Let Kids Be Loud
117 comments
·July 9, 2025petercooper
taylorlapeyre
I agree, but with a caveat about ice cream trucks specifically. If they park in one spot and play the same jingle very loudly for hours on end (say, three to four hours in one location outside of your home), it is in fact insanely maddening.
masfuerte
The UK has rules about this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-...
Among other things, playing the jingle in the same place repeatedly is prohibited.
lapetitejort
Have you heard the ice cream trucks with a random "Hello?" thrown into songs? I don't understand the purpose. Googling brought up some people saying it goes back to the 90s, or that it's specifically a Southern California thing. Strangely enough the movie A Different Man (2024) played that exact sound during an emotional scene. That movie takes place in NYC.
macNchz
Definitely a thing in NYC—had an ice cream truck that would sit down the block from my place playing music all day long and many years later that "hello" is like nails on a chalkboard.
tetris11
I wonder what the copyright licensing is on Frank Mills Music Box Dancer which is quite common on the icecream trucks here
neaden
I hear the Hello from our local ice cream trucks in Illinois, so not just a California thing.
toast0
At my old house, we had the best ice cream truck. Rather than playing music, it just had like a train bell. Sounded like the ice cream engine was rolling through. Ding.... ding .... ding ....
loco5niner
That is a vast improvement.
johnthedebs
I may be more sound sensitive than most, but if I could hear it loudly for even 5-10 minutes I'd be annoyed. 3-4 hours? While I'm at home? Absolutely no way; I'd complain too.
petercooper
In the UK stationary ice cream trucks don't play music, only those travelling around, so you hear it for a couple of minutes at most as it winds around the neighborhood. I'd also be complaining if it was going on for hours :-)
alfalfasprout
TBH a lot of it is also a cultural shift toward being selfish. You notice it here in the comments as well.
Combined with "karen" culture, people are more empowered than ever to complain about things. They forget that when they were kids, they'd be loud, play in their neighborhood, and get up to no good :)
It's a real shame, this mentality is what's moved us away from a feeling of community.
ectospheno
Complaining about an ice cream truck you can hear in the back of your house while wearing noise cancelling headphones isn’t Karen culture.
gilfoy
It absolutely is. Gettin an ice cream truck banned from your neighborhood because you heard it drive by is the epitome of Karen behavior.
earnestinger
Parent is perfectly right.
> cultural shift toward being selfish
I enjoy ice cream so damn all other opinions :)
sophacles
Yes it is. No Karen thinks she deserves the title... even tho she does.
dylan604
I'm not sure about this being a new thing. I also think we've gone too far with the anti-karen whiplash and think everything before that was trendy was perfect. When I was a kid that got up to no good or was just being annoyingly loud, I would hear about it. There's always been an acceptable loud, like kids running around and playfully being loud at a park or playground. Going to the same playground with a loud stereo is not the same thing. You're clearly up to no good as a teen smoking and hanging with your friends. You make it sound like kinds "back in the day" never got into trouble. I can assure you, I, er we, absolutely got in trouble for getting up to no good.
taeric
Certainly, there were plenty of "dude, really?" moments when kids would go over on limits. It is hard not to think we haven't pushed the limits down to zero, though.
Granted, using smoking as an example is hilarious to me. I confess near zero sympathy for that going away. If anything, I'm pretty sure I'm more dumbfounded that people still smoke in any real numbers.
sophacles
There's a difference between the neighbor (whom you've almost certainly met) stepping out and saying "hey stop that" or "keep it down", and karen calling the cops. That's the new thing - this insane insistence that children must be kept hidden, and that the authorities must be involved if they are playing in designated play areas, or walking around the block unsupervised, or (heaven forbid) being loud during reasonable daylight hours.
loco5niner
Ice cream trucks are specifically obnoxious especially in a neighborhood or a park. I would also complain. They would fit in fine at a carnival or similar.
I've always found it odd that most people would complain if someone sprayed water all over them, but are surprised when people complain the same way about obnoxious noise.
I do live next to an elementary school and enjoy listening to the children playing. Like the article says, that's a natural, even joyful, sound.
dkarl
I agree; I wondered how HN would manage to make the article controversial, and this was the answer, equating the sound of playing children with the sound of intrusive commercial marketing aimed at children.
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moron4hire
Ice cream trucks are a weaponized guilty trip against parents. The kids whine and complain about wanting ice cream and I'm already having a hard enough time modeling good food habits for them. If it were once a month I wouldn't mind, but it's been every day for the last month. Like, dude, nobody needs ice cream that much. Please stop starting an argument in my house.
