Late Sunday afternoon, I looked out the back window and noticed that one of the boys who lives behind us and the boy who lives next door to him were watching us. With binoculars.
Hmmm… That’s odd, I thought.
Not long after that, I went outside to check on my gardens. (The peas are growing like gangbusters, by the way.)
I noticed the boys were still watching us through the binoculars. I waved and said pleasantly, “You know that I can see you, right?”
The boys kept watching, so I walked toward the back fence and said, again pleasantly, “It’s not very polite to stare at your neighbors through binoculars.”
The boys walked off.
I kept wandering around the yard, admiring my small domain.
Then I noticed that someone had written “stupid tree” with chalk on Doreen. (For an explanation on Doreen, read the post I linked above.) I had my suspicions on the culprits based on the following:
- We don’t have any sidewalk chalk.
- But the boys behind us do, as evidenced by the pieces lying on the ground on their side of the fence. And it was the same color as the chalk on the tree. And the nearby fence.
As I was examining the evidence, the two boys appeared and one very quickly said, “We didn’t do that.”
I said, “I didn’t actually say that you did, but I find it interesting that you feel like I would.”
I went back in the house and told Pete what had just happened. I was irritated, but not overly angry. Pete counseled that I remain calm.
Minutes later, Elegant came inside and announced that someone had written on our house. In chalk.
Pete went outside to investigate. Moments later, he came inside and said that we needed to go have a come-to-Jesus talk with the boys’ parents.
I went outside and discovered that someone had written “F-you tree huggers” on our house. Those little shitheads. Now I understand the binoculars.
We marched across our backyard and through the yard behind ours. Pete knocked very loudly on the front door and the mother appeared. Moments later, her son came around the corner, saw us, and blanched. A moment after that, his comrade from next door saw us and looked like he wanted to vomit. And, a moment after that, his unsuspecting mother arrived from next door to collect her son.
I explained, none too calmly, what had happened. When I began to lose my temper, I left and let Pete finish things off. Pete was there for a while, talking things over calmly with both sets of parents until peace was achieved. (In case you didn’t figure it out a long time ago, Pete is the peacemaker around here and I’m the rabblerouser.) He also made a point to tell the boys that we’d still like to be friends and that they shouldn’t be afraid of us.
(But I’m pretty sure I scared the crap out of the boys and that they’re going to fear me for a long time.)
Meanwhile, I was back at our house trying to calm down. I kept an eye on things outside and saw one of the mothers bring her son out to clean the fence and then, later on, our house.
We wanted to meet our neighbors, but not this way. Pete and I feel (slightly) bad because one of the boys has a younger brother (1st grade) who narc’d on the older boys and was sobbing because he had broken the universal boys’ code of honor to never, ever squeal. Heaven help that child at the boys’ next Tribal Council.
And, kudos to the boys’ parents, who believed us when we talked to them. Not all parents are like that, as I’ve learned. (There’s a family at our school whose older son picked on Graceful mercilessly at camp one summer, then a few months later, his younger brother threatened Elegant on the school bus. In both cases, when I called the mother to discuss the situation, she was not willing to admit that her sons had done anything wrong. In fact, she was pretty sure that, in the second case, my daughter had instigated things.)
All that said,the boys who vandalized my property are old enough (4th and 6th grades) to know better than to trespass and vandalize. Yes, it was juvenile stupidity that got out of control, but still. I am trying — and failing — to imagine my daughters doing something similar. Not because they’re my kids and not because they’re girls, but because they’re old enough to know better. And to fear the consequences if they did.
So that was our little Sunday evening drama here in Jenworld. My girls are now more convinced than ever that boys are an unfathomable breed of mammals and that girls are clearly superior. Graceful is already planning to only have girls when she grows up (to be named Daisy Zoe and Tabitha Laura) and Elegant says she can’t imagine even getting married to a BOY since they’re clearly problematic creatures.
Wow, that is seriously bratty behavior! What a terrible way to meet your neighbors.
I do like that the mom made her son clean it off and didn’t pretend that her angel wouldn’t do something like that.
Even though my kids are of the male persuasion, I can’t imagine them being dumb or obnoxious enough to do something like that! Sheesh!
Well, girls *are* clearly superior!
My head would explode right off my neck if I saw writing on my house. I guess the only saving grace is that it was chalk, which I imagine wouldn’t be difficult to remove.
