I’ve never been trick-or-treating. Never. Not once. My hyper-religious mother forbid it on the grounds that Halloween glorified witchcraft and was nothing more than a celebration of Satanic principles.

At school, where my classmates wore costumes and the teacher hung skeletons and construction paper pumpkins all over the walls, my peers taunted me mercilessly for having a mom who was afraid of make-believe ghosts. When the sunset on Halloween night, my family got in the car and went to watch a (wholesome, uplifting) movie while throngs of trick-or-treaters rang our doorbell and then, when they realized nobody was home, threw eggs, toilet paper and dog crap all over our front yard.

It was humiliating.

Now that I’m a mother myself, I realize my mom was exercising her rights and standing by her convictions. I also realize how asinine — and short-sighted — it is for parents to use their own beliefs to deny their children’s participation in a commercialized mass holiday, particularly when abstaining subjects their kids to ridicule and embarrassment.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always made it a point to make my kids’ Halloween costumes every year, to go to the pumpkin patch in search of the biggest, fattest pumpkin, and to help the kids carve theirs into the jack-o-latern of their dreams. (Nightmares?) My kids — anyone’s kids, for that matter — don’t have theological concerns in mind when they go trick-or-treating. They want candy. They don’t pick out costumes intended to carry a message. They dress to spook, scare and surprise… and to get more candy. They certainly don’t plod from house to house wondering whether their participation in the evening’s events are disrespectful of God, clowns, hobos, ghosts, fairy princesses, Power Rangers or witches. They want candy. Free candy, at that. And, besides, it’s fun.

When did it become politically incorrect for our children to enjoy being kids?

UPDATE: If I lived in Pullyap, you can bet my front doorstep would be loaded with jack-o-lanterns bearing the names of each school board member, all carved to look like this.