Incidentally, we just replaced all the windows in our house, and now the kids can't hear the ice cream truck coming, so chalk up one disproportionately expensive W, please.
thinkingtoilet
It's amazing how much power one person can have if we let them. I would organize people to talk to the people who made the ban and let them know you are unhappy. People pay so little attention to local politics that even an issue like this can result in someone being elected or not being reelected.
dylan604
When it comes to government reps that field calls like this, there's some variation of a formula saying for every one phone call translates to X number of people that feel the same way but do not make the call. It used to be different weightings for someone calling vs writing a letter. Either way, it was more a statistics reaction. Not sure if this comes into play or not.
It could also be that the single person that did complain happens to be a close friend or even related to someone else powerful, or is just influential in the area in other ways. That tilts the weighting as well.
ryandrake
It really is crazy in the USA how much of an overreaction a single, loud, entitled, nosey, complaining neighbor can get with local government: whether it's complaining about kids making noise, complaining about kids playing alone, complaining about traffic, complaining about suspicious black people in their neighborhood, complaining about the length of their neighbor's grass or a car parked in front of their house. You read all these stories about how one complaint resulted in the police being deployed, fines being assessed, innocent people getting in trouble, roads getting speed bumps and 5 all-way stop signs, and other crazy shit happening because some one person couldn't manage to mind their own business.
jpk
I think part of this is because people often don't appeal to local government unless they've got an axe to grind. Nobody goes to the city council meeting to comment on how everything is great and things are fine the way they are. So when someone shows up to complain about ice cream truck music, the people who are pleased, or at least indifferent about it, don't show up to oppose the complainer, and the signal the council members get is that it's a problem and a city ordinance or whatever is required. There are typically opportunities in the local law-making process to allow someone to oppose the complainer, and it does happen, but few will match the complainer's level of effort. Then if a law makes it on the books, local LEOs become the complainer-class's customer service representatives, and you get what you're describing.
Ultimately, local civic engagement is often what matters most to your day-to-day life, which is good. I think effective and durable self-governance must start at the local level. But we get blasted by media related to national politics at every time and season, to the point that the thought of trying to stay dialed into local government is a non-starter for many. If all the attention we can bear to allocate to politics is monopolized by the national wedge issues of the day, who will muster the volition to save the ice cream truck music?
Der_Einzige
Now imagine a determined AI agent empowered by a nefarious and disgruntled AI researcher.
ravenstine
Meanwhile, nobody does anything about all the crotch rockets and douche canoes with exhaust systems deliberately modified to be obnoxiously loud at any hour of the day.
taeric
It is downright depressing seeing all of the people pile on regarding the food truck. I can almost understand setting a volume limit on it, if there are some that are going overboard. After all, I'll gripe to my kids for yelling while in the same room with me. But banning or justifying a ban!?
And, I'm fine that we disallow extreme things such as sonic booms. Yes, that should remain banned. For really good reasons. No, that does not extend to sounds of life.
Does it somewhat suck to live near a ball field during playoff season? I guess? Isn't exactly a hidden part of life, though. It also somewhat sucks when the chickens are upset about something out back. Or, heaven help you if you have frogs nearby.
Reminds me of the hilarity of people that want to point out how horrible fireworks are for pets. You aren't wrong, but fireworks are nothing compared to a standard storm in many places. So, maybe tone down the bitching about it a bit?
Edit: Amusingly, I'm currently working from basically under an airport at the moment. Also a very loud place.
jancsika
> is a slippery slope to nowhere positive.
Both you and the author are rankly speculating.
Worse, the author is outright misleading:
> Trying to suppress that energy by demanding silence or defaulting to screens is damaging.
The word "damaging" links to an article by Haidt with evidence of damage from defaulting to screens, but decidedly not evidence of damage from demanding silence.
They make the same bait and switch with screen time in a separate paragraph, again with a link to a Haidt article.
I have to say I resent both you and the author for forcing me into having to side with boomers! But you have zero evidence that forcing kids to play sardines instead of tag is detrimental. Given that, I must begrudgingly respect the boomers' grudge and side with your local council's ban (or at least say that it appears innocuous). :(
gowld
Presumably, the problem was the truck music, not the ice cream sales. There's a market opening for a travelling ice cream seller who doesn't play loud, obloxously noise on loop after 7pm.
pavel_lishin
Our local ice cream truck plays a very annoying jingle, coupled with a woman's voice saying "Hello?" in an obnoxious way. I haven't complained, because I'm not that kind of asshole, but something about that voice clip feels like stubbing my toe over and over again.
