Let Kids Be Loud
afterbabel.com
afterbabel.com
I saw one of the trucks at a school fete and asked about it. The guy said one person had complained about the noise so the local council banned them after 7pm! With most of their sales falling between 6-9pm, they decided it wasn't worth it for one hour and moved on to other local towns.
So not exactly "kids", but I think banning the normal, everyday noises involved in a local culture, whether that's church bells, kids playing football, carol singers, or ice cream trucks, is a slippery slope to nowhere positive.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-...
Among other things, playing the jingle in the same place repeatedly is prohibited.
If it were a regular jingle, I'd have no problem. Perhaps one that could be turned down so you don't hear it from halfway across town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_BF88VYRvE
The "hello" is bizarre. It's like something a weapon AI from Metal Gear Solid would do to flush out its enemy.
The tune is also weird. It's not a recognizable folk or children's tune, and it sounds vaguely Japanese, like background music from a Sega Pico game.
If I heard an ice cream truck playing this come down my street, I'd think I was in an episode of Black Mirror, or some sort of analog-horror scenario. I'd do my best to find a good hiding place and avoid being seen. (Maybe crouch in a cardboard box?)
Ultimately, local civic engagement is often what matters most to your day-to-day life, which is good. I think effective and durable self-governance must start at the local level. But we get blasted by media related to national politics at every time and season, to the point that the thought of trying to stay dialed into local government is a non-starter for many. If all the attention we can bear to allocate to politics is monopolized by the national wedge issues of the day, who will muster the volition to save the ice cream truck music?
It could also be that the single person that did complain happens to be a close friend or even related to someone else powerful, or is just influential in the area in other ways. That tilts the weighting as well.
From a young age I learned a fascinating lesson, socially speaking, is that some non trivial percent of the population does not at all mind the proverbial “Karen” causing a ruckus for the community. However, the second you stand up and tell them you don’t agree, somehow, you are the one held responsible as the troublemaker.
It’s not the initial ruckus causer that matters, it’s the conflict causer that does. Too many don’t care about change in any way, they care about “the peace.”
I've always found it odd that most people would complain if someone sprayed water all over them, but are surprised when people complain the same way about obnoxious noise.
I do live next to an elementary school and enjoy listening to the children playing. Like the article says, that's a natural, even joyful, sound.
Incidentally, we just replaced all the windows in our house, and now the kids can't hear the ice cream truck coming, so chalk up one disproportionately expensive W, please.
This one is an odd area where I would think budgeting would be a good lesson. Set a budget aside for how much they can spend per day and per month on ice cream. If they have the funds, they can get it. If not, make it clear on when they exhausted their budget. In this regard, it should not be an open question on whether or not they can get something. And any "no" will be a direct result of something they have control over.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for avoiding unnecessary conflict. And a lot of conflict avoidance with kids is to not let them turn it into a conflict. You said no, you didn't start a fight.
My kids are 2,3, and 4. No works just fine for now, and we are laying the foundations for budgeting.
Not even Doom music!
I really don't appreciate your reply. It comes off as assuming that I'm basically an idiot. "Oh, just tell the children no!" Yeah, that doesn't really work when you have highly intelligent children you've been raising to be rational, thinking agents. They may not be developed enough to value long-term health issues over short-term pleasure gains yet, but they certainly are skeptical enough to call out fiat answers as bullshit. I'm actually rather proud my children argue with me so much, despite how exhausting it can be.
Hence me targeting my ire at the damn ice cream truck. It's not my children's fault they want ice cream (they are children) or that they are elementary school lawyers (I have certainly encouraged it, much to my in-laws' ire). It is the ice cream truck operator's fault for employing marketing tactics aimed directly at children. I keep my children off of cable TV and pay for streaming subscriptions to keep them away from completely unadulterated junk until they have brains developed enough to see through it, but this guy injects it out of my control.
It was specifically the use of the words "guilty" and "whining" that struck me as wrong there. I could see wanting to avoid seeing disappointment. But I don't consider that guilt. And I'm pretty strict on my kids when they start whining.
