To be so frustrated and depressed by my neighbourhood

[Slowdownsally]

I posted the other day about my bully of a neighbour who was accosting other people demanding to know if they were the ones who had reported her to social services for neglecting her children.

I look out my window just now to see: a seven year old riding a scooter up and down the street with no parents in sight, I can hear a toddler crying in tiredness while his parents and friends drink in the streets and there's a whole other group of them also in their front gardens drinking whilst their small children play in the road.

Granted there's no real traffic to speak of, but it just seems so wrong.

There's at least four separate households where the parents couldn't give a stuff about their kids: they are only interested in themselves. The children are left out all the time and in the evenings they just sit outside everyone else's front doors drinking and chatting with their children playing in the street til 11pm.

Is this really what people do? I feel like I'm losing my compass as to what is normal parenting when I see this all the time. It won't stop when they are back at school either as none of them work.

Aibu to think this is wrong and to be frustrated that they all think this is normal parenting?

No YANBU, we seemed to have developed this along our row of houses this summer and it's just really sad, I've got no problem with being friendly with neighbours but surely there's a time that you go inside your house and look after your children?! like you I can hear kiddies outside at the moment when they should be in bed and 'parents' sat outside on front steps smoking and drinking... I'm actually quite looking forward to the winter when they can all bugger off inside!

Im not surprised your fed up. Where I grew up the estate was like this and know how depressing it is, im lucky enough weve only the odd family where I am now. I couldnt imagine ever living like that where your day just consists of sitting on your door step smoking and drinking let alone letting kids stay out all hours.

iI know its not easy to move just like that but I think in your shoes I would try making some plans

So everyone in the vicinity is wrong except you?

I joked with a friendly neighbour the other day that we were wishing for vile weather in winter just so it would be quiet.

I just don't get it. Kids and toddlers do not need to be outside playing in the street at this time of night.

They are exactly the same during the day too.

So, Meloria, do you think spending all day and all evening drinking and neglecting your children is acceptable behaviour?

There are over 40 houses and there are approx 4/5 households out in the streets disturbing everyone else. They are just so loud and such a constant presence that I feel intimidated by them and so do others.

Crazy lady - I'm saving a mortgage deposit to get me out of here. It's such a shame as this is a lovely area but there few hideous people and I doubt they will get better or ever move

sounds pretty grim

i would never want to go back to living on an estate (was bought up on one)the same thing used to happen then still does

poor kids,these kids will be the kids vandalising the area,being anti social etc when teens im pretty sure and the parents wont give a stuff

feel for you op

Different strokes, sounds lovely to me.

Good luck with that, I know its hard but just try and ignore thEm best you can.

Sounds awful. I can understand you not wanting to live anywhere near them.

Poor children though What will they grow up like if that is what they know as normal parenting?

I agree ilovechristmas - give it 5-10 years and they will be bored, unsettled teens being anti social.

I don't want my family growing up here amongst them.

No, YANBU. Good for you for making an escape plan, I hope you get there soon.

Meloria, if most other people there are indeed acting in an antisocial and neglectful way but the OP is not, then absolutely she would be right and they wrong. Do you not think that disproportionately-blighted neighbourhoods exist or something? Lucky for you if you've never experienced that.

Yes Meloria, sometimes you can be surrounded by arseholes. Unless you are one yourself of course, then you probably wouldn't have noticed.
I used to end up with the neighbourhood kids all in my garden, I wouldn't let my DC roam about with them and didn't want them being singled out as prissy, and my conscience didn't let me chuck the young kids out onto the street. Had to call the police in the end though when a 3 yr old turned up in the middle of the day naked from the waist the down. In the 45 mins it took for me to dress her, contact police and them arrive, no one came looking for her either.
I really don't miss that neighbourhood.

Mexicanspringtime - I've worked in tiny Spanish villages where families all congregated around the park in the endings after supper, but it was completely different to this.

In Spain it was social and extended families that revolved around the children. The climate was massively different as well with siestas breaking up the day which meant naturally later bedtimes and a need to get out an exercise when it was cool.

The climate here is just not like that, nor is the culture, and these parents couldn't give a crap what the kids are doing as long as they can get drunk in peace.

You have my sympathies OP my old neighbourhood was like that. The drinking, bullying, intimidation and kids left to their own devices. I hear the same families are still doing that and their kids are turning into terrors 5 years later.

Theend - I think I must be on your old estate! That's exactly what it's like

I suppose it is hard to see the difference.
I used to live in a part of town where the children played outside the pub during the day waiting for their parents to come out and seven year olds didn't ride scooters, they threw eggs at old people or smashed windows. Poor comfort that there are worse things, I know. Just what you wrote didn't convey a terrible situation to me. Sorry

Mexicanspringtime - what you describe is shit too. I suspect that give it give years and that's what it will be like here as these abandoned kids grow up.

Thats what my old neighbourhood is like now Mexican. It started out like the OPs.

It's hard to be surrounded by such poverty of imagination and spirit. Where all people can think to do is to sit outside and drink while their kids are left to their own devices. Mexican it's not a terrible situation in that it's not a war zone or a shanty town with people living without basic sanitation etc - but I wouldn't want to live surrounded by people doing that and I wouldn't want my children to either. It sounds depressing.

I hope your exit plan comes good Slowdown

It was heartbreaking sometimes and I felt uncomfortable like I stuck out like a sore thumb. They all seemed happy enough for the children to migrate to my garden but none of them ever even acknowledged me. Apart from the alpha male of the estate who attacked my garden fence once when his son got arrested! I was pregnant at the time and had a little one in bed. I shouted at him out the window to 'go away, my baby is in bed!!' He left straight away and turned up the next morning to apologise!
He was a 'family man' though and always trying to keep the neighbouring druggies in check. We had a lovely green out the front which the DC couldn't play on because of the roaming dogs. I put the bins out one morning only to have to slowly back away from a rampaging rottie and staffie!
Worse thing was I'd actually signed a mortgage on my house!

Precious bane - there are a couple nice neighbours; we swap plants and veg and sometimes let the kids play together but we always feel over run by the others ( they have about 10-15 kids between them).

Meltedmonterey- "poverty of imagination and spirit" is exactly right and aptly put.

One neighbour a bit further down is young with a toddler and desperately trying to keep away from the others because she wants more for her child and she hated growing up on an estate like this. I really feel for her because she grew up around most of these families and finds it very hard not to be sucked in to it all.