At one point during the conversation, I mentioned that I've never been trick-or-treating. Strike's parents didn't think I was being serious at first when I said it. Strike and I told them how my parents never wanted to celebrate Halloween, and then that turned into a conversation about a lot of the things my parents didn't let me participate in as I grew up.
I was raised in a Christian household. I have nothing against Christians in general, and I know not all Christians are super-strict about following the rules of their religion, but my parents were two of those super-strict religious kind of people. As a result, they had this habit of banning anything that resembled anything remotely offensive to them or their beliefs.
Halloween was one of those things. My parents saw it as a day celebrating Satan, and we would usually leave town or hide at home with the lights off on Halloween night. Additionally, throughout my childhood, I wasn't allowed to be a part of many of the popular things that most Americans of my generation are well familiar with. I was denied a large number of TV shows, movies, music, and books.
I wasn't allowed to watch the show "Friends" because it was considered "too adult" for me. I wasn't allowed to watch Pokemon because there was a psychic Pokemon type, and psychics were of the devil. Around the age of 10, my parents told me I wasn't allowed to watch any more movies made by Disney. I never listened to anything but Christian music until I was about 17. (And if you've ever listened to a lot of Christian music, compared to the huge selection and variety of other genres out there, you know how terrible that is.) I never grew up knowing what "boy bands" were or what any of them sounded like. There was a time my parents disapproved of some content contained in one of my 8th grade reading assignments; I wasn't allowed to read the book and ended up having to do my book report on a different book than the rest of my classmates. I was never allowed to read Harry Potter because it was about magic, and magic was evil. Later on, as I grew interested in (completely fiction) books about vampires and werewolves, my mom caught me reading one and berated me for reading such "dark" books.
The list goes on.
The way I was restricted doesn't usually bother me nowadays, as I've since had a number of years to catch up on some of the things I missed. Every once in a while the feeling creeps up on me though... the feeling that I was deprived of some things people my age should have had the right to enjoy. It often makes me feel out of place when people start reminiscing about their past, and I can't relate to anything they're talking about while everyone else in the room is able to understand their nostalgic references. Granted, I was able to enjoy some unique experiences in my childhood; it wasn't all bad. I just wonder sometimes how much all of this contributes to any lack of social skills I might have.
I guess the saddest part of it all is that my parents did eventually lighten up about a lot of things, but by then it was too late. I was already living on my own by that point and could do whatever I wanted, whether they approved or not. They've conveniently forgotten all the crazy reasons they had for forbidding things from me, while I have to live with the fact that I'll never feel quite that "in touch" with the rest of my generation.
I'm 22 years old, and this is only the fourth year I've been able to celebrate Halloween. But it was fun.