Let Kids Be Loud

https://www.afterbabel.com/p/let-kids-be-loud

by trevin • 1 year ago

124 183 1 year ago

ysavir4• 1 year ago

I live next door to a summer camp. The kind that has kids from the nearby city come for 2 weeks, sleep in bunks, play outside all day, hike, etc.

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.

johnfn5• 1 year ago

Maybe because he was trying to make small talk and you insulted his profession?

askafriend2• 1 year ago

Definitely this. A total lack of awareness and tact demonstrated by OP.

GuinansEyebrows3• 1 year ago

i can't tell how much of a point you're trying to make, but if complaining about children playing is small talk, the less of it the better.

the_cat_kittles• 1 year ago

social skills of hn on display

gilfoy3• 1 year ago

The age old profession of generating small engine noise pollution

AnimalMuppet• 1 year ago

Carpenters don't use many gasoline-powered tools...

klank8• 1 year ago

OP mentioned "lawnmowers, weed whackers, and gasoline powered tools".

That has nothing to do with standard carpentry.

ysavir4• 1 year ago

I've never seen a carpenter use a lawnmower on the job. Seems unwieldy to drag up a ladder.

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.

madcaptenor• 1 year ago

Also the camp was probably there when you moved in! So if you complain about normal camp noise you just didn't do your due diligence.

sokoloff• 1 year ago

People buy cheap[er] houses near airports and then try to get airport ops changed/restricted all the time. (I agree with you, but it’s obviously a thing that people have no problem doing.)

Der_Einzige2• 1 year ago

Very based. All the people who try to claim that this is bad social skills apparently just take it from folks in the often scummy trades (i.e. mechanics, dentists, etc when I say scummy) who treat us like shit and make snide comments and backhanded compliments with impunity about us lazy computer users. This is triply true in the post AI era. They hate us cus they aint us.

You hit a nerve here too.

GuinansEyebrows3• 1 year ago

i think you might be picking up on a level of disdain from others based on your attitude that might not be related to your profession.

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.

valiant55• 1 year ago

Yeah, I hate lawnmowers. I live next to a church/religious school and an apartment building both with a large yard. I don't mind the daily church bells at 6/12/7 but the constant lawn mowing is the worst.

mensetmanusman2• 1 year ago

Donate a tax deductible electric lawn mowing system that quietly cuts 24/7.

GuinansEyebrows3• 1 year ago

i think this started happening before the "iPad generation" we all love to bemoan, but it seems like practically overnight, kids were no longer expected to play outside (for all the reasons we've heard ad nauseum, especially those that fly in the face of declining violent crime statistics and increased communication media)... and rather than reflect on that, latently-cranky adults adapted immediately to the disappearance of children from public life. what a shame. i grew up one of those kids playing in parking lots and riding bikes through apartment complexes in my neighborhood looking for jumps, cool free piles and generally just places to be a kid.

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.

spjt• 1 year ago

I wonder how much there is an increased concern about injury, I have three kids and by the time I was their age I had spent more time in the emergency room than all three of them put together. I go to my kids' school from time to time and I don't think I've ever seen a kid in a cast.

bartread2• 1 year ago

We have kids of various ages playing outside all the time when the weather is good and, yes, they are loud. At least, sometimes they're loud, but they aren't always, and you get used to it. I think it's good for kids to get outside.

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.

dustbunny2• 1 year ago

I recommend you not comment on this kids screaming. These parents might be extremely self conscious of their kids screaming. They might have constant anxiety about it. Your "polite" word could hurt far more than you imagine, and I doubt the screaming is something fixable with a little elbow grease from the parents.

drukenemo4• 1 year ago

Are you serious about this advice? Parents cannot be politely approached by a neighbor, because their kids, who they chose to have, are disturbing others regularly?

petercooper3• 1 year ago

For years our neighborhood had an ice cream truck or two turn up a few days a week during summer, which we used to enjoy. This year, not a single one.

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.

taylorlapeyre• 1 year ago

I agree, but with a caveat about ice cream trucks specifically. If they park in one spot and play the same jingle very loudly for hours on end (say, three to four hours in one location outside of your home), it is in fact insanely maddening.

johnthedebs• 1 year ago

I may be more sound sensitive than most, but if I could hear it loudly for even 5-10 minutes I'd be annoyed. 3-4 hours? While I'm at home? Absolutely no way; I'd complain too.

masfuerte• 1 year ago

The UK has rules about this:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-...

