers!) to defend your own selfish opinion (no junk, more candy!), and ignore it when it doesn't line up with your immediate choices (CHOCOLATE I MUST HAVE CHOCOLATE I DON'T CARE WHERE IT CAME FROM!). It's like vegans being all HOW CAN YOU NOT BE VEGAN IF YOU KNOW HOW ANIMALS ARE TREATED and I'm like "yeah but I gotta eat," and personally while I don't think animals SHOULD be mistreated I'm much more disturbed by the mistreatment of HUMANS so what about THAT, and so on. Angie said something in the comments of one of my other posts recently that it seems most of these hot-headed arguments that never seem to be solved are just encouraged to brew by the Corporations who don't want you to notice that no matter what choice you make, the Corporations still make all the money off it either way.
People with severe allergies are yelling at me on Facebook, even though my main point wasn't "Keep the food!" but "Stop with the useless junk!" I don't think anybody will really be satisfied until everyone in the world sees everything exactly the way they themselves see it, so sometimes I just despair for humanity.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-31 07:32 pm (UTC)From:As for pencils - why DO even the good ones never sharpen properly? Is it the fault of the sharpener, and the pencils just take the blame? Or are they equally at fault? Or is it me? ONE OF LIFE'S MYSTERIES.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-01 08:30 pm (UTC)From:Thanks for your vote of Don't-Despair: I've been having a weepy day that is probably hormonal but still. My daughter was mad at church and she kept drawing me pictures of sad people, giving me a look like "WHY DON'T YOU GET IT," and I was like, "Yes, I know you're sad, I'm sad, too, but there's nothing we can do about it right now." And her expression totally changed and she went, "Why are YOU sad?" And I was like, wow, how do I even begin to explain existential despair to a 6 year old. Well, see, I'm just kind of overwhelmed by all the sad people in the world, all the mean people, all the people fighting for stupid reasons, all the people fighting because mean people give them no choice, all sorts of things I have absolutely no control over. The only thing people can do is be the best person they can be right where they are, so really I have no good reason to be sad, Maddie, I just need to make my little world a better place and hope that someone else is around to help all the places I can't help. But my brain was twisting up in knots trying to get that all sorted out, so all I SAID was, "It's a little complicated," and she said, "okay," and cuddled up to me.
Existential sadness
Date: 2015-11-01 11:47 pm (UTC)From:PS YES re corporate distraction! I second my own previous comment! LOL
no subject
Date: 2015-11-02 02:11 pm (UTC)From:Here's something completely unrelated to what we've been talking about, but will hopefully give you some hope for this world: a friend of mine has been doing one of those sell-from-home businesses for a couple of years, and with her extra money she just barely bought a pair of special (and expensive) glasses for another friend's color-blind teenage son, so that he can see colors. Isn't that awesome? He put them on at sunset, and was able to see COLOR in the sky for the first time in his life, instead of just varying degrees of brightness.
It's stories like these that remind me of the goodness in people, and give me hope on days when humanity seems, overall, to be wallowing in its own filth. The light still shines in the darkness!
no subject
Date: 2015-11-08 06:12 pm (UTC)From:Thanks.