I love my neighborhood. In many ways, it’s like what we think neighborhoods were in the olden days (but probably really weren’t).
I had an “olden days” moment yesterday. Not in the idyllic sense, but in the sense that anybody in the neighborhood can give a troublesome kid what-for and parents will back that up.
I was sitting in the sun room, enjoying the respite after a day of painting and ripping down old siding when — whap! — something thumped the wall next to me.
I knew immediately what it was and who did it. Sure enough, I went outside and there was a baseball in the grass. Looked up and there he was, a tall, blond adolescent boy in the neighbors’ yard. The three boys who live there (all younger and smaller than this kid) were outside, too. But having had my house pelted several times last summer with hardballs, and having seen the tall, blond kid every time, I knew it wasn’t their doing. (They lob balls into my yard frequently, but never get near the house and nearly always use nerf or whiffle balls.)
Without giving it a second thought, I stomped over to the fence, pointed, and called, “You! Blond kid!” And proceeded to give him a piece of my mind and a warning that if he broke a window, hurt an animal, or damaged my property in any way, he’d be in deep yogurt. Then I tossed the baseball over the fence and went home.
A couple minutes later, the father of the three boys was at my gate, full of apologies and concern.
“No, no. Your little boys are so sweet and polite,” I said. “You don’t need to apologize for anything. It’s that other kid. It’s almost as if he’s aiming at my house. He needs a good talking to from his parents.”
“But I’m the dad,” my neighbor said, as if that explained everything that needed to be said about his responsibility.
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Later I got to feeling bad about raising a ruckus. Maybe I should have just gone over there and had a quiet talk with everybody. Maybe I should have gone to Dad and let him handle his guest.
This morning I took the family a peace offering of apple pie (storebought, sorry) and ice cream. Dad was off on a volunteer fire call, but Mom and two of the boys were there. I assured the boys I wasn’t upset with them in any way. I apologized to Mom for the undiplomatic way I’d handled the situation and asked her to pass that on to her husband.
She made it clear that she and Dad had had a very serious talk with all the boys and that no peace offering was necessary. “That kid is a good boy,” she said. “But … they’re having some troubles right now.” Not excusing, just explaining.
Only nerf and whiffle balls from now on, she assured me, taking the pie and ice cream that I finally had to force into her hands.
I love this neighborhood.
My neighborhood is a tiny suburban enclave tucked into miles of farmland about 45 minutes drive south of the DC beltway. That hellhole has fortunately tended to sprawl north and west. We’re a mix here, between the neighbors who show up with their riding mower when they see you fighting with yours on a sunny Saturday, and the busybodies and killjoys who want a gated-community, deed-restricted lifestyle out of a 40-year-old blue-collar subdivision. We generally know whose kids it’s safe to deal with directly, whose need addressed through parents, and which ones you just have to survive because there is no remedy. The kids all know it, too, and behave accordingly.
Oh, I hope the gated-community types lose out. But it sounds as if the tide is against you.
“We generally know whose kids it’s safe to deal with directly, whose need addressed through parents, and which ones you just have to survive because there is no remedy. The kids all know it, too, and behave accordingly.”
That’s a perfect description. Without you saying another word, I almost know the three types of kids and their families.
And yeah … neighbor “Dad” has gone over twice in the last month to mow the recently widowed neighbor lady’s lawn. And last winter he brought me part of his smelt catch, even though he barely knew me before that. You know that kind of neighbor …
It’s nice to see the Dad step up and take responsibility for his kids. That’s something I get to see here where I live too. Having neighbors that are good people makes living in the sticks that much better.
I love living in the sticks, although having a Wal-mart fifteen minutes away is a blessing. You don’t get the variety of people in pinkie-out suburbs that you get here. My neighbors are cops and volunteer firefighters, tile layers and small-engine mechanics, and even a DIA spook who says he has loads of great stories to tell anyone who will fill out three reams of paperwork and get a Secret clearance. Thankfully we lost the family from around the corner with the garage band who only knew “Sweet Home Alabama” and practiced it every evening. Sadly, we leave this all behind in the coming year for pastures (or rather deserts) new.
My first “neighborhood” was on a dead end street on the outskirts of a small So. Calif. town. The majority of those who lived there were Mexican, many of whom had ancestors who’d lived there long before Europeans came to the continent.
My sister and I played with all of the children on the extended “block” and at least one or two blocks on either side of our street. People today would have run in horror seeing the large bunches of dark skinned youngsters – with the occasional dirty pink face standing out among them. 🙂 Nobody was afraid of us then. And, any child who misbehaved was promptly corrected by the closest mother, or we were cleaned up and comforted for small injuries – and we could ask for a drink of water (or lemonade – oh yum!) or even fresh tortillas from any of them. Few even had telephones in those days, and we sure didn’t all go to the same church, but the mothers had their ways of knowing each other and almost always backed each other’s actions with their children.