If it were a regular jingle, I'd have no problem. Perhaps one that could be turned down so you don't hear it from halfway across town.
bitwize
Was it this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_BF88VYRvE
The "hello" is bizarre. It's like something a weapon AI from Metal Gear Solid would do to flush out its enemy.
The tune is also weird. It's not a recognizable folk or children's tune, and it sounds vaguely Japanese, like background music from a Sega Pico game.
If I heard an ice cream truck playing this come down my street, I'd think I was in an episode of Black Mirror, or some sort of analog-horror scenario. I'd do my best to find a good hiding place and avoid being seen. (Maybe crouch in a cardboard box?)
petercooper
Someone else involved in the conversation suggested they could announce their times and locations on Facebook, which I thought was a good idea, but I guess it conflicts with their preference to not have a fixed schedule. They just drive round till they make enough money and then go home when they're bored.
parpfish
Or just play the jingle on the half hour like church bells
BrenBarn
Kids playing is great, but I think this article glosses over some important wrinkles.
A big one I see is that some parents seem incapable of distinguishing between "there are times when it is okay for my child to play noisily" and "my child's activities and/or noise level should never be restricted". Playing in a park is great --- that's what parks are for! Playing in your yard, or an apartment courtyard or the like, great. Playing on the sidewalk is fine. . . but remember that sidewalks are also for people to walk on, so if someone comes by the kid needs to realize that they should let them pass. But then we have parents who come into stores and let their kids grab things from shelves and play with them in the middle of the floor, and so on.
Part of accepting and embracing play is understanding that not every moment is playtime, and that even within playtime there can be subcategories with different expectations.
This article frames it in terms of noise, but in my experience a lot of the issues people have with noise are really issues about parents not understanding how to set boundaries for their kids, and teach their kids that behavior --- not just noise, but everything --- has to be adjusted for different situations.
pier25
> parents not understanding how to set boundaries for their kids
Absolutely.
Kids being loud when playing football or at the beach is fine and even expected.
Letting your kids run around the theater is not fine. You're ruining the experience for everyone.
ysavir
I live next door to a summer camp. The kind that has kids from the nearby city come for 2 weeks, sleep in bunks, play outside all day, hike, etc.
A few months ago we had a carpenter doing some work on the house, and he was asking me about the camp and living so near to it. Eventually he asked "Are they loud when they play? That must be so annoying. I'd hate that."
I replied "Nah, it's healthy and fun, and it doesn't travel as far as you'd think. The real annoying sounds are all the lawnmowers, weed whackers, and gasoline powered tools that people keep using throughout the summer". He immediately went quiet and sour. Guess I hit a nerve.
johnfn
Maybe because he was trying to make small talk and you insulted his profession?
klank
OP mentioned "lawnmowers, weed whackers, and gasoline powered tools".
That has nothing to do with standard carpentry.
rascul
Gasoline powered generators and air compressors that the carpenter might use to power tools can be quite noisy.
johnfn
You don't think carpentry falls into the category of "professions that make loud noise outdoors"?
callc
The carpenter may have thought the same sentiment is being applied to loud power tools such as table saw, jointer, router, …
gilfoy
The age old profession of generating small engine noise pollution
bigyabai
If you work in computer science and tell that to your carpenter, godspeed. There is a nonzero chance you wake up without electricity the next day, and a note on your kitchen counter reading "who needs a generator now?"
the_cat_kittles
social skills of hn on display
ysavir
I've never seen a carpenter use a lawnmower on the job. Seems unwieldy to drag up a ladder.
On a more serious note, most carpentry tools aren't that bad in terms of noise. They can get loud, but they tend to be momentary, getting a cut done, and back to silence. It's the landscaping companies that are running powered tools right up next to people's houses for 30-40 minutes at a time that are the problem. And by the time one company is done, another arrives and revs their own engines.
As for me ruining his attempt at small talk and insulting his profession... Eh. If someone's idea of small talk is trying to make children appear disrupters of the peace for having fun at camp for 6 weeks out of the year, as children ought to do, I'm not too concerned about making a comment expressing a common and often relatable sentiment that makes that person feel bad about their own disruptions of the peace. To the extent that I "insulted his profession", that was him setting himself up. Don't serve a dish you wouldn't want to eat. He could have made small talk in a hundred different ways or found a way to show appreciation instead of annoyance, but he said what he said, and he set the tone.
AnimalMuppet
Carpenters don't use many gasoline-powered tools...
mr_toad
Making furniture with chainsaws is a thing. Funnily enough they used to call this hacking, rather than carpentry.
klank
Guess we had the same thought, I posted a similar comment. It genuinely threw me for a loop cause I was trying to figure out how OP actually said anything about carpentry...
