<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/elphiba.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-132" title="elphiba" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/elphiba-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="346" /></a>

I was just at my daughters' elementary school for the Halloween parade and classroom parties. I stood with the other parents on the light-dappled playground this gorgeous fall day, as the little witches and goblins and Harry Potters and cowgirls and butterflies traipsed by, squinting into the sun and smiling for the cameras. There are some things about being a kid, especially at Halloween, that never change. Being at an elementary school for these festivities takes me back like nothing else (besides the smell of a school cafeteria, that is).

Many things have changed, though. Of course they have. My friends and I used to go out trick-or-treating together, without parents, when we were eight, ten and twelve like our girls. Now we wouldn't dream of sending them out on their own.

But in general, it feels safe. We live in a small Midwestern town, where college students are the most dangerous people to keep an eye out for (and trust me, we do). My kids have been able to experience childhood in a way that at least somewhat <em>resembles</em> my own youth, with a few extra precautions sprinkled in here and there like bike helmets and more parent chaperoning.

Some people seem to be drawn to danger, though. They seem to crave it, as if there aren't enough real things to worry about so we need to manufacture a few more for good measure. This afternoon, as we stood watching our little darlings parade around the school in costume, my friend Ellen reminded me of how she and some of our other friends sacrificed me up to the local TV news reporter who was filming at last year's parade.  He wanted to interview a parent about the Dangers of Halloween.
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Reporter: "Are you going to let your kids go trick-or-treating tonight?"</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Me, a bit clueless and puzzled: "Umm, yes."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Reporter: "Don't you worry that it's too dangerous?"</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Me: "Well, we don't send them out on their own. We go with them."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Reporter, pressing on, determined to get his angle on the story: "But sometimes aren't you worried for their safety? And don't you just think that it would be easier to stay home?"</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Me, getting annoyed: "Assuming that there are dangers out there and things to fear, I don't see how staying home is a good way to teach our children to deal with those things. The better way is to make sure they understand what the dangers are and how to be on the lookout for them. Then you show them how to go out into the world and have fun, living their lives in full, yet responsible ways."</p>
I don't think it was quite what he was after, but I was on the news that evening, nonetheless.
<h3>Scary times for our nation</h3>
There are plenty of reasons to be contemplating fear right now. Not only is it Halloween, but our country is mired in a seemingly endless war that has lowered the world's opinion of us, our economy is tanking, and fear tactics are being used left and right to influence voters heading to the polls.

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(Two asides: Someone mentioned on Twitter that this year's scariest Halloween costume would be to somehow dress up as the economy. I also wrote about fear and hope in relation to the election in my post <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=86">Too good can be true in love, why not politics?</a>)

It's easy to see how fear influences us, but I can't think of anything more self-defeating than being ruled by  fear. Well, except maybe being ruled by ignorance or stupidity—ignorance being the problem that often leads to fear, and stupidity often being the product of the other extreme: throwing all caution to the wind and taking too lightly the real dangers of the world.
<h3>F.D.R. knew a thing or two about fear, too</h3>
Luckily, some really wise people have pondered the problem of fear before, so I don't have to come up with the pithiest sentiments on my own. (It's certainly too much for me to sort through today, as I whip off this post before putting green makeup all over my eight-year-old.) Franklin D. Roosevelt had good reason to know quite a bit about fear in 1933, when he became president. As he said in his inaugural address, "Only  a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment."

It's true today, too—we can't and shouldn't deny the dark realities. But we shouldn't hide away from them, either, or try to shield our children from them by pretending they don't exist. Just as F.D.R. knew what was required of him, "courage and devotion that befit the time" are required of us.

<em>This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and  boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. ...First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to  fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes  needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our  national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that  understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to  victory.</em>
—Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

(There are many sites where you can hear and read F.D.R.'s entire inaugural address. <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrfirstinaugural.html">Here's one.</a> If you haven't read it recently, in light of our nation's current state, you definitely should.)