When did parents stop parenting?

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Maybe there's something wrong with the fundamental design of our economic systems, maybe the fact the cost of living is slowly rising, and wages have become somewhat stagnant or not rising fast enough to meet this rising cost of living, effectively forcing both parents to work, many full time, maybe this is having a detrimental effect on functioning of our society, in particular, kids behaviour?

Yes I think our housing crisis is a symptom of deeper problems. We have developed an economic system and a generally individualistic outlook that sees many parents having to work long hours and face long, draining commutes to put a roof over their heads. As a result community life is dying out in many areas, family life is being negatively affected and that is having a knock on affect on how people are living together as a society.

A lot of people live in a bubble, don't know their neighbours, and are paying a fortune for houses and apartments that come with little or no local amenities and natural gathering places. It's little wonder that tensions start to grow, that kids on the estate start to get on other people's nerves, and that the whole 'it takes a village to raise a child' concept has gone out the window.

seamus wrote: »

We have a weird contradiction in Ireland - we complain that there's nothing for kids to do, no facilities.

But if anyone ever proposes building public facilities for kids such as playgrounds, people oppose them on the basis that they attract anti-social behaviour and "sure, they'll be wrecked in a month".

We've thankfully gotten better at this; our parks are slowly becoming more than just fields with a couple of pitches in them, and many now have good playgrounds. But there is still considerable resistance to any facilities.

In my area, there's a "community council" who speak to the local authority on behalf of the whole area. For years they've blocked proposals to build playgrounds, benches and bins on the basis that they attract anti-social behaviour and become an eyesore.

The community has started to push back and we've got a couple of bins and benches, but despite having the largest primary school in the country and oodles of green space, there isn't a single public playground or children's facility in the area except for some football and GAA pitches.

Surprise, surprise the council is made up almost exclusively of people who are 60+ and have been resisting the same improvements since the 1980s.

As a country we need to shed this self-hatred that makes us believe that everything public will be wrecked or "robbed if it's not nailed down". But people continue to oppose public facilities for kids/teens and then complain about kids/teens hanging around and making noise.

I totally see your point, but public amenities do have to come with proper security and ongoing maintenance nowadays. Otherwise you have a minority of teenagers who take them over, wreck them and ruin them for everyone else. I don't think the solution is to simply refuse to allow them in the first place, but they need to be thought through, not least for the people who live around them and don't want to be listening to drunken teenagers shouting and roaring every night of the week.

Graces7 wrote: »

Kids today are very LOUD. Is this as at home they are having to make themselves heard above TV etc?

We talked ; they shout and scream.

Been other threads on this.

Yes, I've noticed this as well. Even the nicest of kids seems to talk several decibels louder than we did at the same age. I don't know why, but it does make sitting beside a table full of young children in a restaurant or sitting near a group of teenagers on a bus a bit stressful sometimes.

It's not just green spaces though. It's proper amenities such as playgrounds, libraries, community centres and so on. And proximity to houses and what is and isn't allowed also needs to be taken into account.

For most parents that isn't necessary. They're aware of their neighbours, call their kids in at a reasonable time and have generally raised them to be respectful and to do as they're asked. But there seems to be an increasing minority of parents who jump on the defensive if anyone criticises their children, refuse to do anything about annoying behaviour, and let their kids tear around shouting and banging balls until all hours of the night. It is that minority that can make life difficult for people leaving near playgrounds etc and it needs to be thought through.

But it really bugs me the way developers nowadays are allowed to build what amounts to new suburbs without having to include schools, sufficient shops, a park or playground and the other facilities that turn a new development into an actual community. There's too many people stranded in soulless estates with no opportunity to get to know their neighbours or to feel part of the place.

andekwarhola wrote: »

Little kids are little kids and most are no better or worse than they ever were. Ditto bad parents.

Kids somehow being 'louder than in my day' did make me laugh though.

Also, without sounding like a cop out, property developers need to have planning permission withheld unless they provide a decent amount of green space in which kids can play safely. The modern, multiunit style housing estates are brutal in this regard.

Speaking from experience as a director of a MC, management companies can't really do anything about kids playing outstde as it's technically not breaking any rules (and even then MCs don't have much power of enforcement when it boils down to it) and it's usually quite hard to distinguish between genuine complaints and people that don't really like kids.

Well you must laugh a lot then, because I've often heard people wondering why kids and teenagers shout instead of talking. When I was younger we used to be amazed at how loud the Spanish students used to be on the bus etc. Nowadays they don't stand out at all.

I don't think too many people complain about children playing outside because they don't like kids. Like most people, I enjoy seeing kids running around, little girls sitting around in groups chatting, kids (like last night) being taught to do cartwheels and flips on the Green by older kids and so on.

What I don't like is children (which again I saw last night) climbing up on top of our wooden bin sheds and jumping up and down on the roof breaking the slats while also having a birds eye view into one of my bedrooms. I had no problem opening the window and telling them to get down. And what I didn't like was the one annoying brat who refused to get down when all the other kids had scrambled apologetically back onto the grass, then very slowly got down, then was back up there then next time I looked out of the window. This, by the way, was all taking place about ten feet away from the Green and about 5 minutes walk from the playground.

I imagine it's that kind of annoying and intrusive behaviour that people object to. Why would anyone be bothered complaining about one off incidents or kids just playing normally?

But there are some kids who are just constantly causing problems, leading other kids astray and being a genuine nuisance. And very often they're the same kids whose parents don't care where they are, or what they're doing, and will jump to their defence if anyone complains.

So people often have no choice but to make a complaint to the Management Company. I don't think most people do that lightly or because they simply 'don't like children'.

seamus wrote: »

Around the same time that it came to light that the Catholic Church was imprisoning young women, molesting our children and was illegally hiding it all and trying to bully the victims into silence.

We made the stark realisation that teaching children to be silent around adults and keep their voices down was clearly a terrible idea.

I remember children being told to keep their voices down in public places such as restaurants and busses when I was a child. I don't remember us being taught to remain silent and live in fear of raising our voices. It's amazing how the Church gets blamed for absolutely anything and everything nowadays.