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My house sits on a cul-de-sac. Most of my neighbors are retirees or young families. As a result, the street is treated as a playground, with the kids constantly out and leaving their crap in the road. My house is the one with the steepest drive and I can’t tell you the number of times I had to tell the kids to stop playing in my driveway and watch out because my truck doesn’t have a backup camera. I chalked it up as an ordinary annoyance, until my neighbor across the way started to close off the entire street with cones and “kids at play” signs. Meaning it is an entire ordeal if I have to run errands or want to get take out. It takes forever to get the kids and all their stuff out of the road, and my neighbors treat it as a giant favor to get them to clear the road. I am usually a live-and-let-live guy, but there is literally a park two miles away. I have already spoken several times with my neighbors about the issue but it still happens. We do have an HOA, and I am really tempted to throw the entire issue out at the next meeting. Can I get some advice?
—Street Side
Dear Street Side,
Ha! Haha! I’m sorry, Street Side. I don’t mean to cackle. But look. The entire country scolds and chastises parents for not “letting” kids play outside anymore, mourns the fact that neighborhood-kid friendships and long, sunny days spent riding bikes seem to be a thing of the past, and holds up phenomena like after-school overscheduling and Halloween trunk-or-treats as evidence that American childhood has gotten far too adult- and car-dependent. And here you are living on Throwback Street, where the children frolic wholesomely amongst themselves, and you’re pissed off about it! This kind of thing drives parents mad. We just can’t win!
A park two miles away? That’s not the same thing, at all. Almost any child, besides, I guess, an older one you’d be confident to allow to bike two miles, would need to be ferried there in a car.
That means you need to make a plan to get there, and make a plan with the parents of their friends to make sure they are in the same place at the same time, probably have at least one set of adults stay there to supervise, and so forth. That is not the same thing as having a neighborhood where kids can go out and see who’s around, while the adults cook dinner and periodically look out the window to see how things are going, or hang out in their front yards to sort-of supervise, sort-of be around to chit-chat with neighbors. That is the fabric of community, right there. You’re not going to weave it at a park that’s two miles away.
All that said: People shouldn’t put cones out and close off a street, I don’t think. But if what you’re mad about is just kids that are not scuttling fast enough to clear their scooters away when you approach in your truck, maybe time what you mean by “not fast enough”? How many seconds of you sitting in your truck is too many, when what’s being gained is living in a place where people actually know one another and their kids play together outside—the loss of which, I think, is partially responsible for the sense of disconnection and the mental health issues a lot of us currently have? If the cone and toy blockade is truly making it difficult to leave your home in a timely fashion, that’s worth bringing up at the HOA meeting (it’s likely illegal)—the parents should be reasonable about providing a safe egress for everyone. But try to balance your annoyance with all the good that seems to be gamboling about in your front yard.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/02/obstacle-course-care-and-feeding.html
—Street Side
Dear Street Side,
Ha! Haha! I’m sorry, Street Side. I don’t mean to cackle. But look. The entire country scolds and chastises parents for not “letting” kids play outside anymore, mourns the fact that neighborhood-kid friendships and long, sunny days spent riding bikes seem to be a thing of the past, and holds up phenomena like after-school overscheduling and Halloween trunk-or-treats as evidence that American childhood has gotten far too adult- and car-dependent. And here you are living on Throwback Street, where the children frolic wholesomely amongst themselves, and you’re pissed off about it! This kind of thing drives parents mad. We just can’t win!
A park two miles away? That’s not the same thing, at all. Almost any child, besides, I guess, an older one you’d be confident to allow to bike two miles, would need to be ferried there in a car.
That means you need to make a plan to get there, and make a plan with the parents of their friends to make sure they are in the same place at the same time, probably have at least one set of adults stay there to supervise, and so forth. That is not the same thing as having a neighborhood where kids can go out and see who’s around, while the adults cook dinner and periodically look out the window to see how things are going, or hang out in their front yards to sort-of supervise, sort-of be around to chit-chat with neighbors. That is the fabric of community, right there. You’re not going to weave it at a park that’s two miles away.
All that said: People shouldn’t put cones out and close off a street, I don’t think. But if what you’re mad about is just kids that are not scuttling fast enough to clear their scooters away when you approach in your truck, maybe time what you mean by “not fast enough”? How many seconds of you sitting in your truck is too many, when what’s being gained is living in a place where people actually know one another and their kids play together outside—the loss of which, I think, is partially responsible for the sense of disconnection and the mental health issues a lot of us currently have? If the cone and toy blockade is truly making it difficult to leave your home in a timely fashion, that’s worth bringing up at the HOA meeting (it’s likely illegal)—the parents should be reasonable about providing a safe egress for everyone. But try to balance your annoyance with all the good that seems to be gamboling about in your front yard.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/02/obstacle-course-care-and-feeding.html