Replace Halloween With a Day Honoring Mother Earth and Its People
by John Lawrence
Americans will spend $10 billion on Halloween this year, a day dedicated to goblins and ghouls. There is enough scariness in the world. What the world needs is not a day dedicated to rotting children's teeth, but a day dedicated to preserving the environment so that they have a stable and hospitable planet to live on. Instead of "trick or treat" how about a day of "how can I serve my neighbor?".No other country celebrates Halloween and makes such a big deal and spending spree out of it. In Latin American countries they celebrate Día de Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead honoring their ancestors. This is totally different from American Halloween which celebrates nothing except the selfish acquisition of candy. American Halloween has no socially redeeming value whatsoever.
What are we teaching children by celebrating Halloween? That American life is all about the acquisition of stuff - in this case candy. And if we don't get what we want we will do harm to others. Instead of a trick why not teach children to do a favor for others. Let's eliminate tricks from Halloween. It's teaching children that it's OK to do harm to others if they don't get what they want. Enormous sums of money are spent on Halloween which could be spent for more constructive purposes like providing funds to help the growing number of refugees around the world including the refugees internal to our own country which the homeless surely are.
Greta Thunberg shines a spotlight on global warming every Friday with her school strike for climate. School Strike for Climate (Swedish: Skolstrejk för klimatet), also known variously as Fridays for Future (FFF), Youth for Climate, Climate Strike or Youth Strike for Climate, is an international movement of school students who skip Friday classes to participate in demonstrations to demand action from political leaders to take action to prevent climate change and for the fossil fuel industry to transition to renewable energy. Let's make Halloween a day for honoring future generations and Mother Earth. We could also make Halloween a school strike for peace because peace is necessary if the world is to cooperate in meeting the challenge of global warming.
The celebration of Halloween sends all the wrong signals to children. Instead of public service, it sends the message of selfish acquisitiveness. Instead of concern for others it sends the message that, if they don't get what they want, they will do you a disservice. Halloween has no redeeming value. It is just a spendfest on candy and costumes which money could be better spent on more worthwhile goods and services for themselves and others. Instead of candy, children should be taught about nutritional literacy and the value of eating healthy foods. But instead children are carefully taught to disregard any concern for others and even the dangers of self indulgence for themselves. Many eat candy until they get sick. Sugar has no redeeming nutritional value, and Halloween has no redeeming social value whether it be honoring our ancestors as the Mexicans do or honoring a planet suitable for habitation by our children and their children. The world is scary enough with the pandemic and climate change. Instead of honoring scariness, let's celebrate the redemption of the planet and the health of the global population.