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askafriend
This is even funnier.
GuinansEyebrows
i can't tell how much of a point you're trying to make, but if complaining about children playing is small talk, the less of it the better.
askafriend
Definitely this. A total lack of awareness and tact demonstrated by OP.
reverendsteveii
The point of the story is that OP is absolutely aware of their lack of tact.
justinrubek
This is a very ironic comment.
madcaptenor
Also the camp was probably there when you moved in! So if you complain about normal camp noise you just didn't do your due diligence.
sokoloff
People buy cheap[er] houses near airports and then try to get airport ops changed/restricted all the time. (I agree with you, but it’s obviously a thing that people have no problem doing.)
analog31
IANAL, but there's established precedent about this, under the heading of "Coming to the nuisance."
Der_Einzige
Very based. All the people who try to claim that this is bad social skills apparently just take it from folks in the often scummy trades (i.e. mechanics, dentists, etc when I say scummy) who treat us like shit and make snide comments and backhanded compliments with impunity about us lazy computer users. This is triply true in the post AI era. They hate us cus they aint us.
You hit a nerve here too.
GuinansEyebrows
i think you might be picking up on a level of disdain from others based on your attitude that might not be related to your profession.
we are all extremely lucky to have been born at the right time with the right set of resources to have found work in the information trade. we are not better than mechanics or dentists, and we're often compensated to ridiculous degrees when compared to arguably vital roles like teachers, social workers, therapists, custodial staff, conservation workers, public defenders, farm laborers, and so many other professions.
scubbo
> i think you might be picking up on a level of disdain from others based on your attitude that might not be related to your profession.
Bravo
Aurornis
I always have a hard time interpreting these stories. Is this really a trend? Or is it an example of someone collecting anecdotes from all around the world and presenting it as a trend?
The internet makes it easier than ever to search for anecdotes around the world that support an idea, but a collection of global anecdotes does not indicate a trend. There are billions of people in the world and some of them are cranky and intolerant.
If we're sharing anecdotes: I've had nothing but positive responses to my kids playing, even loudly. Obviously I'm not taking them to a library, school, or other dedicated quiet place to play, but the overwhelming majority of people in my area smile and laugh when they see kids playing, loudly or not.
klank
I'll add to it. My neighbor and I were just recently chitchatting how we love the new family that moved into the neighborhood a few years ago. We love the vibe and color their family adds and it's a large part because they're very visible and audible.
General "kid mayhem" happening all over their yard. It often spills into the street. More than once I have to slow down and wait for the children wailing on their friends with boxing gloves to clear out of the street so I can drive through. It's wonderful. They're close to the entrance of our neighborhood too, which means everybody coming through there is primed to go slow and watch out for kids. It has such a great, calming effect on the overall neighborhood.
aidenn0
People complaining about being disturbed by kids playing is at least as old as I am, and probably has existed since about 5 minutes after the first kid was born.
foxglacier
If it was real, they author would have shown some data to support that. So yea, it's just random anecdotes to make it look like there's something for people to be outraged about.
pizzafeelsright
Kids are mildly annoying but generally there's a time and a place.
I have kids. I love a loud house with quiet time.
Loud children above age 2ish in the movie theater or restaurant are to be behaved because of the proximity of others.
Babies on airplanes get a pass because iykyk
IanCal
> Babies on airplanes get a pass because iykyk
I think broadly if you’re doing something you just need to do, then a kid being a kid (particularly babies) is fine. Even if it’s annoying, that’s just life. Beyond that you need to pick your place - I’m happy taking my young kids to dinner where there’s other kids and noise, I’d not take them to a quiet tasting menu place.
Having said that, someone with an upset baby is probably having a worse time than I am and I can usually just sympathise, sometimes things are more out of someone’s control than you think.
goda90
I generally understand dealing with an upset kid in public is hard and I sympathize. But I once had a red-eye flight where the kid was screaming for its daddy, who we later determined was on the flight just in a different row. We saw no indication the mother was actually trying to soothe the child, nor did she go get the father. We were not happy to start a vacation with such little sleep...
Neywiny
One of my favorite stories is a flight with a mom and a few kids. Her oldest started shrieking at some point, likely due to the air pressure change. The mom said something like (calmly) "there's nothing anymore can do about it, so what do you want to happen?" And the kid shut up
progbits
Planes are horrible without noise cancelling headphones for me, which incidentally solves the screaming kid problem too.
pedro_caetano
Indeed I never realized how high the level of the background white noise inside a pressurized cabin really is until I started wearing ANC cup headphones in a plane.
