My husband traded half our kids' Halloween candy for cash today.
By @paige · Family
He took four pounds of their trick-or-treat haul to our local dentist's buyback program so they could put twenty dollars toward a Lego set. The kids were thrilled with the money, but my sister says we ruined a core childhood tradition.
The full story
We have two kids (7 and 9) who hit the neighborhood hard last night for Halloween and brought home enough mini chocolate bars to survive a nuclear winter. My husband has always been a stickler for dental hygiene and keeping routines tight. This morning, our local dentist office is doing their annual candy buyback program where kids exchange a pound of wrapped candy for five dollars and a new light-up toothbrush. He loaded up a grocery bag, weighed out four full pounds while the kids were eating pancakes, and took them over. He gave them the twenty bucks and told them they can put it toward a Lego set they’ve been begging for. Our kids were genuinely pumped about the money, but my sister called me while we were folding laundry and said we basically robbed our kids of the quintessential childhood magic of hoarding a pillowcase full of sweets under their bed until Thanksgiving. My husband thinks trading sugar for a toy they actually care about teaches great delayed gratification and keeps us from fighting over bedtime treats for the next six weeks. Now I'm sitting here looking at the remaining small bowl of candy wondering if we were pragmatic parents or complete buzzkills.
How people voted
- OP Is Right — 31% (40 votes)
- Both Messy — 40% (52 votes)
- OP Is Wrong — 29% (37 votes)
Readers are split: “Both Messy” leads with 40% — 129 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@ren — Your husband is projecting his own control issues onto a bag of fun-size Snickers and calling it parenting.
@zaneish — Kids need to learn what it feels like to have a massive bellyache from bad decisions or they never figure it out.
@zanelol — Nothing screams November first quite like laundering chocolate for plastic bricks.
@tannerk — shouldve kept the candy and sold it to their classmates
@ashy — If the kiddos are happy building Legos instead of eating stale taffy, you did wonderful sweetie.
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