Local:

I will guarantee you these kids have someone picking up after them at home, be it house keeper or parent. No one demands they pick up after themselves. If they did, at that age, it would be habit by now. Parents won't address it because you can't possibly be referring to "their little Johnny."

MV, you are likely correct, but I had to give it a shot. It was disgusting to see, and realizing that the culprits were old enough to clean up, it was doubly disgusting. These messes were spread out over various parts of the lawn and one of the benches, for hours.

I doubt any of the kids are named Johnny because none of them were born in 1950.

If you see a kid engaging in inappropriate behavior, instead of congratulating yourself for your ability to cast aspersions on the parents, why not do the right thing and speak up to remind the kids? It does take a village, you know...

Hey, not my problem, it's not my problem. Did you ever think perhaps I wasn't in any position to actually correct the kids? But then again, if I did, I'd likely get criticized by people like you for parenting other peoples' kids. So I wrote this post with the dim hope that some MP parents would actually read this and remind their kids to clean up after themselves. A shot in the dark, of course. I have a good idea: you go clean up the park since you're in a position to be casting aspersion. And I wasn't casting aspersion- it was deserved, therefore not aspersion, but accurate.

Dear "Local":

I don't know if you are a parent, but your judgmental assumption that the parents of these kids are picking up after them at home makes it sound a lot like you don't. Plenty of parents teach their children well, but in the moment, while hanging out with their friends, under peer pressure they may not rise to the occasion. Instead of griping in this forum, a more productive use of your time would be to either, a) when confronted with this situation, politely ask the kids to clean up after themselves or b) be the type of person who models that type of behavior.

As a parent, I know I work hard to teach my children to be considerate of others, clean up after themselves, etc. But just as I'm sure you were not a perfect little angel 24/7 when you were 13, neither are most kids that age. It does take a village and, kindly stated, a reminder from a present adult to be considerate would be quite appropriate.

Yes, yet another excuse about the kids' lousy behavior towards the planet - excellent! I'm not the one doing anything wrong - your kids are. I also don't care about peer pressure - no excuse. Better yet - instead of sniping at me on this forum, check out the park when kids are there.

I am constantly around MP kids who are cleaned up after. In fact, it's shocking how much people cater to them and let them get away with rude, inconsiderate behavior, especially in public.

Read my post - I wasn't in any position to remind the kids to clean up after themselves. I am TIRED of the "It takes a village" saying as an excuse for kids to behave badly - half the time it's when their parents are in tow.

Actually, when I was 13, I was pretty angelic and didn't litter or behave badly in public. I did volunteer clean up in my neighborhood and organized these gigs. Maybe you should organize your kids to do so - talk about modeling behavior! But as long as you defend their bad behavior, put the onus on others and give excuses, you're modeling poor behavior.

Dear "Local":

I'm sorry that you're having such a bad day. I sincerely doubt that the children or their parents are on this board, reading your anonymous complaint about their behavior and parenting skills. I hope you find something to make yourself happy. In the meantime, I'll keep parenting my children, who don't live in Menlo Park and don't go to Burgess Park. But wherever they are, I hope that they behave in the way that I raised them to behave and that the people that they encounter treat them with compassion. And when they encounter grouchy people, I hope they will remember my lessons to them about kindness.

Peace.

Kids grow up being bombarded with messages from adults, including parents and teachers. Many children, when they reach middle school age, start pushing the limits to find out which rules are real ("there will be consequences if you smack someone") and which are relatively arbitrary ("don't wear tops with spaghetti straps").

Parents around here (not just me!) are pretty adamant about trying to instill proper social skills in our kids and to model good citizenship for them, including not throwing trash on the ground and expecting them to pick up after themselves. By remaining silent when you see littering, you are reinforcing the idea that keeping our public areas clean is an arbitrary rule rather than a cultural expectation. You are, in a sense, undoing the good work done by parents and teachers.

I understand that for whatever reason you do not want to speak up in real time. But if that is your attitude, then you really have no credibility when you complain here.

A parent: excuses

not my problem: more excuses

Sorry, it doesn't take a village. No one other than my parents were telling me to pick up my trash after myself. They instilled a sense of responsibility in me and taught me to understand the importance of not trashing our environment. When I was hanging out with friends at that age I wouldn't have thought about throwing my trash on the ground. "Give a hoot, don't polute." Your kids may not be the ones "Local" was talking about, but your reaction makes me think you have guilty consience.

Nope, no guilty conscience here (and my kids do not hang out at Fremont). However, if I saw a child doing something I considered wrong and I didn't speak up, then I would have a guilty conscience. See, part of being a responsible member of the community is to try to make constructive contributions. And it's a slippery slope. I get that you're not willing to tell a child s/he shouldn't litter. What if you saw that child beating a dog? Or attacking another student? Where do you draw the line? Remaining silent when you see something wrong and then coming on here to make snarky comments about others -- well, that's not only cowardly, it's a sign that (your protestations to the contrary!) you weren't raised very well yourself.

