Home Isn't a Playground

I live in a very posh, high-rise – and I enjoy being here. The property management firm does an excellent job of maintaining the public areas, and there are security cameras every, making it a secure place to call home.

There is always a building superintendent on-call and available when ever something goes wrong, and by and large, they are nice people.

Recently, a new superintendent joined the team, and they brought their whole family. Not uncommon to have a family, but their kids run around the whole building, as if it were their playground.

They are always running up and down the halls, riding the elevators, and hanging around the property management offices. At first I didn’t mind, but now it has become somewhat of an annoyance.

I almost lost a whole armful of stuff, as I was walking into the building, and one of these little tykes came careening down the corridor.

I live high up, so they don’t often run around up on my floor. But I’ve heard people complaining on the lower floors that they make a lot of noise when they run around outside people’s homes.

This isn’t a playground and they shouldn’t be running all through the halls. There are parks just a five-minute walk (if that) down the road, and the building has a great pool – they should hang out there.

I suppose if enough people complain, then eventually something will be done – probably the property management office will tell the new “supers” to better manage their children.

Though it shouldn’t come to that – parents be – well – parents. All too often I see parents doing things which just don’t make a lot of sense.

I saw one young mom letting her infant child sip some of her Red Bull energy drink. That’s not healthy for adults, let alone what it can do to a baby.

When I come home late at night, after a night on the town, say midnight or even later, I see parents with their kids – or sometimes just kids out on their own. When I was a kid, my parents wouldn’t let me be out past sundown – let alone some of these kids are up long enough to see the sun rise.

I don’t have any kids, so I can’t tell someone how to be a good parent. But you don’t need to have a bunch of letters after your name to recognize poor parenting when you see it.

Getting back to the kids running around my building – that’s just lazy parenting. Sure their parents work in the building, and are around for their kids. But letting their kids ride up and down the elevators, run down the halls screaming, and constantly talking to just anyone that happens to come in, that’s definitely not a good way to parent a child.

It puts an awkward onus on us residents to essentially look out for these kids – and ensure they don’t get themselves into any real trouble. And it is an even more awkward thing to have to complain to those who you one day may need to depend on, to get your water to run again, or other such building issue.

Hopefully, the property management firm will take the right corrective course of action, and things will return to normal soon. Otherwise, I’ll just practice my form of parenting – duct tape.

Duct tape?

Hey, I told ya, I don’t have any kids, so what do I know? But duct tape seems to work on most difficult problems . . .

Where’d I put that roll of duct tape?