My Property Is Not Community Property:
Control Your Kids Please!
We own a lovely piece of property in a mid-sized town. We keep it immaculate and are proud of the well-kept lawn that slopes gently down from house to sidewalk. I park my car in a space in front of the house and my husband parks in the driveway. Our property is one of our joys. Let me state that this is personal property, real estate owned by my husband and me.
Yet…, the neighbor across the street seems to encourage his kids to see our property, indeed all the properties on our street as ‘community property’. My car is in constant danger of getting hit by a baseball and he and his kids think nothing of running across our well-maintained lawn as well as that of other neighbors.
I had enough one day after hearing a hardball whacked over and over again and landing near my car one too many times. After seeing a boy run onto my lawn several times, I went outside and asked the kids to please keep the ball game on their side of the street.
Two boys were polite and said they would, but my neighbor’s son was a different story. Staring straight at me over his shoulder, he shook his butt side-to-side in a mocking little dance, turned picked up the bat, and pretended he was aiming it at me, swinging it violently.
Telling his parents about the incident was not the best option as other neighbors have found out. The parents don’t have control it seems and don’t care.
The father, who is a heavy cannabis user, came over later to ask me what my problem was, and I told him it wasn’t a problem, it was a request that his son and his friends keep their game off my property. I then told him how his son had mocked me and that I felt it was inappropriate for him to do so.
“He’s a kid,” said his father. “You’re a grownup. Get over it.”
I asked what that was supposed to mean, citing that my husband and I had raised children and had not had any problem with them mocking an adult. We weren’t strict parents, we just taught them the difference between what was right and what was wrong behavior.
The father then went on to say that “my kid” watches Tik-Tok and YouTube and he follows what they do there. His son is ten-years-old. He went on to say that that’s just the way it is and that he sees nothing wrong with it.
The three children — the ten-year-old, and two others under the age of ten — that he and his wife have are rarely supervised. Both parents are a little too fond of alcohol to do that. Mom goes in with her White Claw and he with his twelve pack of beer.
The following week, he had a barbecue and another rousing game of baseball. This time he had his buddies out in the street, all with beer bottles, making sure that I knew that he had ‘reinforcements’ to intimidate me, men as well as women, should I dare to tell them to stay off my property. I don’t intimidate easily if at all, but I kept my cool and let them know that I was watching.
The kids watched and smirked when they saw me and I wanted to say that he and his wife are raising monsters, but I let that sentence go. They’ll find out in due time, I’m sure.
This is a sad reflection on parents who feel that their children should feel as if the properties surrounding them are community properties and therefore, they should feel free to trespass, damage the property, and mock any adult who requests that they stay off the lawn.
I am truly disgusted with parents who give their children free rein to do whatever they want to do, even to damaging neighbors’ property. “My kid,” he told me, has rights. Yes, he certainly does.
But his rights, like all our rights, stop at stepping on my rights. My property is not communal. Teach “your kid” the difference between right and wrong, manners and the lack of, being a decent human being and a burgeoning bully.
Teach him now before it is too late, and he mocks the wrong person. Not everyone is as polite as I am.
© 2024 copyright Kristen Houghton all rights reserved