I hope those boys learn their lesson. It’s a good one for your girls, too.
These problematic creatures will probably be the same ones who eventually get paid to help you do yard work and odd jobs and will one day ask your girls to the prom : )
Wow–those do sound like evil little boys. I’m glad the parents backed you up appropriately–hopefully you’ve instilled enough fear that they now tremble upon touching your property line, thus preventing them from EVER crossing it again.
Naughty boys. I’m glad the other parents weren’t in denial, and kudos to Pete the negotiator.
Hopefully you’ll be good friends with their parents and be able to laugh about this five years from now. Assuming said boys haven’t continued to vandalize property.
Good on the mum for making her kid wash it off. What a strange thing to write though!
Heh heh – a come to Jesus talk!
Yeah! F-U tree huggers! Green is LAME! Pollution + Toxins 4-Evah!
Ok, I’m done.
Dang! I’m sorry that happened to you–it’s always good to have a peace maker along with you.
What an awful introduction to the neighborhood. Ugh. But at least the parents are good people. I do not understand how parents of brats can live in complete ignorance that their kids are exactly that – brats. (I’ve got a few I know all too well.)
Sorry for a crappy end to the weekend! (If it makes you feel better at least you weren’t dealing with another foot of snow. 3rd blizzard in 2 weeks. I am so done with this weather. *sigh*)
I agree boys are problematic creatures which is why I’m praying for girls too! I’m so sorry about your trouble – you handled the sitation very good. You could have seriously (and quite rightly) started some stuff (as we say in Alabama).
What a bunch of terrors – your fence, your tree, your house? WTH??? I’m sure they had an interesting Sunday night.
Yes kids do stupid things, I agree.
Where in the world would they have gotten the desire to call people F*ing Tree Huggers, really?
Glad the parents were cool, as you mentioned sometimes they are not.
It’s something genetic with boys. I can’t imagine my daughter doing anything like that either, but I can TOTALLY imagine Bad doing it, even though I adore him, he has a mischevious streak a mile wide. So, in dealing with other peoples’ children, I try to keep that in mind. And boys do, with love and patience and luck, grow into men.
Those stinkers.
Still, F*ing Tree Hugger is quite a compliment, don’t you think? They could have called you F*ing anything!
PS. I love Graceful’s girl names.
My blood is boiling! Both the teacher and parent in me is so angry reading this!!!! I’m really glad it worked out and the parents did the right thing. As you mentioned, it doesn’t always happen like this. I hope you’ve been able to let this clear your head and it hasn’t taken up too much of your thoughts since it’s happened.
But I do agree with Kathy – Tree Hugger is quite the compliment! Glad they noticed
Have your girls start researching parthenogenesis now so as to be able to bring home Daisy and Tabitha without having to associate with any of those nasty boys..
And you know that Josie and I would have loved to have been standing there with beer and popcorn to watch as you and Pete met the parents. Seriously. That would have beat just about anything on TV.
me thinks you’re going to get a shit load of traffic on this post today. Lots of mom’s with just boys, but of course, the moms of just girls will add a rounded perspective as well!
I have 2 boys, and didn’t have any sisters of my own growing up, but I can say that not all boys have this destructive nature in them. I look at my own, and remember their middle school years, and well, sigh.
I had an incident where my oldest son had his best friend (at the time) ripped away from him by this god-awful little only child boy, who bad mouthed my son to his best friend to “take away” this friend from my son. It worked, and I wanted to go rip this kid’s mom a new one. Cruel, insensitive, yet strangely manipulative, this evil little boy was. Not little, he was 12 or 13, so he knew what he was doing. My son, the peacemaker, friends to everyone in his grade had his first kick to the groin socially, and I was bear mama. I did nothing, until it started spreading, you know, like poison does . . .
and guess what? I started to lose the moms whose boys (not very many, a select few–whose son’s went on to become “the cool kids” clique) were doing the dumping of my son as a friend. All very middle school / jr. high-ish. I had forgotten what a cesspool it can become.
It went on into high school, and it honestly didn’t get better for me. My son, a survivor, learned the hard way about cool kids and cliques.
I think your daughters will too. No matter the gender, this kind of behavior is going to be something on your horizon for some time to come.
Have to say “HIGH FIVE!” for putting all this on a public message board. Hopefully someone you know will send a link to one of the boys parents, so they can read in horror about their son’s socially unacceptable behavior(s)!
