About kids in backyards...I have a story for you:

[Coventina]

When I was growing up in the 1970s, my family lived in a house where the backyard was up against the backyard of the neighbors. They were both rented properties BTW.

Anyway, my dad is a minister, and I was brought up to be very religious. I was pretty darn devout as a child.

Anyway, new neighbors moved in next door, and somehow or other, my parents found out that the family (parents and a toddler girl) were atheists.

For some reason, my parents told me this, I can't remember why. So, I guess because I was a snotty kid or something, I would always sing songs like "Jesus Loves Me" or such whenever I was in the backyard and any of the other family were in their backyard.

I know it annoyed them, because they would often haul their kid angrily inside when I was singing. It often resulted in the mother giving up her gardening and going inside as well.

One time, when my cousins were over, they all started singing "Jesus Loves Me" at the top of their lungs (that would have been 5 of us) and the neighbors threatened to call the police. My cousins found this funny, although it scared me, maybe because they would be leaving and I still had to live there. But, no police ever arrived.

Anyway, would that have been worthy of legal action? At what point does what you do on your own property make your neighbor's enjoyment of their own property impossible?

[havocmom]

1. .

:popcorn:

[Kerrytravelers]

6. Share a bag with me?

I'll bring the drinks.

[havocmom]

21. Might take a trip to COSTCO

for the BIG bag of corn

Raisnetts? Sometimes this stuff is better with some chocolate ;)

[Kerrytravelers]

41. Mmm. I could go for some

Here are a couple of bags for everyone to share!

[BobRossi]

2. Hope you ate all the Halloween candy they gave you.

I'd have pissed on your mom's tomatoes too.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. If they're violating noise ordinances, it's worthy of legal action.

And it most municipalities, that's whatever's loud enough to bug the neighbors.

The fact that the neighbors have to threaten to call the police is usually a sign you've been a bad neighbor.

[Raven]

4. I can top that!!!

I, too, was a very religious kid. In Catholic elementary school the nuns told us that if we converted someone to Catholicism we would automatically go to heaven. I thought that was a great idea and I practiced on my little neighbor who was Jewish...Orthodox Jewish. I think I was in 4th grade when this happened. I would have Stevie come over every day after school and I would make him learn the catechism by heart. Finally I asked him if he was ready to convert and he said he was. I instructed him to go home and tell his parents. He did. Needless to say, Stevie's mother paid my mother a little visit and that was the end of my free pass to heaven!

[deadmessengers]

5. I'm saving this...

...for the next thread I see where someone says that Christians are persecuted.

[China_cat]

7. How would you feel if your neighbors

kids were in their yard chanting the Koran at you? I know kids do dumb things, hateful things, hurtful things, but your parents encouraged it by not stopping it at the very least. In fact, by actively telling you that they were atheists they were probably hoping for just the behavior you exhibited.

In that case legal action would have been denied unless you had actually entered their property. Nobody wants to mess with a case of 'disturbing the peace' if it involves religion.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Disturbing the peace...

Yeah, I think nowadays that wouldn't just be a noise violation, but harassment.

[Coventina]

13. I hope that you don't think that I am in ANY WAY condoning that behavior!

It's an episode of my life that I'm deeply ashamed of.

My reason for posting it was because I saw a lot of comments on the other thread that seemed to indicate that little kids are innocent beings who would never annoy others on purpose.

[China_cat]

14. No, just hoping that now you understand how they felt.

And I see that you do.

[Beaverhausen]

23. Big difference. You were intentionally annoying your neighbors. Kids playing in their own pool..

...are not.

Get the difference?

[Coventina]

24. I understand what you are saying and I agree up to a point.

But if repeated polite requests to keep the screeching down to a level where others can enjoy their OWN property are ignored, then it crosses into "intentional."

[Clark2008]

36. I still don't think the KIDS were doing it intentionally.

Now, the failure of the parents to ignore repeated requests might be intentional, but I don't think the kids were doing it just to be assholes.

