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

Why would kicking a football around, for instance, be less annoying?

Children are allowed to play in public places and make a bit of noise. That's what public is. If people are too uptight to deal with that, they can sit in their own gardens.

Rotting apples will be eaten by all sorts of slugs and beetles and foraging creatures. Breaking them down might mean that more mush-oriented creatures get more of a feast, and more crunch-oriented creatures get less of a feast. It really isn't a big deal and I'm a bit baffled at the rage.

Is it to do with thinking that 'nature' is a certain picturesque, romantic vision? And that humans mucking about spoils that idyll? Would the woman have been angry at squirrels playing with nuts?

30 minutes is quite a long time for it to have gone on.

Some people who have multiple boys still have high standards around behaviour.

‘Breaking things can be fun’

Yes possibly, when you are six years old.

I don’t think anyone is saying the behaviour of smashing the apples is worrying. Some perhaps are concerned about why a 13 and 15 yo can’t ’let off steam’ a different way without irritating people.

I don't think anyone should make more mess in a public space. If volunteers were going to collect they now can't. The mess has been spread about, and it wasn't your call to decide that's ok.

This is a two wrongs don't make a right scenario - you were wrong to let your kids make a mess, she was wrong to shout.

Sometimes I find parents who don't have boys (multiples of especially) can be precious. Different worlds they live in.

Not really. There seem to be some people who feel that taking joy in breaking something is somehow worrying behaviour, even if it's something that doesn't matter, because they won't be able to tell the difference when it does matter.

The only reason to smash an icy puddle is for the joy of the destruction, but I don't know any kids (or even that many adults) who can pass one without doing it. Breaking things can be fun and is not disturbing behaviour as long as it's something that doesn't matter like a bit of ice that's going to melt anyway, or a rotting apple that is disintegrating anyway.

😂 very true

I can imagine the satisfying "SPLAT" when they hit a particularly soggy one 🤣🤣

Animals and insects don't turn their noses up because some apples have been kicked around a bit.

"Sorry Sammy, this apple has the imprint of a size 7 Nike on it. I expect better of food I find lying around on the ground".

So you steal apples from the badgers?

Disagreeing that playing with apples is not defending teenagers no matter what. I'll quite happily call my kids out for being arseholes, but this is patently ridiculously not anything more than children being children it's absurd.

Kids. Kicking some windblown fruit about. Come back and tell me they are shoplifting and then I might take it seriously.

She sounds well over the top, OP. You and your kids did nothing wrong.

Although I wouldn't have made a big deal out of it, this would have been my thought. Fallen fruit is part of the ecosystem and used by birds, insects and other animals who are having a tough time of it already. But I'm someone who is interested in wildlife preservation and know that not everybody would think in this way.

Have you never seen the overprotective mothers who think their sons shouldn’t have to do x or y? Or one recent one where the son was in prison but the OP blamed everyone else?

The useless men from the relationships forums don’t just become that way overnight.

I am not referring to the OP’s boys here particularly, just the people who leap to automatically defend teenage boys no matter what.

Teens, not toddlers. Old enough to know not to act like that in public

That's quite the leap. Well done there 😂

We're not talking about grown adults going around hitting things with hammers.

Children playing in a public place, oh the humanity.

And why would it be more "relaxing" for other families if the kids were kicking a slightly larger spherical object about?

I know you are trying to be funny better luck next time but teenage boys are surely old enough to find some activity to do that doesn’t irritate people

This is disrespect towards food - this is selfish and moronic. These apples are wildlife food. Very much like those morons who walk in nature reserves and think it is funny to kick mushrooms, watching them break into hundreds of pieces, without realising this is deer food, that soon there will be next to nothing for the deer to eat when frost sets in.

‘Ranting and raving’ on MN usually means ‘spoke’ in real life.

Where do we stand on stomping the thin layer of ice on top of a puddle on a cold day? It's quite an intimidating and violent action and the pieces of ice look a lot like shards of glass, so it could be a gateway to smashing a window?

The lady herself hasn’t covered herself in glory! Ranting and raving at the boys and then their mum isn’t the best behaviour on her part. A quiet word pointing out she was being disturbed would have been better surely.

So you let your kids make a mess in a place designed for families, which other people go to in order to enjoy, one presumes, the nice environment. You let your kids ruin it for others.

YWBVU