As I said before, if you refuse to do your part, then you have abdicated your right to whine, even anonymously, in public. The holier-than-thou stance is not only nauseating, it's hypocritical.

No, as a taxpayer and native I get to whine. Heck, even if I was a tourist, I'd get to whine. And I am, because the behavior was abhorrent. The finger pointing at me is ridiculous - I am not the litterer and it's not my job to parent other children. I am sure if I had been in the position to and had, I'd get back talk from the kids.

I posted a reminder for parents to remind their kids. If you don't like it, ignore it. I know many downtown parents who read this forum - which is why I posted here and I've talked to several already who read this here. I've also had this littering mentioned to me by two downtown kids who weren't involved in it.

I've witnessed ongoing rude behavior in public from many of the Menlo kids - I was pretty surprised by how often I've seen it. I've even heard the more individualistic kids complain about not wanting to be brats like so many of these kids. The littering is unnecessary.

For those who don't live here or frequent this park, perhaps you should myob since you're not adding anything. For those who read this & kids frequent the park, remind your kids to pick up after themselves. The only kids I witnessed using the garbage cans were also interacting with someone's dogs - very nicely, I might add. No one else remotely came across as considerate towards others, given the hours-long screaming & incredible messes left behind. These kids were definitely old enough to know better.

Once again, I wasn't in a position to tell these kids to clean up. Slipper slope? Puhlease - you're wasting my time.

Sure - peace - I'll experience more of that when parents parent better and is evidenced by better public behavior from their children. Until then, I'll whine here and know that others share my sentiments.

not my problem:

sorry, parenting other peoples' children is not my job, nor is it my responsibility. The fact that you think it is everyone's responsibility to parent other people's kids is amazing to me.

Dear "Local":

I can see from the kindness and grace of your postings that you were well raised. I hope that a community-minded person such as yourself will bestow us with your wisdom as frequently as possible. We poor, sad parental failures have been waiting for someone as sage as yourself to put us on the glorious path to righteousness. Why, even now, I am gathering around my children to share your posts with them so that they, through reading your words, can truly understand the meaning of courtesy, compassion and responsibility to community. Thank you so very much, Local, for your service to the community. If only local parents had more people like you to tell them what bad people they are, the world would be a better place.

Peace AND love...

Hey, A Parent, the truth hurts, and clearly, this has gotten under your skin. You'd be less hurt by not reading. But yes, please remind your offspring to clean up after themselves in public. It's more crucial now when there are so many budget cuts. Oh, wait, these aren't your kids, and somehow, their littering is my fault.

Menlo Voter, you clearly understand the issue here - thank you.

It's not about parenting other people's kids. It's about realizing that we, as members of this community, have a shared responsibility to support our collective values. That if we become selfish, start pointing fingers, and repeating "not my problem," our community heads into a downward spiral from which there may be no recovery.

I have lived in Menlo Park a few decades and am raising my kids here. I believe that most people here are not like Local and Menlo Voter, and that most do care and do accept their societal responsibilities. We want Menlo Park to remain a terrific place to live, not a hostile town filled with finger pointers. If Local and Menlo Voter become the majority, I'll be gone, and so will most of the good people of this city.

Dear "Not my problem":

Very well stated, indeed. Thank you for so clearly articulating the essential problem. "Shared responsibility for our collective values" is, indeed, what I am teaching my children. Which means they should not only pick up after themselves, they should help others to do so, as well. That's called leadership and we look to our young people to bring this to our communities. I sincerely do hope that the kids who are littering will get better support from their community and their families in taking responsibility for themselves and for others. It is the "for others" part that "Local" seems to not be understanding. It's not just about taking care of and responsibility for ourselves as individuals. It is those who also take responsibility for their greater community that make a neighborhood a quality place to live.

So, you and I will continue to teach our children, not just to look after themselves, but to look after others, as well.

Cheers!

I'm reading such emotionally charged responses to a simple request from Local to remind children to use waste receptacles. Many of you ask Local to step in & speak to the kids.
Maybe Local observes this from inside his/her neighboring home & it isn't practical for Local to go running outside to catch kids & give them a reminder? Maybe Local is at the opposite side of the park & the kids are departing? C'mon people, don't make this into personal criticisms.

Wow, a lot of negative banter over this. Maybe we can all just do a better job picking up trash. I was at a park the other day where there were tons of water balloon corpses laying around. I picked them up. From the responses on this thread...it is clear that parenting another person's child in public would not gain the desired result.

Bottom-line, please help keep our open spaces clean- and if your child is old enough to travel alone, what's the harm in reminding them to be conscious? As the aforementioned poster stated, peer pressure can play a role too.

