AIBU? Kid's kicking rotting apples in a field / parent had a right go

They feed birds and other animals whether they’re squashed or not. Birds and insects don’t care if their rotten apples aren’t intact.

Exactly. It's not like the birds are only taking the choicest apples back to their nest before popping a napkin on and eating them off a bone china dinner set. If anything mashing them up a bit has done them and the creepy crawlies a favour.

Yep.

Someone once had a go at me for letting my child hit a tree trunk with a stick (in a pretend battle). He wasn't doing the slightest bit of harm to the tree or anyone. Some people just don't like children and think they should behave like smaller adults.

It feels like sometimes teens can do nothing right, and just seeing teenagers do anything gets people’s backs up.
Yeah it is messy but fallen apples in autumn are messy anyway. If they’d brought a ball to kick about she’d have likely moaned about that too. No ball games. No bikes. But if they sat on their phones she’d probably judge too.
In the same breath they’ll moan about kids on their bikes in town whilst also complaining that all kids do today is sit at home on their computers.

It isn’t ‘food’. It’s rotten wild fruit. They’re not kicking a roast chicken and a wheel of Brie around. It’s no different to kids kicking around in piles of leaves.

They feed birds and other animals whether they’re squashed or not. Birds and insects don’t care if their rotten apples aren’t intact.

last time we took the kids out there was a group of teens around the same age smoking weed. Not like one joint being passed around, like absolutely chain smoking. Obviously we packed up and left, and there was a little bit of me that was impressed they could still stand after that - but I’d much prefer kids kicking apples.

If they were far away like you said they were, I really don’t think it sounds that bad.

Apple trees out and about in fields always drop fruit. It always rots and attracts (drunken by the time they've finished) wasps.

Totally normal for kids to have a kick-about with fallen apples where I grew up, the rotten ones aren't good for anything (and animals won't care if they're a bit more smushed), and the vast majority of anything that's already fallen will already be a bit too damaged for most humans to want them - they'd just pick whatever's still good on the tree.

YANBU to let them have a little bit of fun with something that will still be just as good for the purpose it had before afterwards.

FML I’d far rather see kids - and yes especially teen boys - kicking around a few rotten apples rather than some things I see kids and teenagers do. From the way op described they were out of the way of others and just mucking about not harming anyone, just having harmless fun. The apples would mulch down anyway.

I don't think your sons were doing anything wrong OP, sounds like an overreaction from the woman. Also not sure what the snarky comments are about their ages, better outside for a kickabout (albeit with a mouldy apple) than indoors on a screen.

There are some right miserable sods in the world

My DS was told off for whipping nettles with a stick as we walked along a path -he was about 9 and DGS built a cycle jump in a ditch in the local dog walking area, all the young boys cycled there and took turns -someone complained and it was fenced off

Am so impressed your teenagers were out doing this rather than skulking inside on phones. They really weren’t doing anything wrong. Am mid 50s and still find it quite satisfying to stomp on a windfall.

Absolutely! I'd have tutted at seeing teens on their phones "looking at memes like normal teenagers" personally!

I also hope nobody on this thread comes across any teens having snowball fights this winter, they'll have a nervy b 🤣

I would have looked over and thought how nice it is that teenagers can still have some innocent fun.

I am really surprised that people are saying 15 and 13 is too old for a kick about and a laugh with fallen fruit. They are still kids!

I suppose that the apples would have just been mouldering under the tree and now they're spread out mouldering all over the field. Its definitely a bit nuts to confront someone over it though

I definitely wouldn’t have let my DC do it. It seems a bit destructive, so I don’t like that as a concept. But there’s no great harm in it, so she overreacted

Not the crime of the century but bloody annoying. I wouldn't have said anything but would have muttered about your parenting to my family and gave you a few looks!

Depends how far they were away from the other families really.

Lol yes, it's well known that boys lose all interest in kicking spherical objects around when they reach puberty.

How is kicking a ball less annoying than kicking an apple?

Genuinely asking - I wouldn't be bothered by either, but surely if you're the type of person to get annoyed by one then you'd get annoyed by the other?

Agree. Some of these comments are insane! Kids kicking apples has surely happened for centuries. They were hardly battering grannies whilst wearing balaclavas

They weren’t doing anything technically or morally wrong as far as you’ve described it but I can see how half an hour of being around that would be a bit annoying and it would look mindlessly destructive.

Couldn’t you have packed a ball as well as a book? Why are they so pent up with ‘steam’ that they need half an hour of kicking and stamping on things?

Well maybe.

But take this as an example. You are sitting along with everyone else enjoying your book quietly and someone turns up with a bunch of kids that scream their heads off and plays loud music via portable speakers.

Are they technically doing anything illegal ? No. But they well be ruining the atmosphere for everyone else.

You state the atmosphere was "relaxing". Two teenagers kicking around and smashing up a load of fruit doesn't fit in with many peoples idea of a relaxing atmosphere.

There is such a thing as reading the room. You don't necessarily have to be doing something illegal to piss people off.

Wouldn’t bother me. Totally harmless. It’s not as if they were throwing them at cars or windows. Some people just seem to need something to complain about.

13 and 15 year old kicking a load of rotten apples about is pretty anti social. they would have been booting them hard at each other and carrying on, of course they would have.

it's not crime of the century but if this is going on for half an hour it's bound to piss off others

could they not just mess about on there phone looking up memes or something like normal teenagers?

Good, we need to encourage bees 😊