Combined with "karen" culture, people are more empowered than ever to complain about things. They forget that when they were kids, they'd be loud, play in their neighborhood, and get up to no good :)
It's a real shame, this mentality is what's moved us away from a feeling of community.
Granted, using smoking as an example is hilarious to me. I confess near zero sympathy for that going away. If anything, I'm pretty sure I'm more dumbfounded that people still smoke in any real numbers.
It is however annoying when the addict does their thing in public with zero fucks to give for anyone else around them.
Check out Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking, if you're interested. It helped me think a lot more about what I was doing and feeling, and turned out to be useful in a bunch of other areas in my life. I found the audiobook ripped from cassettes as a torrent.
The surprise on my end is usually that new people smoke. Anyone that had already developed the habit, I am not surprised still does it. In that regard, it is not unlike any other drug.
I also realize I should count myself incredibly lucky that smoking does not impact me at all. I literally feel nothing when I try a smoke or cigar. Can barely even taste it. Reminds me of my grandfather who used to smoke to be social. When he found out they were bad for you, he just stopped. Had no withdrawal at all. Yay genetics. :D
So is defending the behavior and imposing it on everyone around you just because it's sometimes convenient for you to walk 10 meters for some ice cream once a month.
Like TFA says, we have to decide as a society what kind of noise we think is worthwhile. The sound of kids playing seems essential for a culture to stay friendly to family development.
But broadcasting an advertisement jingle to neighborhoods because you want to make money, perhaps not.
> cultural shift toward being selfish
I enjoy ice cream so damn all other opinions :)
We have a small playground here and for a number of years there were exactly 3 people being loud and obnoxious. One mom and her two sons. None of the other kids ever bothered me. :P
And, I'm fine that we disallow extreme things such as sonic booms. Yes, that should remain banned. For really good reasons. No, that does not extend to sounds of life.
Does it somewhat suck to live near a ball field during playoff season? I guess? Isn't exactly a hidden part of life, though. It also somewhat sucks when the chickens are upset about something out back. Or, heaven help you if you have frogs nearby.
Reminds me of the hilarity of people that want to point out how horrible fireworks are for pets. You aren't wrong, but fireworks are nothing compared to a standard storm in many places. So, maybe tone down the bitching about it a bit?
Edit: Amusingly, I'm currently working from basically under an airport at the moment. Also a very loud place.
So sure, kids doing kid things can be loud and obnoxious. But it is not really any more annoying than anything else. The ice cream truck playing a jingle is just not that big of a deal.
Now, I do suspect some folks have obnoxious trucks that play far far louder than they need to? In this vein, it is a lot like cars going down the street. At a base level, it makes noise and it doesn't really make sense to complain about it. That said, it is extra obnoxious to have people trick out cars and motorcycles to be loud on purpose. And those I have no sympathy for getting banned.
Both you and the author are rankly speculating.
Worse, the author is outright misleading:
> Trying to suppress that energy by demanding silence or defaulting to screens is damaging.
The word "damaging" links to an article by Haidt with evidence of damage from defaulting to screens, but decidedly not evidence of damage from demanding silence.
They make the same bait and switch with screen time in a separate paragraph, again with a link to a Haidt article.
I have to say I resent both you and the author for forcing me into having to side with boomers! But you have zero evidence that forcing kids to play sardines instead of tag is detrimental. Given that, I must begrudgingly respect the boomers' grudge and side with your local council's ban (or at least say that it appears innocuous). :(
Look, even if I wanted to give my kids ice cream every day after school, I am at home and would just get it from the freezer. Even if I say yes to ice cream today, it’s another exhausting round of “why can’t we get ice cream” tomorrow.
At the park yesterday, two trucks were making the rounds. Meaning every 15 minutes, there was an argument. I overheard multiple exhausted parents saying things like “because I already got you ice cream!”
> church bells, kids playing football, carol singers, or ice cream trucks
One of these things is not like the other. Some people like carol singers. Who likes Turkey In The Straw blared through a cheap speaker on loop?