Funny how some have turned what I consider a positive sentiment into a negative. "It takes a village" doesn't mean parents absolve themselves of responsibility and leave child-rearing to others; it means we all help each other out for the greater good. Or as not my problem stated, we take shared responsibility for our collective values. It's all in your approach. A gentle reminder, constructive criticism -- whatever you choose to call it. We all can give and receive it in every stage of life.

I visit Fremont Park almost every morning while walking my dog. There isn’t a day that I don’t find empty water bottles, plastic bottle tops and other paper litter left on the field. Often, there are forgotten sweat shirts, soccer balls, etc. Sometimes even helmets & bicycles are left — unlocked. During the soccer season, one can regularly find abandoned fold-up chairs & blankets left from the previous day’s games. Even more alarming, are the stacks of pizza boxes often left on top of the provided garbage cans — not even discarded properly inside the garbage cans!
The truth of the matter is, the perpetrators are not just children, but parents as well. Anyone using this jewel of a park should know that one should only leave footprints. Our city park maintenance employees, headed by Mick, do a terrific job of maintaining these local parks for all to enjoy, but their job is not to pick-up after littering park goers (of any age). Parents should teach their children that littering is not OK, and recycling is important to their future. Coaches, who’s teams use this park, should have their teams comb the field and dispose of any litter/recycle products properly after every practice and game — just like they have the kids gather all the equipment. Perhaps then, the offending parents will learn something from their children.

Whoops. I was referring to Jack Lyle Park, which those of us who have lived here a while, remember as Fremont School.
Sorry, if I confused anyone, but the message remains the same.

@Sue and other posters who understood my message correctly - thank you, and I appreciate your comprehension of the issue and my desire to get parents' attention. I have repeatedly stated that I wasn't in the position to speak to the children - that's not really all that hard to understand - I saw this garbage on several occasions and it was a nasty, alarming amount of litter - from the children.

Ol' Homeboy, I have seen similar at Jack Lyle Park, too, but lately it's been looking pretty good, although I am not sure why. It could be that since the field at Jack Lyle was closed, kids started playing more at Fremont, which is smaller, and with the beginning of summer, the nasty spate of increased garbage began.

I'm not shy about speaking to children, especially when they screw up. I am not at fault, nor am I the subject - the litterers are. I also have cleaned up my share of garbage not generated by me or my family, out in public. That's why I responded to this so strongly - it was a huge amount, scattered all over the place, and literally stank - this wasn't even near the garbage cans, over the course of several days.

I posted this message because I figured it was the fastest way to reach local parents - I'm not on the correlating email groups for the parents of kids this age. I didn't want to go into the detail I just did above - it sure didn't seem necessary to have to justify a request that children obey the law and be reminded of that law by their parents. Talk about shooting the messenger!

While it's true that some of the mess is caused by kids, I am at this park almost every day. And I have to say that I very, very, very often see adults with their dogs. These adults let their dogs do their own thing and never bother to clean any of it up. (Talk about stinking, Local) When I politely asked one woman if she was going to clean up after her dog, I got a pretty nasty "salute" from her.I also see quite a few Peet's coffee cups strewn about the lawn. This is when school is in session, so know it's not the kids then. And is it the kids that leave the newspapers to blow around? Or how about the adults eating Amici pizza and then leaving the boxes on a bench?

So, let's not be too quick to just blame the kids.

Dear "Local":

Perhaps if your message was simply about people cleaning up after themselves, instead of choosing to extrapolate your distaste into a general attack on parenting, you would have gotten a different response. The message that you posted sounded like a grouchy, self-righteous person making unsubstantiated assumptions and expressing gross generalizations about people they do not know. And that's not a particularly good way to get your message across. In my book that's on par with the message that "Local Family" got from that uncouth dog-walker.

Just sayin'

Um, major overreaction and extrapolation to my post. Just tell your kids to clean up after themselves in public. I have stuck to the subject - messes I didn't make, requesting parents to remind their kids to clean up after themselves in public. Once in public, you child becomes a public nuisance when they leave messes. Once again - I didn't make the mess and I didn't have the kids making the mess. Ergo, not my responsibility - it's yours, so take it. Pretty funny how you're awfully defensive about a simple request. Perhaps instead of reading so much into my post, you can direct that energy into preventing your kids from littering. My parents managed that quite well.

Local,
Just tell your adult friends to clean up after themselves on public, too!

Hey, Neighbor - why don't you?

If I'd witnessed adults doing the littering, I'd have posted a reminder to them. I saw adults actually using the garbage cans. During the school year it's clearly littered with adults' garbage. Please, feel free to post a message to the adults in the area about your gripe - hopefully they'll give a hoot and not pollute.

I am betting you don't pollute and neither do I. There's no excuse for the dog owners, either. There're so many empty wrappers you can pick up with those, you don't even need to carry a bag.

[Post deleted. Please discuss the topic and avoid attacking other posters. ]