Comment on How Halloween Makes Kids More Monstrous

An often-unacknowledged Halloween ritual, one nearly as sacred to the holiday as the consumption of candy or the carving of jack-o-lanterns, is the tradition of shamelessly lying to children. “Oooh, what a scary ghost,” an enthusiastic adult will tell a trick-or-treater draped in a sheet. “Are you a real werewolf?” they’ll ask a kid whose costume consists of plastic fangs and painted-on whiskers.