Most kiddos can’t wait for Halloween.
 
There’s not a whole lot to not like.
 
Imagine: you dress up like a pirate or princess or hobo, then walk up to the door of a complete stranger, and that stranger smiles and gives you candy.  Then, depending on how closely your parents monitor the situation, you go home and gorge on your well-earned bag of goodies.  If you’re extra careful, the sweet stuff will last for weeks. Then again, older kids might get cold, hard cash from their folks in exchange for all of that yummy booty.
 
Really, no matter how the scenario unfolds, it’s all good. 
 
This was my story as a young girl.  I have photos of my brother and me in costume (he’s a skeleton and I’m a Pilgrim girl, complete with bonnet), standing next to each other.  We’re posing on our tiny front porch in a town south of Los Angeles, smiling and no doubt ready, willing and able to take on the task of knocking on just about every door in the neighborhood.    
 
But then I started third grade and everything changed.  To my young mind, it wasn’t for the better.
 
If I have to blame anyone, it would be Danny Kaye.
 
Let me explain.
 
Years and years before Audrey Hepburn and Angelina Jolie, entertainer Danny Kaye was the first Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF—short for The United Nations International Emergency Children’s Fund.  Initially taking on this intensive, globe-trotting role in 1954, Kaye traveled the planet in this capacity, from India to Africa, for more than three decades.  Dispensing speeches and hugs, he was the first entertainer to bring the plight of the poorest and most vulnerable children of the world to the rest of us.
 
And Kaye seemingly loved every minute.    
 
That might be because he considered the ambassador gig to be the most rewarding of his long career in show business.  Although known for starring roles in movies that include The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Hans Christian Anderson and White Christmas, Kaye’s daughter Dena says her dad also knew exactly how to engage children on an intuitive level.   
 
“Children are the same the world over,” she remembers him saying.  “They may have a different culture, but an ache or a laugh is universal.”  (Watch Kaye in action here, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdA_MLi2FCY.)
 
So far, so good.
 
But then came Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF. 
 
Begun as a local event by a Presbyterian minister in Philadelphia, the program involves children collecting small change instead of candy on Halloween.  Eventually, this tiny once-a-year fundraiser morphed into a worldwide event, and now
boasts millions of kiddie participants around the world.  In its present incarnation, it has also raised about $175 million
for UNICEF.
 
In my case, dozens of empty orange containers were brought to the synagogue I attended a week or so before October 31.   I didn’t start religious school until third grade, and that first year, on the Sunday closest to that delivery day, we were shown a movie starring Danny Kaye in his role as UNICEF ambassador.  In so many words, we were told that this is what we were expected to do on Halloween night. 
 
Collecting candy was no longer an option.
 
This idea especially appealed to my mother.  She didn’t like candy in our home to begin with because it caused cavities, and back then, there was no such thing as dental insurance. Also this way, she could teach her children about charity and the value of helping others.  She felt it was never too young to learn such lessons.   
 
On a grown-up, in-theory level, this makes a lot of sense.
 
But to me, a slight eight-year-old armed only with an empty orange box (and no bag for sweets; I was told not to ask), it was a daunting night.   
 
Still, I was a child who Wanted to Do Good, and I was also a child who Wanted to Make Her Parents Proud.  So for three years,  after watching Danny Kaye each of those years, I trudged through our working class neighborhood on Halloween, pretty much hating every minute, collecting money for an organization that I really didn’t know much about, except for what Danny Kaye had told me.  (Today, the irony of a woefully unprepared child collecting funds for another defenseless population hasn’t been lost on me.)      
 
More than a few people refused to give me any coins; I didn’t know until years later that this was still a time when lots of folks weren’t exactly keen on the UN. 
 
In particular, I remember a grouchy old man (although he was probably younger than I am now) screaming at me, accusing me of being a Communist (what was that?), and slamming the door in my face. (For whatever reason, my parents never went up to a house with me, preferring to stand on the adjacent sidewalk.)   
 
But the final straw came right after the third Halloween run, when I returned my change-laden box to Sunday school. 
 
It was then that a classmate told me that she had gone trick-or-treating for candy.  In fact, she always had.  Her parents—and as it turns out, pretty much all of the moms and dads—had simply stuffed their own stray coins into the orange containers that were brought home. 
 
I felt like I’d been played, and let’s face it, I had.  I’d been forced to go collect money when no one else in my class had.
 
After that revelation, I refused to carry the orange box ever again.  Of course, I was older by then, so more able to stand my ground.  But the memory of that horrible container has stayed with me, and sadly, permanently stained the idea of Halloween being a happy, kid-friendly holiday.    
 
Yes, I learned that it’s important to give, especially to those less fortunate.  But I’ve taught the same lesson to my now teenage daughter in other ways. 
 
So in case you’re wondering, this means that when she went trick-or-treating, she went for candy.  If she has children, I hope she gives them the same delicious choice.  There are plenty of other times throughout the year to give, and to give generously.
 
Heck, if so desired, that definitely includes a big-hearted donation to UNICEF.    
 
But I’ve also come to believe this: a night designed for wearing silly outfits and collecting candy is neither the time nor the place for such an activity. 
 
And that’s especially true when tasked with the smallest, and the most powerless, among us.
 
What are your Halloween memories?  I look forward to hearing your comments and stories!  

​Each in their own way, and each in their own time, Confucius, Plato and Socrates are considered to be the wisest of the
wise philosophers.   
 
