Kids Are Noisy

Last weekend, the New York Times ran an article in its Real Estate section about how some people without children find it annoying that the children living above/below/next door to them in apartment buildings make so much noise. People without children don't like child-noise and people with children feel sort of like the child-free should get the fuck over it. Of course, because it's New York, and it's the New York Times, it's an issue. This is the same paper, after all, that had a front page story (front page! not the Style section!) about how mothers who work outside the home and travel for business enjoy the perks that hotels offer and fancy dinners. REALLY? I wonder what Deep Throat broke that story?

But there are more children than ever in NYC and we're all living on top of each other here, so if you're thinking of Ferberizing your baby and letting him or her cry it out for a night or twenty, be prepared for your neighbor to call Child Services about the blood curdling screams.

I don't know if you watched Beavis and Butthead, when they are reading something boring and saying "words...words..," but that was pretty much what I was doing while I was reading the article. And even though I was sort of skimming it, I was becoming enraged because what exactly are parents in apartment buildings supposed to do to ensure that their children don't run, yell and be kids? Come on. It's an apartment building, not a sanitarium.

But then yesterday, I went to Family Swim at the local Y, and there was a two year old who couldn't have screamed any louder if he were being waterboarded. Which seems to have gotten a bad rap, by the way. And I kept thinking "shut up, just shut the fuck up, what kind of parents take their kid to the pool in the summer, when it is obvious that he should be screaming his head off at home. Preferably next door to my high school history teacher."