Among other things, playing the jingle in the same place repeatedly is prohibited.

toast0• 1 year ago

At my old house, we had the best ice cream truck. Rather than playing music, it just had like a train bell. Sounded like the ice cream engine was rolling through. Ding.... ding .... ding ....

lapetitejort2• 1 year ago

Have you heard the ice cream trucks with a random "Hello?" thrown into songs? I don't understand the purpose. Googling brought up some people saying it goes back to the 90s, or that it's specifically a Southern California thing. Strangely enough the movie A Different Man (2024) played that exact sound during an emotional scene. That movie takes place in NYC.

cocothem• 1 year ago

for the entire time the ice cream truck is stopped, it's engine is still running and generating toxic fumes. Had one parking strategically right next to a playground.

gowld• 1 year ago

Presumably, the problem was the truck music, not the ice cream sales. There's a market opening for a travelling ice cream seller who doesn't play loud, obloxously noise on loop after 7pm.

petercooper3• 1 year ago

Someone else involved in the conversation suggested they could announce their times and locations on Facebook, which I thought was a good idea, but I guess it conflicts with their preference to not have a fixed schedule. They just drive round till they make enough money and then go home when they're bored.

pavel_lishin2• 1 year ago

Our local ice cream truck plays a very annoying jingle, coupled with a woman's voice saying "Hello?" in an obnoxious way. I haven't complained, because I'm not that kind of asshole, but something about that voice clip feels like stubbing my toe over and over again.

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.

thinkingtoilet• 1 year ago

It's amazing how much power one person can have if we let them. I would organize people to talk to the people who made the ban and let them know you are unhappy. People pay so little attention to local politics that even an issue like this can result in someone being elected or not being reelected.

ryandrake• 1 year ago

It really is crazy in the USA how much of an overreaction a single, loud, entitled, nosey, complaining neighbor can get with local government: whether it's complaining about kids making noise, complaining about kids playing alone, complaining about traffic, complaining about suspicious black people in their neighborhood, complaining about the length of their neighbor's grass or a car parked in front of their house. You read all these stories about how one complaint resulted in the police being deployed, fines being assessed, innocent people getting in trouble, roads getting speed bumps and 5 all-way stop signs, and other crazy shit happening because some one person couldn't manage to mind their own business.

dylan6043• 1 year ago

When it comes to government reps that field calls like this, there's some variation of a formula saying for every one phone call translates to X number of people that feel the same way but do not make the call. It used to be different weightings for someone calling vs writing a letter. Either way, it was more a statistics reaction. Not sure if this comes into play or not.

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.

antonymoose• 1 year ago

I’ve grown up in a Hollywood Hillbilly-esque family, one that made it but kept to the original values. That is to say the e’ve “made it” and live in a highly regarded vacation destination area. Except I grew up learning to stand up to bullies, ne’er-do-wells, and miscreants, if that meant coming to fisticuffs, so be it.

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.”

loco5niner5• 1 year ago

Ice cream trucks are specifically obnoxious especially in a neighborhood or a park. I would also complain. They would fit in fine at a carnival or similar.

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.

moron4hire3• 1 year ago

Ice cream trucks are a weaponized guilty trip against parents. The kids whine and complain about wanting ice cream and I'm already having a hard enough time modeling good food habits for them. If it were once a month I wouldn't mind, but it's been every day for the last month. Like, dude, nobody needs ice cream that much. Please stop starting an argument in my house.

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.

dkarl• 1 year ago

I agree; I wondered how HN would manage to make the article controversial, and this was the answer, equating the sound of playing children with the sound of intrusive commercial marketing aimed at children.

alfalfasprout• 1 year ago

TBH a lot of it is also a cultural shift toward being selfish. You notice it here in the comments as well.

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.

dylan6043• 1 year ago

I'm not sure about this being a new thing. I also think we've gone too far with the anti-karen whiplash and think everything before that was trendy was perfect. When I was a kid that got up to no good or was just being annoyingly loud, I would hear about it. There's always been an acceptable loud, like kids running around and playfully being loud at a park or playground. Going to the same playground with a loud stereo is not the same thing. You're clearly up to no good as a teen smoking and hanging with your friends. You make it sound like kinds "back in the day" never got into trouble. I can assure you, I, er we, absolutely got in trouble for getting up to no good.

ectospheno• 1 year ago

Complaining about an ice cream truck you can hear in the back of your house while wearing noise cancelling headphones isn’t Karen culture.

wink• 1 year ago

Sometimes it's also just the individuals.

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

taeric7• 1 year ago

It is downright depressing seeing all of the people pile on regarding the food truck. I can almost understand setting a volume limit on it, if there are some that are going overboard. After all, I'll gripe to my kids for yelling while in the same room with me. But banning or justifying a ban!?

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.

nano521412• 1 year ago

It's just that annoying. If your city aren't so car dependent maybe kids can get their snack from real vendors in commercial area instead lol

jancsika• 1 year ago

is a slippery slope to nowhere positive.