Again, I think both sides in that case were being annoying little shits - both the parents for failure to have their kids tone it down AND the neighbors for being uptight crabs. As I said in another thread, I hope the judge makes these parties come to a reasonable compromise, which should have occurred on its own well before it became litigated.

[mondo joe]

29. But we don't really know what constituted "play" in this situation.

It may well be the neighbors are unreasonable crabs.

It may well be that there was more to the play than what most would consider ordinary.

:shrug:

[Salviati]

28. "kids are innocent beings who would never annoy others on purpose"

Do the people that said this KNOW any little kids? Sometimes I suspect that the only reason kids do ANYTHING is to annoy others :)

[Clark2008]

35. But I don't think the screaming kids WERE annoying the neighbors

on purpose in that case.

Yes, kids DO things on purpose to annoy people, usually their parents, but I don't think that little 5-year-old knew she was disturbing the peace. Do you?

[Coventina]

43. Maybe. Maybe not. I would say definitely not, initially.

If she was aware of the situation as it developed between her parents and the neighbors, it is possible that she knew that screaming would annoy the neighbors.

[RebelOne]

8. Little kids can be pretty mean and inconsiderate.

I am an atheist and I would have been royally pissed off also.

[PassingFair]

10. At least you weren't telling them they were going to HELL or anything

negative like that.

My kids would have made fun of you.

:evilgrin:

On edit:

My father was an atheist, my mother dragged us to Episcopal church
as children. I remember on song we had to sing in Sunday school, a tune called
"A Sunbeam". It went:

A Sunbeam, A Sunbeam
Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam....
A Sunbeam, A Sunbeam
I'll be a Sunbeam for him!


My brother and I, on opposite sides of the "choir"
used to sing, at the TOP OF OUR LUNGS,

"A ZOMBIE, A ZOMBIE
Jesus wants me for a ZOMBIE....."

The choir master knew SOMEONE was doing it, but couldn't
pinpoint the source. It was our FAVORITE part of the week.

MY kids would have thrown THAT back atcha!

[Coventina]

20. Oh yes, that was a song I knew.

And truth be told, I would have loved the "zombie" parody.

As it was, I wondered why Jesus wanted me to be a toaster.

[annabanana]

11. You weren't "devout". .

you were obnoxious.

[Coventina]

15. Well, yeah. That was kind of the point of the story. n/t

[Sequoia]

12. I know who you are!

One of these boys!

[durrrty libby]

16. Goes to show how easy it is to brainwash a kid

They are little sponges and people surely do take advantage of that

[woodsprite]

17. Sheesh! All I did in my backyard was

dump dirty birdbath water on kids my mom made me play with whom I didn't like.

[KittyWampus]

18. If you'd been singing that loudly after 11pm at night.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. No, not worthy of legal action. Plenty fucking obnoxious, though.

Looks like you get that. :patriot:

[malaise]

22. We played all sorts out sports in our backyard as kids

Most of the neighbours kids were playing with us. Sometimes a parent would be umpire or just bring us lemonade. Sometimes we climbed the mango trees or coconut trees. Put simply we made lots of noise all damn summer and I never heard a neighbour complain.

Kids are fugging kids. When they stop making noise is the time to get worried. I'm sick of these sterile adults complaining about noise. Put
simply fugg them.

[havocmom]

25. Shouldn't a person of faith be more concerned about a higher authority than a court?

Just thinkin', being willfully hateful to others isn't really sticking with the teachings, is it? Was your dad OK with your obnoxious behavior?

Since you seem to be repentant of your behavior as a child, you are probably OK.

But now-a-days, if that happened and the other neighbors had asked nicely that it stop, well, I could see places where it might get somewhere in court if it was proved the singing occurred only when the atheists were around to hear it; could be construed by some as religious harassment.

[Coventina]

27. I don't know if my parents were aware of what I was doing.

I know I didn't tell them, and I don't know if the neighbors ever came to talk to my parents about it or not.

