761–763 of 763 posts
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I think it's the suburbs effect. I've been in one of the most rural county of West Virginia, i saw kids outside each time i left the "house".
If it's the suburbs effect, then it's been very slow to come to this point, because America has had subdivisions since the 1950s. Back in the 80s and 90s, what we're reading about here never happened.
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> smile politely all the way to avoid escalating. That attitude, while perhaps more comfortable in some ways, just enables the sort of behaviour you encountered, and apparently disliked, from that woman. A blunt response like, "Fuck off. Don't talk to my son.", followed by walking away from her, may have been harsher and not particularly polite, but perhaps it'd cause a person like her to avoid such meddling in the f…
> A blunt response like, "Fuck off. Don't talk to my son.", followed by walking away from her, may have been harsher and not particularly polite, but perhaps it'd cause a person like her to avoid such meddling in the future. No, it would solidify that persons' belief that the people were bad people and embolden her to act more swiftly next time. Confrontation and escalation with swearing doesn't teach people a lesson…
Stop giving a shit about other peoples opinions. Responding aggressively to a threat from someone is perfectly valid, and if that impacts their opinion of you, that's their issue.
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> He wasn't wearing his biking helmet that day, and we had to endure a lecture about it and veiled threats -- "I could have called CPS, you know" -- and smile politely all the way to avoid escalating. You shouldn't have had to endure a lecture or be threatened by your neighbor. If the kid is just learning to ride a bike without training wheels, it would have been worth it to go back and get his helmet. I hope the les…
I mean, yeah, we should have brought his helmet, even with training wheels on. You can still fall and crack your skull. I know that and I don't dispute he should've been wearing his helmet. As for why we didn't go back, his decision to try taking the wheels off was completely unexpected -- he had been dead set against it for quite a while -- and I didn't want to take the wind out of his sails by saying, "Okay, but yo…
Yes, teaching bike safety is important, but it's also not that big a deal.