Halloween

I wonder whether children are taught somewhat less than they used to be how to interact with adults they don't know. It seems that most of what we tell children about adults they don't know is to be wary of them, don't talk to them, and god forbid they offer you candy!

...Then one night a year, we say to kids, hey, let's go around to a bunch of grownups we don't know and take candy from them!

Is this not rather confusing?

This is not an original observation, but it does seem like there's a level of trust and community involved in the concept of Trick-or-Treating that is relatively rare nowadays. And I don't feel like I've really been taught how to interact with kids I don't know, except to smile politely and then ignore them.

That's kind of scary, isn't it?