A lot of the so-called Karen culture is like this I think: people who can't manage their own internal issues trying to outsource the solution to them by imposing demands on others just trying to live their own lives..
It’s not really ethical to market that aggressively to kids, because kids just want. All the time they want. Most people here were children themselves once, or at least know people who have been children. If kids had the credit card, they’d spend everything on Pokémon cards and candy.
Here’s a better question before you call me a Karen: given that most people have freezers, who exactly benefits from daily ice cream truck visits? Not the parents, for reasons above. The kids find it frustrating too. The fact that they had ice cream yesterday usually doesn’t ease their disappointment.
If provided with consistency, yes that's exactly what happens. I've raised three kids who have not had repeated meltdowns over hearing an ice cream truck.
Mazel tov. Unfortunately for parents who aren't you, the act of providing the "consistency" you're advocating for, often DOES require dealing with repeated meltdowns, or even just maddeningly repetitive questions of "why not". Children are born wild animals (not yours, of course), and raising them is the act of civilizing them.
If there's one thing that annoys me about other parents, its seeing or hearing about someone dealing with a difficulty that your kids didn't have, and then patting yourself on the back for being a better parent. Every time you explain something to your kids, they just got it and stopped bothering you about it? Trust me when I say, you are in the minority.
> meltdowns over hearing an ice cream truck
I know for a fact, it just wasn't an issue when I was a kid, or even in our neighborhood until this year, when the trucks started parking on our street after school. For many children, that is a time of the day when they are exhausted and unlikely to be reasoned with. Maybe it's a sign their parents are "inconsistent" or whatever, but I maintain that there is a difference between a truck stopping by once every hour or 4-5 times per hour, and also a difference between an ice cream truck at the park vs stopping on residential streets one by one every day. There's no other business that works this way, it's not like they have some fundamental right, and that's not even talking about the noise pollution aspect.
It's not your job as a parent to 1) make sure your children are happy all the time 2) defend your decisions against all attacks.
I found that when children say "why not" repeatedly, they are actually saying "I am unhappy and want to find an argument to reconsider your stance". If you signal them that this is actually something to argue about, e.g. by repeatedly answering these questions, they will just play the game you are offering them.
I found that it's actually a good approach to only directly answer "why not" the first time, and to just answer it the second time by "I understand that you are unhappy about my decision. I have already explained it and will not explain it again. If you need help dealing with your unhappiness I will be there for you."
A lot of the maddening part of these questions is most often the parent not being able to deal with the unhappiness of the child. Once you accept that unhappiness is a natural part of life 1) this will be easier for you 2) you will model much better for your child how to deal with unhappiness.
I do actually and in particular a little one with autism, making part of the process for educating on certain things more difficult than average, but despite being far from parent of the year, I manage and there are things that work.
>You think you’re just going to explain to a four year old the rules about ice cream and they’ll just be like “you’re right daddy. I forgot we had ice cream from the truck yesterday. I’ll grab some carrot sticks instead”?
Well, yeah. That's what parenting is partly about. Establish limits or conduct through repeated insistence on certain rules and lessons to be learned learned, instead of trying to make complaints against others causing a minor inconvenience with their own source of making a living or food choices you don't seem to like.
Parenting isn't easy and each case is different, but if something as minor as a few minutes of ice cream truck marketing is too much to handle with your kids, blaming others isn't your solution to that problem.
And please, the whole ethics thing you describe is just absurd in this context. A jingling ice cream truck, which kids love and which hardly sells something terrible or deceptive, is far from the kind of manipulative marketing you're contriving here. It's just a basic and basically harmless reality: Kids love ice cream, and there's nothing wrong with someone selling a bit of it to them. You're creating an ethical knot that doesn't have any good reason for existing in a normal world.
Example: Every time I take mine home from school, we pass by a Dairy Queen that's on the route home. Oops, and guess what gets asked for each day that this happens? Some days I say sure, and we go get a cone or blizzard. Other days, it's a firm no, and that's that. Repeat insistence made this work out okay. And I don't blame the DQ for anything, even though this particular branch happens to also use music to market its very visible presence.
