[LaSirena]

I was getting a slice on Seventh Avenue Friday evening when three loud little girls burst in (about age 13 or so, looked like the basic Park Slope Overprivileged Precious Offspring). Every third word out of their mouths was an obscenity. They walked up to the counter, barked and snapped at the pizza guys, demanding food and sodas. I asked one of them "Do you not say 'please' and 'thank you' to the people who are working hard here? Are these words not in your vocabulary?" She stared back at me and said "NO!"

I finished my pizza and left. As I was going out one of these delightful girls yelled at the top of her lungs "'Please' and 'thank you' my a*s!!. B*TCH!!!"

Thank you, Park Slope parents, for creating these little monsters! After 25 years in the neighborhood I'm considering leaving for someplace more civilized.

[WhyFi]

Are kids getting worse or am I just getting older? I really can't tell...

[Drano]

There seems to be a lot more of this in Park Slope than the World in general. You can see the 5 year olds walking around right now that are going to be that in 10 years. It's a combination of things, but the bottom line is that a lot of people seem to feel that they are harming their children by imposing any real discipline - or even structure - on them. Sucks for the kids and the rest of us.

[meanderthal]

I know a lot of very nice young people, but my personal encounter with the type you cited happened as I neared my 6th Street apartment. I met a phalanx of three teenagers walking abreast from the opposite direction. I was carrying a large camera bag and a tripod. I thought at first they'd move to their side to give me a bit of space, but it was all I could do to squeeze to the right to avoid them...which I almost, but not quite, accomplished, as the tripod grazed the girl nearest me on the shoulder--noticeably but not hard. I heard an "Ow!", which I didn't acknowledge--perhaps discourteously on my part--but I figured she was the one who'd caused the collision by not keeping to the right. When I reached my stoop and we were at least 50 feet apart, she turned and screeched "Bastard!" I just ignored it, figuring it was the most unsatisfying "come-back" I could've issued. To their credit, the two guys who were with her uttered not a sound. Am I naive to hope they were embarrassed?

[brooklynpotter]

[pitu]

[brooklynpotter]

i think that when you act all "adult" and "all-knowing" to teens with no manners you're going to get it right back.

i'm not defending the kids at all, but don't you remember being a teenager? your parents were lucky if you listened to them, never mind a stranger telling them they're being rude.
_________________
what would you tell me, if i could hear you speaking?--t.r.

[Emily]

This is where I begin to see the value of growing up in a smaller world than the one we have here in Brooklyn. When I was growing up, there was no way in hell that I'd ever have acted in the way brooklynpotter describes, because of the high likelihood that a random adult I encountered actually knew my parents/teachers/etc. It would've come back to haunt me.

But I'm really just posting to tell a more optimistic story. Last week I was meeting a few friends at the Tea Lounge (the one way down 7th Ave.), and the person who was supposed to meet me there the earliest was really late (like more than a half-hour). Few seats were available, so I ended up sitting kitty-corner to a trio of girls who looked to be about 15 and arrived around the same time as me. What did they do? Took out their schoolwork and started doing it quietly. One of them took a single phone call, which appeared to be her mother asking her where she was, and she insisted they were at the Tea Lounge doing homework. They were far better behaved than the majority of adults you see in there. Score one for civilized teens!

[brooklynpotter]

i actually grew up in small town suburbia.
_________________
what would you tell me, if i could hear you speaking?--t.r.

[raw]

What gets me is the balls these fearless, very young kids have and the ways in which their parents allow them to interact with strangers.

When I was a kid, the rule was "never talk to strangers." When I'm out on the street in Park Slope, mothers allow their five-year-olds to interact with me, a complete stranger. How do they know I'm not a walking time bomb psycho kidnapper pedophile?

If I had a little kid, I wouldn’t dare let it talk to a stranger out on the sidewalk. Parents in this neighborhood seem very trusting.

I recently interacted with teens in Flatbush and was shocked by their courteous behavior. For example, when I accidentally stepped on a teen’s foot, he quickly and sincerely apologized to me for having his feet out in an aisle. I should have been apologizing to him! As a teen, I flipped clumsy people who tripped on me – or fell flat on their face within my realm of vision – the bird.

I rarely see kids outside of Park Slope, so I cannot truly compare the local kids to others.