I quit doing it after the police threat, though.

But you are right, there was nothing of true Christian loving-kindness in my behavior. I am not the same person as I was then. I don't remember exactly how old I was, but we moved out of that house before I turned 8, so I was somewhere between 4 and 7.

[havocmom]

30. If we are not the same as we were when that young, we grew.

That is a good thing. :hug: We do well to allow ourselves to grow, forgive our past ignorance (but never forget it), and fight those who try to stunt growth. Perspective is a grand thing.

My dad was openly agnostic. My mom had her personal beliefs but none of us were sure what they were, such was her insistence that we learn as much about all faiths as we could and come to our own conclusions. "Throw out what does not seem reasonable. Consider where beliefs overlap, for there you might find some truths."

Both parents insisted we be tolerant and learn as much as we could from as many sources as we encountered. Discussions at the dinner table were lively, diverse and we all were expected to participate to the level our age/experience allowed.

Either one of them would have warmed our bottoms if they had ever caught us taunting neighbors regarding religion.

They did a lot of things wrong, but I am thankful for the tolerance my parents instilled. Made growing up easier, I think. Definitely more interesting ;)

[Bluerthanblue]

26. as a kid

i lived in a place one year that had a backyard which held rusted swing set, and a small flower garden.

One day the neighbors had a really awesome pool appear in their backyard.
It was close enough so that when they jumped off the deck around it, we'd get wet from the spray.
They weren't very 'friendly' (to put it mildly) and no matter how hot it was, how polite and well behaved we acted, how nicely we asked, we were never invited in.

Other children were, but not the kids from "the dead end".

It made a sweltering, sad summer, even more unbareable.

And we couldn't even use a sprinkler to cool down.

The sounds of laughter and fun always seemed to go up a few decibles whenever there was an audience in our yard. And there often were more arguments and fights between those of us kids who lived in the house- envy and frustration was rampant.

Our neighbors possession of their pool, had clearly diminished the quality of our life.


What i learned from this is that having something especially something really fun, and refusing to share it, or flaunting it in others faces, doesn't add to the enjoyment. It taints it.

Noise isn't the only thing that bothers those around us.

How DO we balance the "freedom to live as we see fit"- with the imbalance of 'equality' in this world?

Why is the US entitled to 'defend' itself by possesing the largest WMD stockpile in the world, and tell other more vunerable, less 'endowed' communities not only that they cannot 'possess' them, but that we will use ours on them if they try to obtain them???

Why do people with insurance complain about the lack of 'choice' in providers, or the 'co-payment' while there ARE those who cannot get insurance, or medicaid-??


Why is it all about the rights of the 'entitled'???


Could it be that in order to 'be on top'- you have to stand on the bodies/rights/freedoms/ of others??-

[FredMertz]

31. Very well put

I think the last line of your post summarizes "the problem" perfectly.

[Sapere aude]

32. I was told by police that people have a right to the peaceful enjoyment of their property

which I interpreted to mean that if you do something than prevents someone from peacefully enjoying their property you could be guilty of breaking the law.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. Yes.

I don't understand what's so difficult about that concept.

[Clark2008]

38. Except that it works both ways.

The neighbors deserve peaceful enjoyment BUT so do the kids - and it's perfectly peaceful and enjoyful for them to screech in a pool.

Again, I hope the judge forces these nitwits - all of 'em - the neighbors and the parents - into a compromise.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

39. Heh.

"it's perfectly peaceful and enjoyful for them to screech in a pool."

Unless the screeching is waking up the neighbors.

"Again, I hope the judge forces these nitwits - all of 'em - the neighbors and the parents - into a compromise."

Sounds fair. The kids stop disturbing the neighbors, the neighbors stop calling the cops.

[Lance_Boyle]

40. the kids do not have property rights

the parents do, and appear to be abusing them, as well as their neighbors.

