This is terrifying. It bespeaks the level of ignorance people have with history, and it completely robs the entire spiritual & magical relations as tied to the specific date. Not to mention the importance of All Saints Day which follows Hallowe'en.

The arguments in the petition for the movement of the holiday seems to be more of a parenting issue and less of a date issue. If children are being injured and hurt while trick-or-treating because parents are not attending their children, properly dressing their children with safety gear, and being mindful of their children's well-being then that speaks to a larger issue of responsible parenting. No one wants children to be hurt, but moving the holiday to Saturday isn't going to make any parent monitor or assist their child any more than having it on any other day of the week.

If kids want free candy & to dress up in costumes, then they should create a separate holiday, and not try to change history to suit the trend of the day. That is just happening way too much lately. History is something to be respected and learned from, to be remembered & honored, and there isn't enough people learning history anymore.

https://www.change.org/p/president-of-t ... n-movement

So why don't we move Christmass to the summer? I think that would be great. Children will like it more when it's warm outside and the commerce would profit as well. And the New years eve celebrations should also be moved to the warmer part of the year, so noone would freeze to death if they accidentally get drunk and fall asleep outside...

In this case, I'd still do my own thing and my own calculations for Holidays. It's quiet obvious that people are being lazy with responsibilities and it's a trend that has been nurtured as of late.

Woo hoo! I will never have children. You can keep them x D

Yes, having children is a big responsibility, and if a couple is unwilling to spend the time to be responsible for their own kids, they shouldn't be having any in the first place.

In my neighborhood, there are a couple Saturday afternoon Halloween events for the kids, grandkids, etc. of residents. That’s fine. I mean, heck, I’m sure there are weekend Halloween parties for grownups, too, since it’s hard to host or attend parties on a work night.

But leave the actual holiday right where it is. And ensure that any kids trick-or-treating on Halloween night are accompanied by a responsible adult/older teen so they don’t cross streets carelessly, etc.

I am currently raising an eight year old child who is friends with other children and their parents. I have *never* seen children of any age trick or treating alone.

These people are not very clear about the sources of their facts, and every search I did on the one that said "70% of parents don’t accompany their children trick-or-treating" returned mostly news stories about this petition.

I would not let the allegations in this petition get you too worked up. Halloween is a municipal rather than federal issue. In fact, most communities now designate a "trick-or-treating night" that is close to, but not necessarily on, October 31.

Frankly, I am far more concerned about the fact that no one my age in this area can afford a house, regardless of education. We all have graduate or professional degrees and live in apartments and drive over to a neighborhood filled with Baby Boomers who can actually afford houses, decorations and candy.

Safe Kids Worldwide is the main authority on Halloween safety and a good source of statistics on the same. The last time they published a Halloween safety survey was 2011. Here it is: https://www.safekids.org/sites/default/ ... report.pdf It reflects that parents as a whole are generally well educated about Halloween and plenty concerned about its dangers.

I did find a statistic at some point that said around 30%-35% of parents planned to take their children trick or treating. This may be the basis for the 70% statistic. If so, it is a logical fallacy. If a parent doesn't plan to take their child trick or treating, there is every possibility the child is not trick or treating rather than the assumption that the child is trick or treating alone.

All that said, the night children trick or treat is also the night that most children are hit by vehicles each year. So, yes, meticulous care should be taken. But, again, that doesn't necessarily validate the statistics in the petition, nor does it indicate any likelihood of success for the petition.

Looking at who originated the petition, I would say it most looks like (1) an opportunity to burnish their image by offering safety tips (and they are good safety tips, by the way!) and (2) a tenuous chance to make the holiday even bigger and therefore sell more costumes. Remember those parents who didn't plan to take their kids trick or treating? We have done that every year that trick or treating falls on a school night. We simply don't go and, therefore, didn't invest in a costume.

Incidentally, when I was a kid and our whole block’s kids all trick-or-treated together, we only needed one or two parents accompanying the big bunch of kids. So just because most parents stayed home to hand out candy, doesn’t mean we were without adult supervision. We had either someone’s high-school-aged older siblings and/or at least one parent with us.

This is about as stupid as the prank that was played on the college kids a few years back that had them wanting to ban water because someone went to college campuses and had them sign a petition to ban dihydrous monoxide (water-h2o).

If they want their kids to go trick or treating, they need to take responsibility for them just like the rest of the trick or treating world.

It's also worth noting that Halloween is not a federal holiday and the federal government cannot, therefore, regulate it. So. It's absurdly but pointlessly alarmist on all fronts.