To think that certain people should be banned from public parks

[ElleBing]

We have a really lovely park near where we live. It's really big, with lots of grassed areas for picnics etc then an enclosed play area.

DH and I took DS there yesterday for a quick run around before dinner time. I noticed that a group of chavs had set up camp next to the enclosed park whilst their kids ran amok inside. The chav parents were sitting on the grassy bit drinking cider, eating junk food and swearing. Two of their kids started fighting one another and rather than try and intervene, the person who I assume was the father sat in the kids' pushchair screeching at the LOs to stop fighting. They carried on drinking their cider before deciding they were going home to "watch Nanny McPhee on pirate wiv a bag ov chipz" then when the motehr of one of the LOs wanted the child to leave the play area she started shouting "come on will ya pooface" Eugh?

All of the other parents were doing cats bum mouth, not just me. I wanted to tell them to shut up with their common mouths and bad language but too middle class, you see? I'dlove to be able to stand up to these people who make life unpleasant for everyone else...

Anyway, DH were talking about them and I said that people like them shouldn't be allowed in parks. They should have an admissions policy. AIBU?

Like the childrens park peeer, shame on you lady

in the middle or a kids playground

OK Besom - fair point!

So what criteria should we use, I'm sure all us lovely mumsnetters would get in. Maybe that should be it, if you are a regualr on MN you can use the parks then if someone dares to do anything wrong we canhunt them down and burn them at the stake!

Saying all this I was at the park yesterday where I saw a lovely mum (more Goth than Chav) with the word FUCKER in large letters across her t shirt - classy!

And there were also some horrible kids terrorising other children doing things such as not taking turns and pushing others out of the way and even one cheeky little shit who tried nicking DD1s bike and couldn;t understand why we were shouting at him to get off!

So Ellebing in answer to your question YANBU

Hmmm, I knew that I'd get flamed tbh. There are far too many lentil-weavers on MN who think that the potty-mouthed spanners were "just expressing themselves freely"

And as an aside to the posters who asked why I didn't just keep my DS away from parks if I didn't like him hearing swearing/being exposed to smoke. It isn't DS who's being anti-social so why the hell should I deprive him of a run-about in the park? Think of it this way: if a patrolling police officer had been going through the park, the chavs would have had their alcohol confiscated and presumably been told to cut the bad language out. What would a PO say to children playing in the park? "Move on because your ears are too young to listen to these people calling each other fucking dickheads"

And as for the "snob" remark, that's fine by me. If having standards and objecting to a nice park turned into a meeting point for yobbish idiots then yeah, I'm the biggest snob going and proud of it.

Maleeka Sun 11-Apr-10 11:19:30

You dont have to worry about your kids saying the F word (wont swear cos i think you are a little delicate), if you teach them not to say it.

If you saw some of my language on other threads you'd see that I'm definitely not delicate. But it's OK to swear here because there are no LOs about.

I am not a pc lentil weaver (lol) - I just don't want to live in a totalitarian state. I find people like those described in the OP a bit 'uggh' - but don't feel middle class nimbys should be able to dictate social mores. I am also an inveterate snob - but that is my problem, so I tend to avoid the lumpen proletariat but don't think they should be physically barred from certain public places

Maybe they were gipsies? I've been reading up on them a lot lately and chav clothes and lots of swearing seems to be the norm.
In that case you would be racist as well.

No AC/DC t-shirts

No fake Uggs or Crocs.

No men with long hair.

No facial piercings

No visible tattoos.

I also try to avoid the great unwashed (titter). This park is really lovely and mostly used by the people who live nearby. I'm going to say something now that will get me into trouble with the mungbeaners but there is a park that is a little unsavoury about ten minutes from the nice one. Everyone drinks there, everyone swears, all the kids fight whilst their parents goad them on. Why don't they just stay there and get pissed and swear to their hearts' content and those of us who don't want to be subjected to a live episode of Shameless on a lovely spring afternoon don't have to?

Life should have an admission policy.... but hay ho

Oh yeah dead racist I am, with my mixed heritage husband and black best friend.

I do agree with the OP why should people put up with anti social threatening behaviour in the park, whether its from a stereotypical chav or a cityworker in a smart suit. As for the childrens playpark peeier well she should be banned too disgusting minger But agree with the op more often than not, you see these certain types of people displaying anti social behaviour. Why is it right

There should be an admissions policy like in Tesco with their dress policy lol: No drinking(alcohol),no peeing,no swearing or threatening beahvour than all would be good.

I'm willing to bet that if all of the MNers that have flamed me on this thread came into contact with the swearing/drunk chavs, they'd be doing an inward cats' bum mouth.

I'm right, aren't I?

No staffordshire bull terriers called Caesar

I have no problem with people drinking and smoking in parks. There was a thread on here the other day about having a birthday party in the park - I expect if there was alcohol at that and one or two of the parents had a crafty fag then you would tolerate it just fine if they were middle class and drinking fizz out of plastic champagne glasses rather han swigging cider out of cans.

With regards to swearing, my standards are not to swear in front of DC, but plenty of people do it.

Oops only just seen this post...

BelleDeChocolateFluffyBun... Sun 11-Apr-10 11:22:31
Goodness, my son has heard far worse words then 'poo head' at his old middle class school with "nice families". Swearing isn't the reserve of the chav classes you know.
Would your attitude have been different if they were drinking champagne and eating smoked salmon instead? The staple diet of some is chips and beer.

I'm going to play devils' advocate and say well if it was a group of middle-class people swearing and drinking in the park, would I feel differently and I have to say that I would feel differently. For a start, I wouldn't feel with a group of MC people that I'd be in danger of getting my face kicked in if I asked them to maybe stop swearing. Theoutcome might be that I would get some aggro' but I don't feel as threatened by middle-class people as I do by chavs...

I've had to tell off some MC teenagers in my street for kicking the heads off my neighbours flowers. They said sorry and scuttled off. If it had been a group of chavs, I guarantee my wing mirrors would have been kicked off. And this is talking from experience.

Oh OK IAWIA. Plenty of people do it so that's acceptable. Plenty of people still hit their kids. What do we think of that?

Frankly, if people want to swear in front of their kids then that is their prerogative. I choose not to swear in front of mine. I choose not to smoke in front of mine too. I'd rather that decision wasn't over-ridden by people who do think that exposing LOs to swearing and smoke fumes is hey OK.

YABU - Why don't you have your yard-hands knock you up your own private park so little Montague wont have to witness such gaucheness??

Seriously - I was with you until the Middle Class comment....

Swearing really isn't the end of the world, it doesn't make you a shit parent.

Exposing them to smoke fumes? How small is this park that you couldn't keep the kids away from the smoke in an open area?

Perhaps, instead of trying to dictate where they go, you should have a rethink and impose some boundaries on yourself.

Well, I do have too many middle-class sensibilities, SouthMum. Avoiding confrontation in public places is one of them. I thought that the after I wrote it denoted that I didn't feel that this was a positive thing.

Why should I impose boundaries on myself. IAWIA? I went to a park with my LO to do what LOs do at the park. What are these boundaries that I need to impose on myself?

And IMO excessive swearing in front of your DCs does make you a shit parent.

Anyway, if they hadn't have been allowed in the park in the first place you and all the other cats bum mouths would have missed out on a good ole judging session and wouldn;t have enjoyed yourselves half as much as you did

Why should you impose boundaries on yourself? Er, because you can't impose them on others. Durrr