The Opinions - Embrace Unstructured Naughtiness. Ditch the Switch Witch.

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Some parents don't let their children keep their halloween candy, and instead have a "switch witch" come in the night and replace the sweets with a toy. But the Opinion writer Jessica Grose believes the spooky day doesn’t have to be so complicated. In this audio essay, she offers another approach to micromanaging holidays by letting kids’ imaginations run wild. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. I'm Jessica Gross. I am an opinion writer at the New York Times, and I write about the way we live and parent now. So a couple of years ago, I started noticing people talking about something called the Switch Witch. Family in Utah is going viral after sharing their Halloween candy tradition. They call it the Switch Witch. What do you do with all your extra Halloween candy? leave it outside on Halloween night for the Switch Witch.

She comes on Halloween night after they fall asleep. Switch it out for either healthier candy or a toy. I'm sorry, if I was a kid and my parents switched my candy for healthier candy, I would riot. The state of modern parenting is very controlled. Just getting candy on Halloween isn't enough. We have to figure out how to make this experience better, healthier. how to make it more efficient, parent-appropriate fun. And it's not just the Switch-Witch.

It is the Switch Witch and their Nark cousin, Elf on the Shelf. Who is even more ubiquitous during the lead-up to Christmas, where you take this little elf toy and he is allegedly watching your child every day, and inspiring them towards good behavior. Why are we making everything so hard and complicated and baroque? I think the argument for why taking candy away from kids impedes their freedom is, number one, they can't figure out on their own how to regulate their own food consumption, which is really important as just part of growing up.

I mean, I feel like I'm still working on it as a 41-year-old, but it's something that parents can't control. They have to teach their kids how to control themselves. And so I think that's one part of it. You're just saying, oh, you can't possibly figure out how to regulate the right amount of candy to eat. I must take it all away from you or you'll just lose control. But I think the other part of it is this idea that we can't just talk about the candy. We have to make it into this elaborate game with a story.

behind it and a character. It seems like a fun, cute thing. What's the harm in doing it or not doing it? These little choices don't matter so much. Yes, I think that's true, but I think it's all part of a larger trend where we don't let kids have time or space to let their imaginations run wild. The increase in parental monitoring is actually part of a decades-long trend. This didn't just happen overnight.

There was a commentary that came out earlier this year in the Journal of Pediatric from two psychologists and an anthropologist, and it sort of traced the amount to which children had lost their freedom over the past 40 or 50 years. How many fewer kids were walking and bicycling to school, how many fewer kids were allowed to have part-time jobs like, you know, babysitting and paper routes, and sort of coming-of-age responsibilities that, you know, increasingly kids are not allowed to have. Studies basically show, a shift that started happening in the 80s where parents started spending a lot more time with their children, which obviously isn't all bad. And they started letting their kids have less freedom. So they didn't

let them walk to school as much. They had much more organized after school activities. And there was just sort of more money and structure being poured into children's lives, partially out of anxiety and partially out of desire for children to succeed in an increasingly cutthroat world. And so this lack of unconstructed free time is making kids feel that they don't have power in their own lives. Feeling that they don't have power in their own lives is contributing to depression and anxiety among young people. So the way that I see things like the Switch with an elf on the shelf, which, you know, if you find these things fun, I am not trying to to be a fun vampire, although you maybe think that I am.

I'm not saying, stop doing them tomorrow, or you're going to ruin your child's life. What I'm saying is it is like a frog getting boiled. The more things that we do constantly to monitor our children's lives, to enforce a certain kind of fun and activity that is parent-conceived of and parent-led, that is taking away from time that they can make their own. fun, that they can figure out what it is that they enjoy, that they can spend time with their friends and go off alone together and do bizarre and silly things that are so playful, they would never occur to a parent in a million years.

Again, I'm not here to ruin your fun. Maybe a little, but I'm not, I don't. You know, it's like, I don't do it just to be a hater. but I think just the goal is always to have people just be a little more thoughtful about, you know, am I doing this because I actually like to do it and I think that the kids enjoy it and our family enjoys it? Or am I doing this because everybody else is doing it and it feels mandatory? And where can I find ways that we can do things that give our kids more freedom and pleasure that we're not stage managing? especially at Halloween, which is a holiday that is meant for mischief and silliness

and things that are unmanicured and maybe a little naughty and things that your parents wouldn't necessarily approve of. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Veshaka, Fiby Lett, Christina and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Brzeck, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones,

Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saboro, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sojota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta, Christina Samuelski, and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie dresser.