But with one story making the news right now, I’m going with the Zen of Mick Jagger. 
 
That’s because it’s all there in Jagger’s 1969 song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” 
 
Co-written with Keith Richards and featured on the album Let It Bleed, this eminently singable tune has also been rated the 100th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.  Told in first person, the lyrics are about a party, but are also said to address three big topics of the 1960s: love, politics and drugs.  The chorus is pragmatic and steady, and at the same time, uplifting.
 
For a lot of us, it’s also the essence of the song. 
 
“You can’t always get what you want,” wails Jagger.  “But if you try sometimes you just might find, you just might find, you get what you need.”  
 
In the case of Jennifer Cramblett, a 38-year-old woman who lives in tiny Uniontown, Ohio, population 2,802, she wanted a baby, and she wanted one badly.
 
I’ve been there.
 
After nearly two decades focusing on a writing career, I suddenly had an urge—more accurately, an intense, this-isn’t-going-away desire—to have a child.  So extreme was my baby fever that I couldn’t attend friends’ showers, and if I saw someone pushing a stroller, I’d need to cross the street.  In fact, sometimes my hands would start shaking, literally, at the sight of an infant.
 
I never give up unless I’m absolutely forced to, so I willingly went through six years of invasive, painful and costly infertility treatments.  That meant well over 50 artificial inseminations; three IVFs, and a famous clinic whose clients included Brooke Shields, Roseanne and Jane Seymour. 
 
Toward the end of this journey, I was gently told that it might be time to look at other options.  My choice was adoption, and nine months later (an interesting coincidence), I brought my daughter Katie home from China.
 
Clearly, adoption wasn’t my first choice.
 
But becoming a mother this way ended up being the right decision.  I didn’t get what I thought I wanted, but I absolutely got what I needed—a smart, spirited and beautiful child who has completed me in a myriad of ways.
 
Jennifer Cramblett went down a different road.
 
After purchasing donor sperm from Illinois-based Midwest Sperm Bank, she soon found herself pregnant by donor number 380, a Caucasian man with blonde hair and blue eyes, just like her partner, Amanda Zinkon.  All was going well until five months into Cramblett’s pregnancy: it was then that Midwest informed Cramblett that it had mistakenly shipped her the sperm of donor number 330 instead.
 
This donor was African American. 
 
On October 21, 2012, Cramblett gave birth to a healthy but noticeably biracial baby she named Payton. 
 
Obviously, this child was not what Cramblett had wanted, and the new mother was not pleased.  The sperm bank apologized profusely and gave her a partial refund.  According to official documents, the slip-up was the result of a clerical error.
 
That should have been the end of the story, but Cramblett wasn’t satisfied.
 
About two years after Payton was born, Cramblett filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful birth and breach of warranty. 
 
It wasn’t that she didn’t love her daughter, she said.  She did, and in fact, went on to say that she couldn’t imagine life without her.  She also said that her case has nothing to do with race.       
 
But Cramblett has also stated that she had been “raised around stereotypical attitudes about people of color,” and because of this, “has limited cultural competency” around African Americans.  Subsequently, the wrong insemination led to “an unplanned transracial parent-child relationship for which she was not, and is not, prepared.” 
 
Moreover, Cramblett says that both a sociologist and social worker have told her that both she and Payton will
eventually require long-term individual and family counseling, as well as relocating to a town that is “more racially and
culturally diverse.”  
 
The case was thrown out of court, but mostly for technical reasons.
 
Perhaps that’s why the judge strongly encouraged Cramblett to pursue a second lawsuit, advising her that she might win if she charged Midwest with negligence instead.  
 
That’s exactly what Cramblett did this past April, although a ruling has yet to be announced.   
 
But Cramblett’s story has made me think, long and hard, about the difference between getting what we want, and getting what we need, especially when it comes to our children. 
 
What about the parents of the 6,000 Down Syndrome kids born each year in the United States?  What about the more than 400,000 children enrolled in special education programs in our country because of autism?  Or, how about the moms and dads of the 8,000 babies annually diagnosed with cerebral palsy? 
 
Then again, consider those kiddos—whose stories we’ve all heard and may even have a personal connection to—who are born healthy, but end up severely compromised, cognitively and physically, because of a horrible accident or disease?  
 
Who should the parents of these children sue?  And if they could sue, would they?
 
It’s clear to me that Jennifer Cramblett is on a slippery slope.
 
I’m not denying that her road isn’t a challenging one.
 
She probably will leave the 98 percent white community she lives in, which she now says she wants to do anyway to make a better life for Payton.  She probably will end up cutting off all ties between some family members and long-time friends who can’t get past their racial intolerance.  And mark my words: in a decade or so, Payton and Cramblett are likely to have epic fights, especially once her kid finds out about the lawsuits.  (For the record, Cramblett believes this scenario is unlikely.)    
 
Yet the bottom line is this:  Cramblett is now the mother of a sweet little girl.  For whatever reason, she didn’t get the child she wanted. 
 
But like Mick Jagger says, she should perhaps try to find that Payton may be what she has needed all along.
 
What have you really wanted and didn’t get, but later realized that you still got what you needed?  If you have any thoughts about Jennifer Cramblett, I’d like to read those, too!  I look forward to each and every comment! 
 
p.s. Families of children with special needs may already be familiar with the 1987 poem "Welcome to Holland."
For those who don’t know about it, here’s a beautiful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r15PuYoID94