[shishkab]

i don't think it's a matter of "younger" generation vs. "our" generation. adults and teens have been having this turf war for-eveh! same complaints our parents' generation had about us, folks. i think the only thing that has changed is the, shall we say, less delicate language of today's teens.

i find that for every foul-mouthed, aggressive teen there is a calmer, more respectful one. and furthermore, i also find that depending on the situation, these same teens act differently under different circumstances. case in point: on the G train, headed towards smith & 9th. large number of loud, obnoxious teens swingin' from the rafters get on. large number of quiet teens, too. half the people in the car are clearly annoyed and/or nervous about the new arrivals. kids are shouting, running up and down, pushing each other, etc. loudest one mouths off at some 30-something guy who gives him the eye. we pull into fulton st. woman gets off, but she leaves her umbrella behind. none of the quiet kids sitting next to her say anything, though they notice the umbrella on the seat. Loud Alpha Male grabs the umbrella, gets off the train and chases after the woman with it. his friends hold the door for him (though they threatened not to), and we all went on our merry way. point is: i think for the most part teenagers are feeling their way in the world, testing every boundary as they go along. i am quick to cut a kid off at the knees if he or she truly misbehaves, but i think for the most part it's all-talk-no-action. that Alpha Male was clearly verbally obnoxious and spatially inconsiderate to the other people on the train, but when it came time to do the right thing and help out a perfect stranger, he was the only one to step up to the plate.

same as us when we were kids.

just my two cents.
_________________
Get your paws off my canned chicken

[kensingtonmom]

[BrookFetish]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm still fairly young (29), so my teenage years weren't really THAT long ago.

First of all, I believe my parents brought me up in a way where I NEVER would have done this - regardless of their presence, and regardless of how much teenage piss/vinegar I had in me at the time.

Second, if I WOULD have done it, I grew up in an area where I certainly would have been scolded by my elders.

Let's not even get into if my parents were to find out, which would have been a strong possibility given the size of my hometown.
_________________
===
Doing just fine, thank you.

[brooklynpotter]

why would you expect kids with foul mouths to be anything other than foul when a random stranger approaches them to chastise their behavior?

we're not talking about nice and polite kids here, kids who were sweet and charming and then flew off the handle. we're talking rude, obnoxious teenagers who see nothing wrong with being disgusting.

here's somewhat of an analogy: my brother and i were at the botanic gardens and there was this atrocious man being really, really stern and verbally abusive and threatening to his young children. it was everything i could do not to rip his head off and steal the kids. in fact, once we heard what he was saying my brother grabbed my armed and steered me away because he knew what i was thinking. but. do you think if i'd approached the abusive man about the way he was speaking he'd have apologized for being that way? no. he'd tell me to fuck off.

same thing.
_________________
what would you tell me, if i could hear you speaking?--t.r.

[WhyFi]

Nah, I was raised knowing that there's a time, place, and audience for everything... Be as vulgar as you want to be with your good friends, but with strangers, and adult strangers specifically? No. Is polite society an antiquated notion?

[BrookFetish]

[Carnivore]

Monty Python's Flying Circus -
"Four Yorkshiremen"

[ from the album Live At Drury Lane, 1974 ]

The Players:
Michael Palin - First Yorkshireman;
Graham Chapman - Second Yorkshireman;
Terry Jones - Third Yorkshireman;
Eric Idle - Fourth Yorkshireman;
The Scene:
Four well-dressed men are sitting together at a vacation resort.
'Farewell to Thee' is played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!

[meanderthal]

[LaSirena]

Just to clarify -

1) I didn't approach these kids. They had pushed in front of me at the counter and were inches away from me.

2) I spoke to them in a casual, conversational tone. No sarcasm, no heavy-handedness.

3) Yes, I remember being a teenager. We weren't allowed to call anyone a "B*TCH" in public, or push in front of a blind person with a guide dog to get on the bus first (which I've also witnessed in Park Slope).

4) I'd feel sorry for their parents, except I think it's their own fault that their kids behave like this.

[germfree!]

How do we know they were from around these parts? Park Slope kids are so darling, and well-behaved (I own several myself!). Surely it is not possible.

[Guest]

[GiGi]

[escap]

LaSirena, as much as I can imagine that those kids were indeed snot-nosed little brats, it was you who picked the fight with them. If they were being rude to anyone, it was to the guys in the pizza shop, who are ostensibly adults who can handle their own affairs. Furthermore, you're not their mother, but decided to take it upon yourself to chastise them as if you were. Like I said, no doubt they were brats, but if you stick your hand into a hornets nest, expect to get stung.