Removing them after a few minutes to talk to someone always feels like I am getting assaulted with noise.
daseiner1
ear plugs + over-ear n/c headphones + white noise or jazz music playing works great
DrillShopper
I got some earplugs designed for people who deal with sensory issues and they have completely transformed being on a flight from actively annoying to passively acceptable.
Fell asleep for the first time on a plane and I'm never going back.
analog31
Earplugs are a godsend on flights. I've found one more trick. No caffeine on days when I fly. That way, I fall asleep easily all day long.
timcobb
This. My child can shriek at what really feels like ear-piercing frequencies and decibels.
rock_artist
As we’re in tech, loud or noise are very implicit and can really range.
Reading this on Amsterdam, I know many others countries where there won’t be such a discussion at all about a soccer field outside a building.
I come from a place where children and the population is noisy due to many factors. every time we went as family on a holiday (With dutch people as an example), I saw my children become less and less vocal only to become loud as they were once we were back home.
Recently, we’ve relocated to Spain. It’s only a few months but still, I thought my children would get become less noisy similar to what we saw on holidays after a while…
But nothing changed, and also hearing other children here, they’re in the same “noisy” levels as my kids.
So there’s also a cultural aspect that needs to be considered about what is loud or how children are expected to behave, add immigration to that and cultural differences and you got so many factors.
bartread
We have kids of various ages playing outside all the time when the weather is good and, yes, they are loud. At least, sometimes they're loud, but they aren't always, and you get used to it. I think it's good for kids to get outside.
So generally it's not an issue and we just sort of tune it out and get on with our days but there is this one kid who only communicates by screaming at the top of their lungs at very high pitch constantly all day. Literally morning til night.
That gets pretty annoying although, fortunately, the particular kid is not always around. If I knew who the parents were I'd probably have had a polite word with them already because it's just so unnecessary even by the standards of excited and energetic children.
YorickPeterse
There's kids being noisy, which in itself isn't much of a problem, and then there's _Dutch kids_ being noisy, with the latter sounding more like a bunch of roosters at a heavy metal concert.
voxleone
I'm noticing a reversal of social deference:
-Then: Older generations had the cultural authority, and children were expected to conform.
-Now: There’s increasing tolerance—and even privilege—granted to children (and parents), sometimes at the expense of quiet, order, or adult comfort.
Hypothesis:
This shift reflects a society aware of its declining birthrate, where children are becoming scarcer and more symbolically valuable, so institutions (like courts) may reflexively protect or favor youth-centered activity.marssaxman
I think it is quite the opposite: what is novel is that this has come before the court at all. Nobody would have dreamed of expecting children to stay inside and be quiet all day during my childhood, nor that of my parents, nor their parents; rather, we were often made to go play outside.
kreco
Sometimes there are properties about generations that get carried "alternatively" as cycles.
The generation that got too much authority will give the next generation more space (louder generation). Then the loud generation will create louder generation and authority will come back, etc.
It's just an example and I don't think the loudness is part of those properties but the abstract mechanism has been observed along few generation (I think this mechanism had a proper name but I cannot find it again).
junga
> (I think this mechanism had a proper name but I cannot find it again).
Are you referring to the Strauss–Howe generational theory?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss–Howe_generational_theo...
Apreche
Yes, go ahead. Be loud and play outside. But I’m pretty sure I have misophonia, so just be loud somewhere not near me.
tetha
Hm. I think I am encountering cultural differences here, again. Personally, I have a point from my grandma in my head: "If your ears are ringing from happy, playing children, that's future in your ears. That's good". For sure, within reason, but a huge ruckus in the shared backyard or playground between 08:00 or 20:00 due to kids?
That's what kids to.
I rather get worried if they abruptly stop, or start yelling differently. I don't even have kids, but I'll still take a look wether a kid of a neighbour mananged to add a temporary third joint to their arm, is bleeding a worrying amount or something like that.
airstrike
There's a difference between being loud in public vs privately. As a kid, I was never allowed to be loud in a restaurant, unless it was a restaurant for kids—and even then up to a reasonable limit
For years our neighborhood had an ice cream truck or two turn up a few days a week during summer, which we used to enjoy. This year, not a single one.
I saw one of the trucks at a school fete and asked about it. The guy said one person had complained about the noise so the local council banned them after 7pm! With most of their sales falling between 6-9pm, they decided it wasn't worth it for one hour and moved on to other local towns.
So not exactly "kids", but I think banning the normal, everyday noises involved in a local culture, whether that's church bells, kids playing football, carol singers, or ice cream trucks, is a slippery slope to nowhere positive.