No Treats for Trick-y Teens

Many moms and dads will open their doors on Halloween night to trick-or-treaters taller than they are. They’ll see six-foot-tall Power Rangers, Ghostbusters who can drive, and pirates who don’t need fake beards because they have real ones of their own.

After a certain age, the childhood ritual of trick-or-treating just becomes … awkward.

“We still want candy, that’s the bottom line,” says one 17-year-old from Boston. “If we need to throw on a costume to get it, that’s fine with us!”

“Are they (the older kids) going out in the spirit of the holiday, or are they going out to make trouble in the dark with everybody’s door open?” a psychologist asked.

While it may seem innocent enough, older trick-or-treating teens may be not only somewhat silly, but an invitation to holiday-sanctioned mischief, when the acquisition of free candy is no longer enough.

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“Are they (the older kids) going out in the spirit of the holiday, or are they going out to make trouble in the dark with everybody’s door open?” Kansas City psychologist Dr. Marilyn Metzel told today.com. “It can be fun and exciting, or an invitation to disaster.”

Mayor Mark Eckert of Belleville, Illinois, led the charge in 2008 to ban high school-age trick-or-treaters in his town, citing some residents’ fear of opening the door to older trick-or-treaters.

Related: SLIDESHOW: Pumpkins Gone Wild

“When I was a kid my father said to me, ‘You’re too damn big to be going trick-or-treating. You’re done,'” Eckert said. “When that doesn’t happen, then that’s reason for the city governments to intervene,” he told the New York Daily News.

Belleville isn’t alone in banning older Halloween candy-seekers. Communities in South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and Mississippi have cut off the trick-or-treating at age 12.

“I remember as a 16-year-old egging houses and feeling that it was okay, somehow, because I had a costume on,” one Salem, New Hampshire, man told LifeZette. “I feel bad now. Eggs are so hard to scrape off some types of paint and plaster.”

Marianne McLaughlin Downing of Reading, Massachusetts, told LifeZette, “I don’t have a 15-year-old yet, but I’m probably in the minority as thinking that 15 and/or the last year of middle school sounds like a good last time for kids to embark on the ‘ritual costume fantasy for the young ones, who move through the night demanding small consumables,’ as the Coneheads put it back on the old ‘SNL’ of the 1970s. I don’t know. If you are 16 and old enough to go out and work to buy money for candy, you probably are getting a little old to go door to door.”

“Eggs are so hard to scrape off of some types of paint and plaster,” said one 16-year-old.

Often, less and less effort goes into the costume that older kids wear; they may show up wearing only a mask and an outstretched hand, mumble a quick “trick-or-treat” – and then proceed to empty your bowl of lollipops, mini candy bars, and the ubiquitous Mary Janes.

Related: Halloween for All Kids

An uncomfortable meeting with an almost-adult stranger in a half-baked costume may be coming soon to a doorway near you.

“My son used to go out in his regular clothes with a ‘scream’ mask on,” says one Boston-area dad. “I was always afraid he would give some older person answering the door a heart attack.”

Some parents feel the alternative to trick-or-treating by teens may be worse than donning a costume and getting free sweets.

Lilia Rios, a parent who lives outside Boston, told LifeZette, “Anyone should be able to trick-or-treat so long as they are dressed up, respectful and having fun. I don’t see it as a hand out as much as a neighborhood tradition or party. Also, I would LOVE it if teens wanted to trick-or-treat rather than wear skimpy outfits and make out at a party any day!”