[Pithlet]

47. During the day?

If this is sleeping hours, I completely agree. But since when is silence a requirement during the day? Parents have the right to let their kids play outside, even if they are noisy kids, just as my neighbor has the right to let her yappy dog out, even though the noise drives me up the wall. I'm not saying it's wrong or even unreasonable to be annoyed by it. It wouldn't even be unreasonable to talk your neighbor about anything that causes enough noise to be a nuisance. My neighbor is a nice lady. I bet if I'd asked her not to let her dog out at certain times because my kids were napping, she would have been happy to comply, and it certainly would have been a reasonable request. But I didn't even do that. I got noise machines for when the babies napped. Problem solved. Everyone is happy. I could have been an absolute jerk about it and looked up noise ordinance laws and called authorities on her, and may have even been legally within my rights. But would that make me right?

In the case of screaming pool kids, while I can't judge since I wasn't there, I think there were probably options. The other neighbors, if their reasonable requests to the parents were ignored, could have taken their own measures to cope, such as getting out of the house while the kids were swimming. Or turning on the TV or some music. Going out for a walk. Or, they could look up noise ordinances and have their neighbors threatened with jail and fines. Which one is the reasonable option there? Which one makes them the better neighbors? I realize that people are going to pick one or the other depending on their outlook on life. But I know which one I choose.

[Pithlet]

45. So I'd be perfectly reasonable

If I threatened legal action against the neighbor who lets her yappy miniature pinscher out in her own yard during the day for fresh air and exercise? After all, it annoys the piss out of me. I'd be much happier without that noise. It's very possible I'm not the only one who is annoyed by it. Is she being selfish, inconsiderate and unreasonable using her own back yard to keep her pet she's responsible for happy and healthy? Personally, I think those who interpret such laws as absolute quiet are being the unreasonable ones. If someone has to have peace and quiet during the day, there are options to ensure that that don't require everyone else having to walk on eggshells on their own property during the day. Barking dogs, loud lawn equipment, motorcycles, playing kids, music are all part of day to day neighborhood life. I would love it if things were more quiet during the day. But I'm not the only one who lives here, and I'm not the center of the universe. If it ever bugs me so bad that my quality of life is affected, I'll just have to consider moving. I don't assume that because something bothers me, it automatically follows that the person responsible for what's bugging me is being selfish and inconsiderate. In fact, my taking action could easily be considered being selfish. I'm not going to insist my neighbor keep her dog inside at all times. It's my part in being a good neighbor.

[RedCappedBandit]

34. Obviously you werent such a devout christian

Sorry, but theres nothing christian about what you were doing.. just annoying :shrug:

..anyway, as to your question. i'd say it depends on how often you were doing this and just how loud you were being.. i'm sure many here wouldn't hesitate to call the police if their neighbors were being loud and obnoxious, regardless of the content.

[Coventina]

42. Um, yeah. That was the whole point of the post.

And I've stated a few times in the thread that I don't condone that behavior at all.

[Clark2008]

37. I'm not an atheist, but, if I were, I'd just crank up "Highway to Hell"

and blast you back, myself. :evilgrin:

[seabeyond]

44. as a parent wth young ones. i would have been ok with you

further i would have reached out to you and chatted and gotten to know you, and allowed you to get to know me and my child. further, i could have even broke into song with you, even as an atheist.

also as a parent i would not angrily pull child into house because you sing about christ. i would have taught her in love the difference in belief, yet still a grace in us all and realy, we are all one.... of the human race. allowing my child to shine, beyond, in her atheism to your christianity

though you were a child, behaving just as a child behaves, the adult did not meet the standards as far as i am concerned.

again the adult lacked

my point being

so many adults here attack the children today, when really, there should be some self reflecting on their own behavior

the adult let both you (aS A child) and her own children down.

[Jed Dilligan]

46. The first of many things

to turn me off about the Christian religion was the way they turn their kids into nasty little proselytizers.