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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to applaud DH for threatening to break legs of little hoodies.......

191 replies

loflo · 09/04/2009 20:08

Driving home tonight with DH and DS and our local gang of wee knobs hardmen are throwing stones at moving cars. Clever boys that they are.

DH goes to turn our car and they do it again - so DH marches over and says in no uncertain terms that if they do it again he won't mess about it.

I have no problem at all with kids being out playing - I lived two minutes away from our current house when I grew up (and dinosaurs roamed) and we all played outside. But FFS DS is 5 and knows that throwing stones at cars is v wrong and these "young men" are at a guess 9 or 10.

Just waiting to wake up tomorrow morning to a horses head in my bed with a warning.....

OP posts:

southeastastra · 09/04/2009 21:14

thing is though, even if he went for the kids one of them might have a knife and just use it in a panic.

reasoning or at least trying to reason shouldn't be written off

noonki · 09/04/2009 21:16

I too would have been bollocked. But I remember as a kid having a very black and white view of the world.

If I was caught and they had a go at me it was dangerous and if they saw us again there would be trouble I would have felt bad.

but if they threatened violence I would have felt fuck 'em ' I only threw stones I didnt mean to hurt anyone and feel bitter (and therefore more likely to do more bad things).

Not necessarily right but human nature ime.

QuackQuackQuackQuack · 09/04/2009 21:18

Unless you have lived with this day in and day out you have no idea how it feels. It wears you down, so completely and utterly.

You start out 'being the adult', contacting the proper authority (police, council, PSCOs, MPs)

Then you realise that it is all pointless as the only people who have any power is the yobs/youths themselves.

And then you have to try and accept it and live with it, still trying to be the mature adult and hoping against hope they will get bored or the authorities might actually do something.

Then the youths/yobs do something which threatens the safety of your DC and something snaps and you find yourself acting out of instinct to protect.

Maybe it wasn't the most mature thing to do but it is completely understandable.

There is no solution,certainly not under a soft labour government. Situations like this are played out all over the country week after week. People live in terror until they snap. They can't be blamed for being pushed to the limit.

(excuse typos, blame the wine )

HerBeatitudeLittleBella · 09/04/2009 21:18

I don't think some people realise quite how powerless/ uninterested in exercising their power/ throwing resources at being able to exercise their power the police are in situations like this.

The OP's DH threatened the kids with violence, he hasn't actually broken their legs. That threat may not be nice or desirable, but it may be more effective than phoning the police, tbh.

What is disgraceful (apart from the obvious piss-poor parenting) is the lack of policing that some areas suffer from in this country. You can call the police again and again and again, and you will just be considered a nuisance caller. They simply don't have the resources to deal with low-level stuff like this - as someone else said, it takes ages to even get an ASBO.

Lilyloo · 09/04/2009 21:20

And it's the low level stuff day in day out that turns people to react like this...

HerBeatitudeLittleBella · 09/04/2009 21:21

I really don't think this is an issue of a "soft labour govt". This govt abandoned Habeus Corpus and introduced ASBO's. The resources the police would have to deal with this would not be increased under a Tory govt, they're not that bothered about the quality of life of people who live in poor areas.

Original poster

loflo · 09/04/2009 21:22

quack (is that your easter name or always one you sound like you are talking from experience. As for the wine sounds like a good idea. May join you!

OP posts:

QuackQuackQuackQuack · 09/04/2009 21:22

Maybe they would introduce tougher punishments?

onagar · 09/04/2009 21:23

When you describe it later it sounds over the top, but it isn't if you live in a place like that. You don't mean it literally and they know that. Sometimes the anger gets across though.

Taking a photograph (or letting them think you did) might work better though as some will be more scared of what their parents would do to them if forced to face up to the truth.

As for the police. They don't come when you call (not in my area) and they couldn't do anything if they did.

southeastastra · 09/04/2009 21:23

my dad would get them to bring back national service

Mooseheart · 09/04/2009 21:25

I think national service is a bloody good idea.

noonki · 09/04/2009 21:26

'soft labour govt'...in is the 'harsh tory government' of the eighties that destroyed so many of the estates round here.

There are some amazing parents around my way who go out of their way to get some of these kids doing something better than getting pissed down out backalleys. And to be sure they aren't doing it by threats of violence (though bet they think about it some times...)

Original poster

loflo · 09/04/2009 21:26

So do I except I would then be out of a job

OP posts:

IneedAbetterNickname · 09/04/2009 21:27

Sorry, haven't read the whole thread, but this reminds me of something that happened a few years ago.

My Auntie was having trouble with some of the kids where she lived, they'd come from further down the road, to play on the green outside the front of her house. After she had seen them run across her front garden a few times she politely asked them to keep off her garden. They responded by kicking footballs at her house, and shouting slag and fat bitch at her. They kept coming back day after day. They egged her windows and her car. The police said that they thought they knew who the culprits were, but that they couldn't do anything! Eventually my Dad, who lived with my Auntie, chased the little shits, and when he caught one, handcuffed him to a lamppost, telling him he was a policeman! Dad got in trouble with the real police, and the children were given cautions. They never came back

In your situation my OH would have done the same as yours, not that he'd have followed through with it though!

HerBeatitudeLittleBella · 09/04/2009 21:27

Quack of course they wouldn't.

Tougher punishments cost more money. And that means higher taxes.

They would of course, make tougher speeches.

Original poster

loflo · 09/04/2009 21:29

We have amazing parents here too. And do you know what? They probably have less money and resources than the parents of these darlings. Difference being they give a shit for their kids and their future, and have taught them right from wrong.

OP posts:

2shoestrodonalltheeggs · 09/04/2009 21:30

quack you sound like you have been where we have.
2 years of phoning the police, they did sod all and all the time the little thugs(not hoodies, I like hoodies) were lol at us and still egging our house.
in the end we took in to our own hands, no violence, but it is now sorted.
the police are a waste of space imo when it comes to this stuff.

QuackQuackQuackQuack · 09/04/2009 21:30

Noonki - I'm pleased for you and your estate and that you dont have to live this way. I think that its realistic to say that is a minority though.
And its very easy to say, 'well you could change it if you wanted to'.

Very easy and very niave

Original poster

loflo · 09/04/2009 21:30

Ineedabetternickname I like your dad!

OP posts:

IneedAbetterNickname · 09/04/2009 21:31

Thanks loflo, it was funny!

Shambolic · 09/04/2009 21:33

Been roffling @ call the police.

That anyone thinks they are even slightly interested in this sort of stuff.

They don't turn out for anything less than a gang shooting these days, round here anyway.

QuackQuackQuackQuack · 09/04/2009 21:33

Well I'm so desperate I'll take 'tough speeches'

noonki · 09/04/2009 21:33

onagar - taking photos is a great in theory. But I know someone who could battered for being a paedo for taking photos of a kid who was throwing glass on his lawn .

southeastastra · 09/04/2009 21:35

i don't understand why you just wouldn't report it no matter how pointless

twinsetandpearls · 09/04/2009 21:36

Are the Daily Mail giving vouchers for dental treatment then?

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