to think that if you go to Central Park on a Saturday afternoon you expect to hear children?

[MajorieDawes]

I don't think we WBU but I'm interested to see if there is another opinion because this has been bothering me since Saturday!

We live now in NYC. On Saturday afternoon, we went went with friends to Central Park. We were 4 adults, and 6 children between 9 and 3. The adults were sitting on some benches and the children were playing very close by. They were being noisy but not screaming or shouting at the top of their voices - just laughing and playing. We're not really listening to exactly what the kids are saying as we're chatting ourselves but they were happy sounds.

As we were preparing to leave, this man walks up to me and asks if the kids are mine. I say some. Then he says to me 'Well, you should know that your kids have been very rude'. I was surprised and asked him what they'd said, to which he cryptically answered 'You need to ask them'. I should have been more assertive at this point and insisted he tell me but turned to the kids and asked them what they'd said, they insisted nothing.

So I tell the other adults, who also ask the kids - no, they hadn't said anything. The other mum (a tougher than me New Yorker) went up to the guy as she really wanted to get to the bottom of it.

It turns out that the kids hadn't said anything TO or ABOUT this guy. What had actually happened was that on the lawn behind where we'd been sitting, there had been a couple who basically really needed to have found a room somewhere. They'd been full on snogging, she'd been straddling him etc. The kids had been laughing at this. This guy was very bothered that they were disturbing (apparently according to him - as far as I could see this couple weren't interested in anyone else apart from themselves) this couple who clearly were entitled to fondle one another in a public place in peace.

At this point he says to us 'I'm not saying you're bad parents' 'but your kids are just loud and annoying.'

If this had been a restaurant, a library, a theatre, then sure, fine. Loud kids are annoying. But a park on a Saturday afternoon? Given that in NYC most people live in apartments and don't have backyards - isn't a park one of the places where they are allowed to be loud (I'm guessing the annoying bit is a judgement call!)?? He was being totally unreasonable, right???

Lol he was definitely being unreasonable. Perhaps he was getting a thrill out of watching the couple and the kids disturbed it?

I'll probably get flamed for stereotyping but I come from an Irish town that gets bombarded yearly by American tourists and kind of assumed "loud and annoying" was the accepted mode of communication in their country...

I find that Manhattan has more than its fair share of curmudgeons who have lived alone for far too long and get very annoyed about anyone disturbing them doing exactly what they want to do!

I find the directness quite funny. Far more used to the British passive aggressive tutting and eye rolling :)

My kids would be doubled over laughter and making total fools of themselves (and me) had they been witness to major PDA in the park. They probably would have hidden behind a tree and shouted "HEY MISTER ARE YOU GOING TO FEEL HER BOOBIES?"

It's a park. I think you need to accept that there will be kids running around.

Unless you were in one of the designated quiet areas (there are a few) HWBVU.

You need to get a thicker skin like your friend though. A LOT of yuppy city dwellers are massively child-unfriendly. Particularly those who aren't actually natives of the city them selves. There's an undercurrent of "the city is no place for children, it's a playground for adults, you must be terrible parents not to have decamped immediately to the suburbs when you got your positive pregnancy test."

Lol that's true at least everyone knows where they stand when people just come out and speak their mind :)

True, a lot of people are nostalgic for the old days when you could buy heroin with ease on the lower east side.

Very very very true HoldMeCloser.

My friend just laughed it off, went up to the dads who weren't part of the conversation and said 'So basically he's an asshole who doesn't like children'.

I've been having angst that maybe my kids are loud and annoying (I don't think they're worse than any other kids!!)

I've told my children that there are some places where they are allowed to be noisy and a park is one of them.

The cute little park around the corner from us where there are residents living close by - I tell them to pipe down a bit. But Central Park is massive!

I like the sound of him in a funny way- 'I'm not saying you're bad parents, but your children are loud and annoying' It's a classic!
I think that often about other people, but would never say.
But, I freely admit to having annoying children.

Aren't all children are annoying :) but we still have to allow them out occasionally

I was in a park in Belfast with my kids this summer on not a particularly hot day. My kids were hiding in the flower gardens and literally fell over a couple who were heavy petting There were lots of "mammy, are they having the sex?", "are they making a baby", "why has she only got her bra on?" To be fair the couple took it well. I think my three may have provided a well timed contraceptive interlude.