One of the things that most surprised and impressed me when I moved to Wyoming was that children were generally FAR more polite, did not argue with adults, and very few caused problems of any kind that I could see. When I go out anywhere here, I do not see women with screaming, flailing, destructive children – as I did on a daily basis in Calif.
I suspect that there are more than a few of those good neighborhoods left, especially out in the “sticks” and rural areas. You are lucky, Claire, to have found one.
Well, can’t say it has anything to do with a small town or good neighbors, but I got the backing from the random grandma yesterday while in the big city grocery store. We were headed down the beverage aisle and my son was ahead. As I turned back towards him I saw him start to pull a case of pop down that I didn’t want. I said, hey, put that back. He was close enough I reached out and started to push the case back on the shelf. He offered little resistance and that was when I realized it wasn’t my same-headed, same-height child. And grandma was watching and understood exactly what happened. I apologized to both and told the boy he could get the pop. She said no apology necessary and she would have done the same, (I think meaning she didn’t want the pop either). Yet, the boy had already followed my “direction” to retrieve the pop and was putting it in grandma’s cart. She, likely figuring he had been through enough, allowed him to keep it.
Mama and Claire, this is for you.
There’s a program on local public radio that showcases local artists, of which DC has an oversupply. One of the good ones I discovered through this show is Zoe Mulford, who has sadly since left the country. This song is perfect to accompany this thread, and I think you’d like some of the others she has online.
For me, it just makes me wistful for all of my past that has disappeared under bulldozer treads over the years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqQGIhDqMw4
Good thing I’m not a kid in that neighborhood. It would go something like this;
I know how we can get a free pie, watch this!
Next time you see blondie give him a copy of rebelFire. If he reads it you’ll have a convert to freedom and a friend for life.
I count myself among the blessed as well, for my neighborhood. It’s not quite big enough to have a full diversity of all-aged kids, but everyone helps each other out (in that delightfully conspicuous-without-ever-being-expected way), everyone watches out for all the kids (where we are, the primary security risks are from critters, mostly at this time of year when calves are dropping), and among the kids the concepts of “house rules” and property rights are easily observed to be well-understood, even with the naturally feisty ones.
Around town, like anywhere, we regularly encounter good and bad examples by observing others (since most people seem to wear their basic nature quite openly), and what’s gratifying as a parent is to see how our own kids clearly prefer the company of others of a similar bent: people who naturally respect others are a comfort zone for them, whereas they seem naturally wary (even if they say nothing about it) if they can’t understand or identify with how someone else makes choices.
And even when considering the whole area around us, it’s pretty obvious that we’re lucky in the main. At most of the larger events or shindigs I’ve been involved in around here, I regularly get to see examples both of kids respecting the authority of other parents, and also of parents backing up other adults scolding or otherwise directing their own younguns.
It ain’t perfect, fersure, but I’d say that up here we seem like we’re about twenty years of “progress” behind the times*, and that suits many of us just fine. 🙂
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* Sadly, yes, there are plenty of polypragmatoi around who are hard at work on that, but there are also lots of flavors of fairly healthy independence, and thus lots of ways to hand the piddlewits an ongoing diet of richly-deserved failure.
YOU are the good neighbor Claire! They are fortunate people, your neighbors. Thanks for the story.
I’m reminded of what Earnest Tubb, used to say at the end of every show.
Remember folks, Be better to your neighbors and you’re gonna have better neighbors.
OT: Privacy on your computer, a topic often discussed here (thanks for the Thunderbird tip, Pat). This article certainly has more than I need to know. http://www.returnofkings.com/80979/12-ways-to-increase-your-anonymity-and-security-online
Don’t know how well you know the family’s background, Claire, but a lot of Dads these days have kids, from former families, that just visit.
LarryA — Oh, I already knew the kid was not related. It was clear from the tone and context (though not from the post, I see) that “I’m the dad” didn’t mean “I’m the blond kid’s dad” but just the classic “I’m responsible for what goes on with my children and their guests.”
And LOL, Fred, if any of those kids tried to earn a free apple pie by misbehaving, I do believe they’d swiftly and firmly regret it.
Another OT: I’ve followed Bryce M. Towsley’s articles for years in the “American Rifleman.” The hunting articles have always been respectful of the animals, and the hobby “how-to” projects have always been described with courtesy and humility. He describes his mistakes in detail and presents a workable plan for anyone else who might attempt the same project. I can’t remember anything political about any of his articles. So when he says he has “watched in horror as Obama has attacked America with… brilliance” I believe it noteworthy. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/preppers-say-obama-has-divided-us-on-a-course-for-civil-war/article/2591381