When my children were little, I was deeply irritated by older kids—kids that I arbitrarily decided were “too old” to trick-or-treat—coming to my door on Halloween. Didn’t they have better things to do than take candy meant for kids who are actual trick-or-treating age? Shouldn’t they be at some sort of high school Halloween party? I never turned them away, of course, but inside I was rolling my eyes. I even groused about it publicly on my blog one year, writing that teenagers should stick to handing out candy or toilet papering people’s houses or something. It was a hill I thought I’d die on.

Then my own kids grew into teens, and suddenly I realized what an ignorant jerk I’d been. Just like non-parents who give parenting advice (and we all know how much that sucks!), I was the mom who’d n

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