>Here’s a better question before you call me a Karen: given that most people have freezers, who exactly benefits from daily ice cream truck visits? Not the parents, for reasons above. The kids find it frustrating too. The fact that they had ice cream yesterday usually doesn’t ease their disappointment.
Totally subjective opinions of your own, and in no way justifying getting so annoyed that you want to ban these things, as you seem to. Again, how about not converting your personal dislikes of minor things into trying to shut those things down.
A big one I see is that some parents seem incapable of distinguishing between "there are times when it is okay for my child to play noisily" and "my child's activities and/or noise level should never be restricted". Playing in a park is great --- that's what parks are for! Playing in your yard, or an apartment courtyard or the like, great. Playing on the sidewalk is fine. . . but remember that sidewalks are also for people to walk on, so if someone comes by the kid needs to realize that they should let them pass. But then we have parents who come into stores and let their kids grab things from shelves and play with them in the middle of the floor, and so on.
Part of accepting and embracing play is understanding that not every moment is playtime, and that even within playtime there can be subcategories with different expectations.
This article frames it in terms of noise, but in my experience a lot of the issues people have with noise are really issues about parents not understanding how to set boundaries for their kids, and teach their kids that behavior --- not just noise, but everything --- has to be adjusted for different situations.
Absolutely.
Kids being loud when playing football or at the beach is fine and even expected.
Letting your kids run around the theater is not fine. You're ruining the experience for everyone.
But at least some of these complains have been about really quite reasonable and limited noise levels. For example at my last apartment some kids played out in the courtyard during summer. It really wasn't that often or all that loud. There were a few people who complained as if the kids were out of control, but that wasn't the case at all.
A few months ago we had a carpenter doing some work on the house, and he was asking me about the camp and living so near to it. Eventually he asked "Are they loud when they play? That must be so annoying. I'd hate that."
I replied "Nah, it's healthy and fun, and it doesn't travel as far as you'd think. The real annoying sounds are all the lawnmowers, weed whackers, and gasoline powered tools that people keep using throughout the summer". He immediately went quiet and sour. Guess I hit a nerve.
That has nothing to do with standard carpentry.
But OP was specific in the loud things they mentioned, and that list very much does not directly imply carpentry. So to then make it about OP's lack of tact by explicitly calling out the OP for focusing on their profession? It strains credulity as a good faith reading of OP's story.
EDIT: Ah, maybe you're responding to my remark of it having "nothing to do"? If so, yeah, that's hyperbole. There are similarities if you want to look for them. But I don't think they're meaningful connections for the point of the story and OP's reaction, in my opinion.
My take away, after the fact, was that he may have been someone who enjoyed landscaping his own yard and owned several tools that I listed. Nothing to do with his career and services, and nothing that's a reflection of our interaction.
The story wasn't meant to be a win or a competition. It was a reflection on how some people associate some loud sounds, such as motors, as being perfectly fine and other loud sounds, like children at play, being a nuisance.
On top of that, carpentry is done on site and isn't mobile. Someone doing carpentry as a hobby will likely be in a garage or some enclosed space that absorbs and muffles the sound. Carpentry being done professionally is temporary and will stop once the construction is finished. Landscaping, though, is everywhere and without end
https://chatgpt.com/share/686ff4e8-b7f0-800c-9bbf-bdc1e59500...
But this isn't a conversation about whether or not it was possible to connect from what OP said to "loud noises". We all seem to agree on that. Specifically it's a question of whether OP was targeting the carpenters profession. I can't see how OP did that.
I'm kind of surprised I'm still here arguing this. But hey, it's a slow day and I guess it struck a nerve with me for some reason. Hope you're having a good day too!
It would cost so little comparative money for construction sites to go battery powered. There's some exemptions that need to be made (welders), but man, I doubt the average construction worker uses 1kWh a week. Battery power that shit, you brutes, and spare the world!
