This picture shows Halloween in the ’90s. It reminds me of carrying a pumpkin to the door and trading it for candy. Trick-or-treating would last 3-4 hours, instead of this hour-and-a-half we have now… I’m so glad I grew up in the ’90s! Share if you remember those moments…
Look at that image. Really look at it. Kids—dozens of them—filling an entire street. No parents hovering inches away. No cell phones tracking their every move. No coordinated group chats or designated pickup times. Just kids, costumes, pumpkins, and freedom.
Halloween in the ’90s was different. It wasn’t just a holiday—it was an event. You spent weeks planning your costume, not buying it from a store but creating it from whatever you could find in the house. A bedsheet became a ghost. A cardboard box became a robot. Your mom’s makeup turned you into a vampire or a cat or whatever your imagination could conjure.
And then, on Halloween night, you grabbed your plastic pumpkin bucket and you went out. Not for an hour. Not for a carefully curated route through three approved neighborhoods. You went out for 3-4 hours, covering miles of territory, hitting every house with a porch light on, trading information with other kids about which houses gave full-size candy bars and which ones handed out toothbrushes.
Your parents didn’t follow you. They stayed home, handing out candy to other kids, trusting that you knew the neighborhood, that you’d stay in groups, that you’d come home when it got late. And you did. You came home exhausted, your bucket overflowing, your feet sore, your costume torn, and your face glowing with the kind of joy that only comes from absolute freedom.
Now? Halloween is different. It’s shorter, more controlled, more supervised. Parents drive kids from house to house. Trick-or-treating ends by 8 PM. Neighborhoods organize “trunk-or-treat” events in parking lots because it’s safer, more efficient, more manageable.
And maybe it is safer. Maybe it is more efficient. But something was lost in that transition. Because Halloween in the ’90s wasn’t just about candy—it was about independence. It was about being trusted to navigate your own neighborhood, to make your own decisions, to experience the world without constant adult supervision.
It was about the thrill of running from house to house, the cold air biting at your face, the rustle of leaves under your feet, the laughter echoing through dark streets. It was about the unspoken rules—don’t take more than one piece unless the sign says so, always say thank you, look out for the younger kids. It was about community, about knowing your neighbors, about the collective understanding that tonight, the streets belonged to the children.
That photo captures all of that. Kids scattered across a suburban street, pumpkins lining driveways, costumes of every variety, no adults in sight. It’s a snapshot of a time when childhood felt bigger, when Halloween felt endless, when freedom was measured in hours, not minutes.
People will argue that the world is more dangerous now, that things have changed, that kids can’t be trusted to roam freely anymore. But the truth is, the world isn’t more dangerous—our perception of it is. Crime rates have dropped since the ’90s, but fear has increased. And in trying to keep kids safer, we’ve taken away something essential: the chance to be independent, to navigate the world on their own terms, to experience the kind of Halloween that becomes a lifelong memory.
I’m so glad I grew up in the ’90s. Not because everything was perfect—it wasn’t. But because Halloween felt magical. Because we got to be kids, really be kids, in a way that feels increasingly rare.
Share if you remember those moments. Because they were real. They were beautiful. And they deserve to be remembered.