And, that these same boys won’t grow soon into odd little middle school beings who delight in “prank pulling” such as tp’ing houses, then taking liquid dishsoap (like Palmolive) and pouring it all over your landscaping, cars, etc, THEN TAKING INDUSTRIAL SIZE BAGS OF FLOUR AND POURING IT ALL OVER THE DISHSOAP!!! Like it almost came to pass at our house one summer . . . caught the little bastards (who were by this time sophomores in high school, but same bunch from the middle school–you know the superior cool kids) before they got to the dishsoap and flour part of their vandalism!
May I suggest video cameras? Maybe not yet, but something to tuck into your brain for down the road?
Just Julie from California (hoping that one of the mothers from the middle school-high school “cool kid” bunch reads this! yea!)
At first when I heard about the chalk and the binocs I thought I thought it sounded kind of cute. Not so cute when I read how old the boys are and what they wrote! What a shame. Hopefully good fences will make good neighbors, as the poet said.
Sounds like you have a couple of little hell’s angels living in your hood. We have some of those next door that thought paintballing our house would be a nice thing to do. BUT their parents don’t believe in punishment so we are waiting on them to go to jail sooner rather than later.
Like you, I’m glad the parents responded as they did.
I commend you your calm. I would have torn those kids a new one.
Whew, a tough one. Sounds like you handled it with aplomb, even if you had to excuse yourself [which is really advanced aplomb].
If the parents are attentive enough to listen & send their boys out to be accountable, you all should be BBQing like old friends come summertime. And hopefully your girls will see the silver lining of Boydom.
I really do think that you’re stunningly lucky to have neighboring parents who not only believed you, but made the boys clean up the evidence. I hope they caught additional hell at home, though, because that’s seriously line-crossing behavior in my book. I would have had a VERY difficult time remaining calm in that encounter as well. Rotten little pikers.
Yeah, I applaud you for remaining calm. My patience level for bratty, disrespectful children is about a -20. I would have a hard time not grabbing one of those snot-nosed brats and shoving their face in the chalk and yelling “bad kid, bad kid”.
I need your snail mail addy! I have a house warming for you & something for your brilliant girls who know that Girls Rule the World!!!!
Oh my. You went all CSI with evidence gathering. Chalk pieces match Doreen and house graffiti. Binoculars demonstrating a “return to the scene of the crime” as perps are wont to do. And then, the ol’ answering before the question is asked. A sure sign.
I’m sure God knew what he was doing when he gave me three daughters, one of whom only once vandalized someone else’s house (a TPing incident in high school, which I should post about some day because Tom had to calm a VERY angry father), because I’m ready to die of shame when my kids transgress in public as it is.
I think they should apologize to Doreen.
Might be fun to trick out their mailbox with a new last name: “Butterfly Hill.”
I’d say you handled it quite well.
ooh, I didn’t realize it was so vicious. I like the good cop, bad cop thing you and Pete have going. I’m sure those boys will give you guys a wide berth now. And the parents sound like they handled it well, making them clean it all up –
Boys one on one? Generally are good…put a few together and they can go all Lord of the Flies on you.
We had a similar experience in the ‘ville one Halloween when we were living in a townhouse style apartment. A next-next door boy, about the same age as the ones you describe decided that since we weren’t home to give him candy he’d silly string our front door. Problem is we never used the front door, which faces south, but rather used the back. So we didn’t notice until the next night. By which time the sun had baked it permanently to the door.
I tried cleaning it off to no avail. Next day there was a note on the door apologizing, saying how sorry he was and that he’d clean it up. He spent two hours trying, poor kid.
We never even had a chance to talk to his folks about it – they must have figured it out themselves.
*sigh*
I have two all-boy boys and they NEVER did anything like that. Those parents should be making the boys come over with a personal apology and an offer to rake your leaves.
A girl named Daisy Zoe? I can live with that. I have a problem with the perps in the neighbor’s house watching with binoculars to find out when the coast is clear – or watching to see your reactions to their vandalism.
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Oh man. Some boys broke a jar in our driveway yesterday. I saw them do it and yelled at them, but they just laughed. I wish they would have cared that an adult got ticked off.
http://class-factotum.blogspot.com/2009/04/kids-today.html
OMG! Welcome to the freakin’ neighborhood.
I saw this on Twitter. What an awful way to meet your neighbors, but hopefully this will be the last of this type of behavior.