> children screeching and yelling, provided that it isn't going on for hours at a time
But it does often go on for hours at a time. And I'm not talking about a school zone or a park. As another person pointed out, if you move next to a school or a park you know what you are signing up for. But in a quiet suburb, if the issue is new neighbours that weren't there when you bought the house.. or who just started a family recently. That's something that's being imposed on you that didn't exist before.
And we don't tolerate this when it is barking dogs or loud music. Most cities have noise ordinances and I even read mine because of problematic neighbours. Not because of children, mind you. The man was an alcoholic who would get drunk early in the morning and go into his backyard where he would have loud screaming matches with hallucinations which terrified our small daughters so I wanted to know if the noise ordinance covered it. Answer is, technically yes but the police don't enforce yelling and hollering despite it being spelled out in the letter of the bylaw.
Why is it acceptable to expect people to keep their pets quiet, their music at a reasonable volume, their power tools and machinery at bay and to not have extremely loud parties where people are screaming and blasting noise ... but the second it's loud children we're talking about oh no ... you just need to learn to "live in a community"?
You can make the same argument about anything. Living with neighbours who have tall grass is part of "living in a community." Some people don't care about well trimmed lawns. Motorcycles with extremely loud engines, just part of "living in a community." Barking dogs. Honking car horns etc. etc. etc. We have noise ordinances for a reason; noise directly affects other people.
And I say all of this as a parent who raised two daughters to adulthood. I don't understand this weird standard. We (their mother and I) always expected our children to be respectful of our neighbours.