Switching these folks to battery would be such an enormous relief for cities. The cheapest shittiest 2 stroke generators raging from 7am to 4pm is an infernal senseless ceaseless din.
On a more serious note, most carpentry tools aren't that bad in terms of noise. They can get loud, but they tend to be momentary, getting a cut done, and back to silence. It's the landscaping companies that are running powered tools right up next to people's houses for 30-40 minutes at a time that are the problem. And by the time one company is done, another arrives and revs their own engines.
As for me ruining his attempt at small talk and insulting his profession... Eh. If someone's idea of small talk is trying to make children appear disrupters of the peace for having fun at camp for 6 weeks out of the year, as children ought to do, I'm not too concerned about making a comment expressing a common and often relatable sentiment that makes that person feel bad about their own disruptions of the peace. To the extent that I "insulted his profession", that was him setting himself up. Don't serve a dish you wouldn't want to eat. He could have made small talk in a hundred different ways or found a way to show appreciation instead of annoyance, but he said what he said, and he set the tone.
BRB, off to the tattoo shop
You hit a nerve here too.
we are all extremely lucky to have been born at the right time with the right set of resources to have found work in the information trade. we are not better than mechanics or dentists, and we're often compensated to ridiculous degrees when compared to arguably vital roles like teachers, social workers, therapists, custodial staff, conservation workers, public defenders, farm laborers, and so many other professions.
Bravo
The internet makes it easier than ever to search for anecdotes around the world that support an idea, but a collection of global anecdotes does not indicate a trend. There are billions of people in the world and some of them are cranky and intolerant.
If we're sharing anecdotes: I've had nothing but positive responses to my kids playing, even loudly. Obviously I'm not taking them to a library, school, or other dedicated quiet place to play, but the overwhelming majority of people in my area smile and laugh when they see kids playing, loudly or not.
General "kid mayhem" happening all over their yard. It often spills into the street. More than once I have to slow down and wait for the children wailing on their friends with boxing gloves to clear out of the street so I can drive through. It's wonderful. They're close to the entrance of our neighborhood too, which means everybody coming through there is primed to go slow and watch out for kids. It has such a great, calming effect on the overall neighborhood.
I have kids. I love a loud house with quiet time.
Loud children above age 2ish in the movie theater or restaurant are to be behaved because of the proximity of others.
Babies on airplanes get a pass because iykyk
The general rule is no screaming without a good reason.
As for those without parenting experience there isn't anything you can do short of killing the infant to get it quiet. They go from struggling to inconsolable which is literally a place where they have to exhaust themselves before they calm down. If the parent could quiet the kid they would.
I've experienced it a few times and despite all my experience and skills the child couldn't be soothed until tired enough to respond positively. In most cases it's less than 90 minutes unless there's a physical reason. Then it can be 8 hours. Bless the parents with children with damaged biology.
I think broadly if you’re doing something you just need to do, then a kid being a kid (particularly babies) is fine. Even if it’s annoying, that’s just life. Beyond that you need to pick your place - I’m happy taking my young kids to dinner where there’s other kids and noise, I’d not take them to a quiet tasting menu place.
Having said that, someone with an upset baby is probably having a worse time than I am and I can usually just sympathise, sometimes things are more out of someone’s control than you think.
Removing them after a few minutes to talk to someone always feels like I am getting assaulted with noise.
Fell asleep for the first time on a plane and I'm never going back.
Reading this on Amsterdam, I know many others countries where there won’t be such a discussion at all about a soccer field outside a building.
I come from a place where children and the population is noisy due to many factors. every time we went as family on a holiday (With dutch people as an example), I saw my children become less and less vocal only to become loud as they were once we were back home.
Recently, we’ve relocated to Spain. It’s only a few months but still, I thought my children would get become less noisy similar to what we saw on holidays after a while…
But nothing changed, and also hearing other children here, they’re in the same “noisy” levels as my kids.