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). :(

ravenstine• 1 year ago

Meanwhile, nobody does anything about all the crotch rockets and douche canoes with exhaust systems deliberately modified to be obnoxiously loud at any hour of the day.

schwartzworld3• 1 year ago

Funny, we have the opposite problem. Ice cream trucks in my area have become way too aggressive. I would give anything to ban them from our neighborhood, as they come through within the first hour after school getting out, causing daily arguments in houses with children. Sometimes more than once a day.

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?

southernplaces75• 1 year ago

Or these parents could, you know, learn to create limits and rules for their kids and teach them to respect those, instead of blaming the ice cream truck that spends a few minutes outside at a good time for sales because the parents can't get a grip on something so minor. That guy is trying to make a living, and the inconvenience is tiny for any one area where he spends barely any time.

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..

dekhn2• 1 year ago

Can we trade? I live near a park and many days I hear the truck driving around the block literally for hours, and they just play one song.

anon12512124512• 1 year ago

I'm all for kid noises because it's good for them but ice cream truck, church bells... should definitely be gone.

voxleone• 1 year ago

I'm noticing a reversal of social deference:

-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.

kreco• 1 year ago

Sometimes there are properties about generations that get carried "alternatively" as cycles.

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).

junga2• 1 year ago

(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...

marssaxman• 1 year ago

I think it is quite the opposite: what is novel is that this has come before the court at all. Nobody would have dreamed of expecting children to stay inside and be quiet all day during my childhood, nor that of my parents, nor their parents; rather, we were often made to go play outside.

thefz2• 1 year ago

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.

Pretty sure no one is valuing kids more because they are "scarce".

pizzafeelsright4• 1 year ago

Kids are mildly annoying but generally there's a time and a place.

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

timcobb• 1 year ago

This. My child can shriek at what really feels like ear-piercing frequencies and decibels.

pizzafeelsright4• 1 year ago

Thankfully boys grow out of it but girls can hit that frequency that cuts the skin.

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.

Neywiny• 1 year ago

One of my favorite stories is a flight with a mom and a few kids. Her oldest started shrieking at some point, likely due to the air pressure change. The mom said something like (calmly) "there's nothing anymore can do about it, so what do you want to happen?" And the kid shut up

IanCal• 1 year ago

Babies on airplanes get a pass because iykyk

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.

goda90• 1 year ago

I generally understand dealing with an upset kid in public is hard and I sympathize. But I once had a red-eye flight where the kid was screaming for its daddy, who we later determined was on the flight just in a different row. We saw no indication the mother was actually trying to soothe the child, nor did she go get the father. We were not happy to start a vacation with such little sleep...

progbits• 1 year ago

Planes are horrible without noise cancelling headphones for me, which incidentally solves the screaming kid problem too.

daseiner1• 1 year ago

ear plugs + over-ear n/c headphones + white noise or jazz music playing works great

pedro_caetano• 1 year ago

Indeed I never realized how high the level of the background white noise inside a pressurized cabin really is until I started wearing ANC cup headphones in a plane.

Removing them after a few minutes to talk to someone always feels like I am getting assaulted with noise.

DrillShopper• 1 year ago

I got some earplugs designed for people who deal with sensory issues and they have completely transformed being on a flight from actively annoying to passively acceptable.

Fell asleep for the first time on a plane and I'm never going back.

gedy2• 1 year ago

We seem less tolerant of kids these days, and more tolerant of dogs.

c222• 1 year ago

The other day an unleashed dog ran into my yard from the adjacent park and the woman escorting it informed me that I should build a fence!

gedy2• 1 year ago

Yeah I like dogs, but growing up we treated them as a home and backyard pet only, having them run around in neighborhood or bringing to stores or restaurants(!) would have been unthinkable. I really don't get it.

Aurornis• 1 year ago

I always have a hard time interpreting these stories. Is this really a trend? Or is it an example of someone collecting anecdotes from all around the world and presenting it as a trend?

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.

foxglacier• 1 year ago

If it was real, they author would have shown some data to support that. So yea, it's just random anecdotes to make it look like there's something for people to be outraged about.

klank8• 1 year ago

I'll add to it. My neighbor and I were just recently chitchatting how we love the new family that moved into the neighborhood a few years ago. We love the vibe and color their family adds and it's a large part because they're very visible and audible.

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.

aidenn0• 1 year ago

People complaining about being disturbed by kids playing is at least as old as I am, and probably has existed since about 5 minutes after the first kid was born.

eggsandbeer• 1 year ago

No.

BrenBarn• 1 year ago

Kids playing is great, but I think this article glosses over some important wrinkles.

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.

pier25• 1 year ago

parents not understanding how to set boundaries for their kids

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.

arp242• 1 year ago

I agree there are some kids and parents who are just unreasonably and/or obnoxious loud in unreasonable moments; I don't think anyone really denies this. I've seen kids race on scooters in supermarkets while the parents were right there. Ugh.

