Letting children chalk public pavement

It was a cheap flyaway ball (that’s why it went into a garden so easily), so way too light to do any harm to any garden. But she didn’t even have anything at all in her garden that could have been damaged, just lots of grass so that’s not even the reason. I think she just hated children. My mum had a few confrontations with her over the following years as she used to go crazy if we were even out playing in our own garden. There was a time we drew with chalk over our own driveway and she was loudly commenting to another neighbour that we were creating graffiti in the street.

I played outside every house. In the street. In the park. In the woods. I suspect I’m older than you. It’s not disrespectful to you personally to play outside your house in the street. It’s not about you. It’s public space. And respectful is such a ridiculously pompous word. I think that’s my problem with it.

In our local protected park (Grade II - you can walk on the grass but dogs must be kept in leads) there’s always a few chalk drawings. If they allow it there I’m sure it’s ok elsewhere. We used to draw hop scotch on the pavement when we were kids.

Best response so far. Chalk it in giant letters outside their driveway.

What if you live in a block of flats?

Why is everyone offended by that? We have been raised differently in that respect? I was raised that you only play outside your own house. Other people obviously have been allowed to play outside other houses. It’s just different parenting styles.
I’m getting confused as to why people find this so offensive? Perhaps my Asperger’s is causing me problems here!

Wouldn’t bother me at all, I remember someone moaning at me as a child for it though so they won’t be the only ones unfortunately

I’m perfectly aware that we pay emissions tax, not road tax, thank you.

I find the car comparison pointless to be fair but actually I know plenty of people who hate when people park in front of their houses.
Not me. I couldn’t care less.

People seem to have confused my responses. I think kids should stick to their own property area/pavement to play etc because I was brought up that way. But It’s not me who is bothered about a tidy pavement.
However, I do know that there will be people out there who do care about things like that (I can think of at least one local to me!) and I was offering a different point of view to those struggling to see why someone might have a problem with it.

It’s ok to think differently!

Sad bugger, wouldn't have bothered me and I am easily annoyed.

Ouch! 😂

What a stretch that is! I’m not sure how you can extrapolate anything about my upbringing from that post. Maybe I can deduce that yours was uptight? Or maybe you just can’t tell me what’s specifically disrespectful to you about chalking on the public pavement.

Have you ever parked on a street? That street is not your own personal canvas/parking place for private property.

(And no you have not paid Road Tax since the 1960's, so no you have not paid for a right to park there. It is just society who accepts that abandoning private property in the shape of 4 wheels is OK.)

Thing is, the idea of or term 'ruining someone's enjoyment of a tidy pavement' wouldn't even occur to me in the context of explaining why someone might not like kids' chalk drawings.
The house on my street that regularly churns out piles on the pavement of broken chairs/ sofa cushions/ small electricals/God knows what else, yes, absolutely, that makes the pavement untidy, and a hazard to walk round sometimes.
But a bit of colourful chalk scribble… I would never have thought that that might be ruining someone's enjoyment of the pavement.

This! I’d take chalk over dog poo every time. I don’t have to try manoeuvring my feet and a pram around dog poo and reminding myself where it was walking to and from home.

I'd be tempted to write "miserable cunt" with an appropriate arrow.

Thankfully we’ve always lived in child friendly areas where children playing out was the norm (central London) and neighbours got on well.

If you actually go back and look at my post about ‘the enjoyment of a tidy pavement’, that wasn’t my thoughts. I was simply explaining why a person might not like it because someone stated that people shouldn’t ruin other people’s enjoyment. Go back and read the post.

I'm not sure in this scenario that the neighbours disliked the children being there as such, or presumably they would've come out and tried to shoo them away. It sounds as though they just really didn't like the chalking.
If there was swearing, shouting, playing loud music etc then it would be different, but we're talking about little kids here. I personally really like hearing and seeing my neighbours' kids playing on our street; we're in London and I think it's nice that our street goes against the image a lot of people have of cities as being unfriendly.

You've also said that it's 'ruining someone's enjoyment of a tidy pavement'; does that also come from your upbringing, do you think, or do you have other reasons for thinking like this?

When I was a child, we lived on a hill on a side street, so when it snowed for the couple of days or so it settled for, we could get our sledges and slide down the road. It was enormous fun. Until our next door-but-one neighbour, an elderly lady who was always very unfriendly and miserable, came out and salted not only the pavement in front of her house, but the road and the pavement opposite, too, so we couldn't sledge any longer and that was that. Fun over.

It was so mean. My mother never said anything to her, but I like to think if that was done to my child I'd be telling the neighbour what I thought of her mean-spiritedness.

I’m just answering people’s questions as to why I find it disrespectful. Im explained I was raised that way.

Nobody owns the air, but people still complain when there is a noisy nuisance neighbour.
I WAS allowed to play out as much as I wanted, but if I chose to play in the street, I had to stick to the pavement outside my house.

Thank-you for responding. I think I understand (but correct me if I'm wrong!). I was focusing on the end result of the drawing and a bit confused as to why it would be disrespectful for there to be a chalk drawing temporarily on the pavement, but it sounds like for you it was more based on the fact they'd been outside the neighbours' house doing their thing, maybe making a noise, being in the way, etc?

I can relate, we used to play outside our house when I was a child, and up and down the street with the other children who lived there, but I would imagine if we were consistently making noise, etc, outside a neighbours', instead of our own house, my mum would also have told us to be outside our own house in case we disturbed anyone.

My own DD unfortunately can't play outside, as we live in inner London and none of the kids play out on the street. It's a bit sad, really, which is why it makes me happy to think of children still able to play out.

No one owns the pavement outside their house. little children playing outside should be encouraged not discouraged.

i think the people who probably get upset about the chalking are probably the same people who insist they are the only ones allowed to park outside the front of their house!

When I was growing up, there was an older couple who did this all the time about us kids playing in the street - constant petitions about, noise, running, laughing, playing on tricycles etc. All the parents were furious as they knocked on all doors and complained vociferously. One summer he died when they were on holiday. When she returned not one person gave her condolences, sympathy or help. She lived alone in the house until she moved six months later. I still remember the cheers as the removal van took her possessions away.
You get what you reap.

I was allowed to play on the pavement outside my own house, but my mum always said not to play infront of other peoples houses because I might disturb them or they might not want children messing about infront of their house.

I guess it stems from that.

Yes, I was about to say this. I'm genuinely not trying to be provocative; I would really really like to try to understand what you're meaning by respect here and why it's therefore disrespectful to do what these children did.

There are just some miserable people around.
It would make me smile if I saw children's chalk drawings while out walking.

I let my daughter do it in our garden years ago, and my husband was a miserable git about it too.