So there’s also a cultural aspect that needs to be considered about what is loud or how children are expected to behave, add immigration to that and cultural differences and you got so many factors.
i hope (not much, but somewhat) that with this increased recognition of the less-desirable effects of throwing kids in front of a screen, indoors, apart from each other, that we'll start to see kids reintegrate into the fabric of society. it's so important for kids to interact with people as they learn about the world, and it seems equally important for adults to realize that they're a part of the same community as parents and children.
-Then: Older generations had the cultural authority, and children were expected to conform.
-Now: There’s increasing tolerance—and even privilege—granted to children (and parents), sometimes at the expense of quiet, order, or adult comfort.
Hypothesis:
This shift reflects a society aware of its declining birthrate, where children are becoming scarcer and more symbolically valuable, so institutions (like courts) may reflexively protect or favor youth-centered activity.The generation that got too much authority will give the next generation more space (louder generation). Then the loud generation will create louder generation and authority will come back, etc.
It's just an example and I don't think the loudness is part of those properties but the abstract mechanism has been observed along few generation (I think this mechanism had a proper name but I cannot find it again).
Are you referring to the Strauss–Howe generational theory?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss–Howe_generational_theo...
Pretty sure no one is valuing kids more because they are "scarce".
I’ve only ever been seriously annoyed by loud kids a handful of times in my entire life. Each time it was always travel sports teams at hotels.
And I’m the kind of person who gets really annoyed at loud sounds like leaf blowers, and loud car stereos.
Kids can be noisy, but I have never had dinner “ruined” by an uncontrolled kid. I’ve never had a movie ruined by loud kids (I have had movies nearly ruined by loud adults and older teenagers). I’ve never been seated near a baby crying on a plane that I couldn’t tune out—especially with headphones (that is until I flew with my own baby on a plane—can’t tune that out because you’re just desperate to get him to stop so you don’t annoy anyone else).
I think people are just being overly sensitive.
So generally it's not an issue and we just sort of tune it out and get on with our days but there is this one kid who only communicates by screaming at the top of their lungs at very high pitch constantly all day. Literally morning til night.
That gets pretty annoying although, fortunately, the particular kid is not always around. If I knew who the parents were I'd probably have had a polite word with them already because it's just so unnecessary even by the standards of excited and energetic children.
It was not until after I was a parent myself though. Like many things in life, once I had the connection in my own personal life, it is now very easy and automatic for me to empathize and support other children. It feels deep, like more an automatic response.
This isn't a new topic but ironically it is not given the attention it urgently requires.
I'd love to explain the idea of alarm fatigue, but from experience, people just think you're a jerk if you say "You should stop that alarm from turning on when there isn't a fire, because I will stop paying attention"
We're sad we haven't heard them again recently. I was hoping to follow along as they got better.
That's what kids to.
I rather get worried if they abruptly stop, or start yelling differently. I don't even have kids, but I'll still take a look wether a kid of a neighbour mananged to add a temporary third joint to their arm, is bleeding a worrying amount or something like that.
Not going to give advice either as we all have our own methods, but it's more or less the opposite of what this person is saying.
Doesn't mean letting them sit mindlessly in front of screens, but screen time is okay as long as they are creating, not consuming.
That has nothing to do with their noise levels though. There's a time and place. Outside with friends, yeah sure be loud within reason. In public around strangers? You better shut the hell up.
I played in the courtyard with neighboring kids all my infancy and as soon as the volume raised above a certain level, we were scolded immediately
There I put forward some proposals at the end
But having said that, I'd be very interested to hear what you think the consequences of the under-diagnosis were, realistically.
As far as anti-science, I think people on the left and right of the political spectrum are anti-science, at least to the same degree that term is thrown around.
You're minimizing and trivializing my situation and opinion as invalid.
> But having said that, I'd be very interested to hear what you think the consequences of the under-diagnosis were, realistically.
Well, being called "weird" and routinely dissed and dismissed as some sort of innate character flaw.
> As far as anti-science, I think people on the left and right of the political spectrum are anti-science, at least to the same degree that term is thrown around.
I'm not familiar with many or hardly anyone (except crazies) on the left being anti-science. What's your evidence for this?