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.

airstrike2• 1 year ago

There's a difference between being loud in public vs privately. As a kid, I was never allowed to be loud in a restaurant, unless it was a restaurant for kids—and even then up to a reasonable limit

drukenemo4• 1 year ago

That’s a reasonable argument. But in this day and age there are no shades of grey.

airstrike2• 1 year ago

The attention economy is killing society. Current social media feed algorithms are incredibly harmful.

This isn't a new topic but ironically it is not given the attention it urgently requires.

Apreche• 1 year ago

Yes, go ahead. Be loud and play outside. But I’m pretty sure I have misophonia, so just be loud somewhere not near me.

npteljes• 1 year ago

I feel the same and I wish to have your level of eloquence the next time I'm expressing this.

didibus• 1 year ago

Kind of interested for someone to look into if hearing children noise is healthy, I could imagine it actually affecting one's hormonal response and such, but also maybe not.

klank8• 1 year ago

Anecdotally, children making "children noises" is calming for me.

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.

junga2• 1 year ago

Can't exactly remember how I reacted to children noises before I had kids myself. But I must admit that nowadays noise from other kids makes me smile because 'not my problem'.

KolmogorovComp• 1 year ago

No. I thought it was widely known that kindergarten employees suffer from earing loss due to repeated exposure to high sound level from the screaming kids.

rock_artist• 1 year ago

As we’re in tech, loud or noise are very implicit and can really range.

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.

tetha• 1 year ago

Hm. I think I am encountering cultural differences here, again. Personally, I have a point from my grandma in my head: "If your ears are ringing from happy, playing children, that's future in your ears. That's good". For sure, within reason, but a huge ruckus in the shared backyard or playground between 08:00 or 20:00 due to kids?

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.

EGreg2• 1 year ago

I was just writing two days ago about how ADHD is overdiagnosed and our system is just set up to try to coerce kids to be convenient for the system: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44490274

There I put forward some proposals at the end

burnt-resistor3• 1 year ago

I have under-diagnosed ADHD because my father was a Fox News disciple, science-hating, arrogant bigot who believed ADHD was a "conspiracy" of anti-male leftists.

EGreg2• 1 year ago

I don't know about your particular situation, but I'm speaking systemically, and about large trends and socio-economic realities that affect people.

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.

mensetmanusman2• 1 year ago

Free noise cancelling airpods for all. I don’t hear anything anymore.

burnt-resistor3• 1 year ago

WHAT!? ;)

YorickPeterse• 1 year ago

There's kids being noisy, which in itself isn't much of a problem, and then there's _Dutch kids_ being noisy, with the latter sounding more like a bunch of roosters at a heavy metal concert.

drukenemo4• 1 year ago

That’s my experience too. I wonder why. Too much freedom given to the kids here?

christkv• 1 year ago

Thankfully this is not a problem in Spain (I think this is either a southern European thing or Spanish thing). Kids share adult spaces all the time being it restaurants, bar, plazas or other spaces. I would not trade this for the world. In general the country is a very welcoming one for children in public spaces including active children.

theultdev• 1 year ago

I don't really see any need to take parental advice from a blog.

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.

strathmeyer• 1 year ago

Our dorm was next to a playground in college. It was impossible to sleep in. They were literally just screaming at the top of their lungs for hours at a time. I guess it's different when it's someone else's day you're ruining.

dpifke• 1 year ago

A few months back, my wife and I had our windows open and heard some neighbors' kids playing drums and guitar in their garage. They were TERRIBLE.

We're sad we haven't heard them again recently. I was hoping to follow along as they got better.

sarchertech• 1 year ago

I have 2 young kids, but I also had my first when I was 38 so I have a lot of experience as an adult with no kids.

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.

drukenemo4• 1 year ago

Your tolerance to noise levels says nothing about other people’s tolerance for it. Do not use your baseline to determine what is normal and what is not when it comes to sensorial experiences.

dekhn2• 1 year ago

I live across the street from an elementary school and during recess it gets quite noisy. I don't particularly mind, with one big exception: some kids scream a lot. I normally associate that screaming sound with "there is an emergency, check for trouble", but it's just kids playing (and I hear the teachers telling them to stop). Even during the off season, there is noise; for example, the people doing construction work sometimes trip the fire alarm, which rings for hours because the site staff isn't around.

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"

msds• 1 year ago

Ok but my neighborhood children have started using electric leaf blowers as jet propulsion on skateboards. I have insisted they use hearing protection, but the rest of us are shit out of luck…

thefz2• 1 year ago

The issue I see is not with kids themselves but rather the parents, dumping them anywhere with no supervision because they need to "disconnect" doomscrolling on instagram.

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

Let Kids Be Loud

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