Second, can people please stop with the fairytale about the rotten privileged kids vs the well-disciplined poor ones? Ever try to scold a gang of poor or working class teenagers standing outside their highschool, loitering on a corner or in the projects? For that matter, ever been mugged by a kid who didn't strike you as the private school type? Your demands to say "please" and "thank you" will not be met with a humble apology, no matter how romantic you may find the notion of the scrappy Oliver Twist who's rough around the edges but good at heart....

[LaSirena]

Escap, you're overreaching. Nowhere in what I wrote did I extol the virtues of working-class kids over those of kids of privilege - and that doesn't represent my belief. That's your take on what I said - as was your description of my somehow confronting these kids in a hostile way. Just not true.

I've certainly learned my lesson; leave the abusive little monsters alone!

[escap]

[pitu]

[escap]

[pitu]

[Jamzer]

Here is my take on this. Why on earth would the people who run this pizza place put up with this? If I were working behind the counter I would like to think that I would have the balls to tell these brats to get the fuck out of the restaurant.

On another point, lets remember our childhood lessons to never over generalize. Park Slope has thousands of teenagers. I happen to know a few who live on my block and they are perfectly normal teenagers who treat the people around them with basic decency. The kids in this story are not, in my opinion, representative of the population as a whole.

[Guest]

How do you know they live in PS. There are many kids who bus and train in from other parts of Brooklyn to go to school here. The teenagers on my block are very polite and one has even started a newsletter. You gauge all of Ps's teenagers from an interaction with 3 girls at a pizza place who may or may not be from the neighborhood.

[Yavel]

[Rose]

Well, I have a 13-year-old and I can't imagine her, or any of her friends, acting that way. And I've spent some time in her school as a volunteer and have found most of the kids to be reasonably polite and respectful.

But I've definitely known some bratty Park Slope kids, and I would agree that the worst of them have parents who can't say no and put up with backtalking and mouthiness. The most obnoxious kid I've known was being raised by a hippie mom who wanted her daughter to "challenge authority" -- which meant that the kid was allowed to call her mother a bitch.

But I also think that people have been complaining about "kids these days" for many generations.

[kensingtonmom]

[pitu]

[wlevin]

I like observing the kids in this neighborhood, it's like a nature show. I've been here ten years so I've seen many of them grow from toddlers in tow to teenagers smoking and making out on the corner.

The personas we witness on the streets are no doubt a far cry from the way they act in school or in front of their parents. I'll bet the cursing and smoking brats you saw in the pizzeria are straight-A honor students.

I think it's cool that these kids are finding a way to experiment with rebellion within the safety of this privileged neighborhood. Don't worry, they'll shape up when they get to college. In the meantime, just watch and enjoy.
_________________
http://macboy.com
http://shabot6000.com
http://chubsucker.com
http://lowercasel.blogspot.com

[escap]

[escap]

[Guest]

"
teenagers and going to be teenagers, piss them off and they're right in your face. i'm not saying anyone should speak to anyone this way, but you kinda walked into it."

how is it for generations prior and in other coutnries, teenagers DON't act this - is it perhaps because of attitudes like yours?
baby boomers want to be buddies to their kids, not parents.

[brooklynpotter]

[kumera]

WTF? Go anywhere in this city and meet idiot monsters like that. You wouldn't be bitching if you saw it in Bay Ridge or Bed Stuy, now would you? Nope, only cool to whine when it's in Park Slope. What? You never go to Bed Stuy? Oh, surprise surprise.

[pitu]

[linusvanpelt]

[eggcream]

I think you did the correct thing, not that it helped by their reactions. I taught/teach my kids to respect adults. They might not like what an adult says at times but in no way would I condone mouthing off to anyone even a complete staranger. Good manners are lacking in kids and adults these days.
I've seen little kids hit and slap their mothers while the mothers act like nothing is wrong that poor little zoe is just in a bad mood.

I had brunch with my husband last week at a neighborhood restaurant and a young child was crying loudly for a good 20 minutes. Why the mother or father did not remove the child is anybody's guess. I guess they think we should all suffer the kids crying fit. When our kids were small no matter what type of restaurant we were in if they were crying one of us would go outside till they calmed down.

[grubin]

YEAH WELL.. WE SMOKE BLUNTS AND DRINK 40 ounces on your stoops when you sleep!

[Drano]