by Sara McGinnis posted in Parenting

"Damnit!" I distinctly recall my dad yelling, one Halloween night. Mumbling curse words under his breath he huffed up the hill back to our house. Then he grumbled: "Teenagers!"
Some might think leaving a giant bowl of candy on the porch with a sign inviting trick-or-treaters to take two pieces was asking for trouble, but all I knew was my dad was pissed and "teenagers" were to blame.
The incident seems to be part of why I have muddled feelings about getting older and trick-or-treating. It wasn't too big of a deal to me the first year I stopped going, but now I'm a parent of a -- gasp -- 13-year-old. I generally don't like to make waves or annoy my neighbors, but 13 just isn't turning out to look and feel like quite as old as it sounds.
I insisted my son hold my hand up and down each dark driveway the first time he went trick-or-treating. He was 2, and I loved it. I grinned each and every time he used his manners and beamed at each and every comment about how cute he was.
It was easy to trick-or-treat that Halloween, or for the next decade, but things have changed. He doesn't blend.
Not only have his costume choices have evolved from cute little cowboy to beard-clad hipster, he's tall. There's no way he won't stand out as one of the eldest in a street filled with little kids, or tower over most of the little old ladies answering their doors. His appearance screams teen.
But as a young teen, I feel like he'...