Parents of babies, let's talk. I get it, believe me: you have quite possibly the most adorable infant in the history of infants. And we can all agree that even unattractive infants in tiny princess or dinosaur or panda bear costumes [1] are just outer-limits cute with their squishy little cheeks peeking out of some sort of hood with ears (and OMG, is that a tail?! Squeeee!). You can't wait to take your little bundle of preciousness out in that getup so that the entire neighborhood has the opportunity to get on your level of "so cute I can't even." Perfectly legit.
That is, until you start requesting candy.
You see, trick-or-treating is a time for children to go from door to door [2] to show off their costumes and receive prepackaged goodies in exchange. But in order to receive said prepackaged goodies, they must be capable of holding out their bags, pillowcases, or plastic pumpkin pails while saying, "TRICK OR TREAT!" (and, subsequently, "please" and "thank you" if you're bringing them up to be decent humans). Last I checked, infants are incapable of forming the words "trick," "treat," "please," "thank you," or any combination thereof . . . because they are infants, and right now their areas of expertise are almost exclusively pooping and drooling.
Also: teeth. There's an issue here, seeing as infants are — how do I put this delicately? — dentally challenged. I have a hard time believing that your bare-gummed protégé is going to scarf down this packet of Starbursts or that sticky popcorn ball. (Especially when you regularly brag that everything else going past those gums is organic, raw, locally sourced, blessed by a priest and/or rabbi, and eaten from a biodegradable BPA-free sustainable bamboo container. Hmmm.) Pretty sure you'd never in a million years allow your bouncing bundle to gnaw on a Tootsie Roll when even grapes cut into microscopic pieces are a no-go [4]. So tell me again why you're holding out that sack?
Face it. We know you want the candy. We know you've been waiting for the moment when you can go trick-or-treating under the pretense of "taking the baby" so you can fill their bag to stuff your face. Because if it was only about showing off the fruits of your flawless reproductive skills, you'd just be like, "No candy for us, thanks, just wanted to show off the fruits of our flawless reproductive skills." Because babies can't walk from door to door. They can't ask. They can't express thanks. They can't chew the candy. They don't even have the arm strength to hold the damn bag. That stroller? We know it's to wheel home your "baby's haul" of Halloween [5] junk.
Parents, you have to earn your Halloween candy. When your kids are older, it will be your parental right — nay, your parental duty — to pilfer from their candy stash [7] (somebody's gotta check for razor blades, amiright?). But this will come after an exhausting period of costume shopping [8] and arguing over what kind to get and forking over the ridiculous money for it and reminding them over and over what to say at each house and forcing them to eat dinner before sweets and helping them dress up and make up and then taking it all off and redoing it because they suddenly have to pee and worrying whether they'll be warm enough and visible enough and whether they're old enough to run ahead with their friends.
When your child is old enough to put you through all that every year, you're more than entitled to rummage through their loot and enjoy every last Reese's that they begged for.
Until then, you're not fooling anyone, because we all know you're in it for the goodies. You can wait another couple of years. For now, buy your own damn bags of mini Snickers, post an adorable costume [9] picture on Facebook, and hand out candy to the neighborhood kids who are actually capable of chewing it.