Beware The Children

Where I live, there are a lot of children. I mean loads, its a requirement to live here. Or you had kids and they grew up and moved out but your still here. Either way, oodles of underage children. Let's be honest with each other here, not all of them are little angels. Some are downright little punks and you want to boot them and the parent who raised them. We have a rather high percentage of those. They recently installed a large covered porch that will be included in a ramp. This is a kid magnet, and I don't want all these unknown children by my door. Before you think that I'm the crabbiest lady that you told your kids it was ok to egg my house come halloween (and even tossed a few yourself) consider this. Would you want them up on your porch when you didnt know who they were, where they lived, and breaking your outdoor decorations. Not to mention these children are rude, they curse, spit, and destroy anything possible. Swearing goes way beyond the occational "hell" and "damn". Racial slurs are common too. What really bothers me is the older kids. It makes me nervous to tell them to go away. The latest group of thugs in the making that was making its rounds, all it took was me looking out the window at them. I hate that it nerves me to do this but lets face it. They are at least as tall (and in a lot of cases taller than) as me. And I don't know whats going on in their heads. These children tend to be lumped together as the "bad kids" and while I know its an unfair stereotype, it's apt. These are the ones that are up till past midnight even during the school year, they smoke, they curse even worse than their parents, and they make you want to hold your purse a little tighter when you walk by. For all I know, they're honor roll. But that isn't what I'm seeing. What really irritates me is the parents of these kids. Someone came up with a "clever" saying: there are no bad kids, just bad parents. From what I've seen, it tends to be both. The parents don't deal with the attitudes early on and they walk all over them once they realize just how out of control their offspring really is. They can't really do anything with them so they ship them outside, just grateful for the slight peace in their own home. And I'm not making this up, this actually is the problem with one apt. Sometimes its just bad luck on both the parent(s) and the child(rens) part(s). Other times, it's sheer negligence. I worry about my daughter, growing up like that. Will she be one of those running rampant? I'd love to say absolutely not but I don't know for sure. All I can do is hope for the best, show her right and wrong, and love her.