You’d think I might be upset that at our recent cottaging adventure a nearby family with young kids officially complained about how noisy we all were. After all, we had four teenage boys being rowdy, laughing it up, playing card games, playing board games, splashing in the water, tossing the ball around, trying to out “dad joke” each other.
But the kids were not drinking or doing drugs, they weren’t harming themselves or being reckless with others’ well-being, they weren’t out after hours — they were interacting and playing and joking with their aunties and uncles and grandparents. They weren’t even cursing (well, not too much).
Teenagers are rowdy and loud when they are having outdoor fun. It’s a beautiful sound.
The reason I’m not upset at the young family that complained is because one day — sooner than they know — they’ll love that sound too. The sound of their teens playing hard outdoors, having fun with family, and being safe.
They’ll hear it differently then and thank their lucky stars that their kids are off their devices for a few hours, that they know where their kids are, that their kids are not getting high or drunk, bullying or being bullied. They’ll know that sound means they still enjoy being loud and silly, creative and active, hanging out with their family, engaging with their elders.
They’ll know the difference between the sound of a pack of teenage boys having a good time versus teens getting into a pack of trouble.
Then they’ll know the sound is a joyful one. And that when kids get a certain age, when life’s temptations get more alluring, complex and deadly dangerous, they’ll sit back and enjoy the moment, because, like the other of life’s great joys, it’s fleeting.
I wasn’t upset because once I was them. Once, I too, was in that warm cocoon with young kids hanging on my every word and action, where I was the centre of their universe, and I buffered them from the raucousness of the outside world. Maybe I would’ve complained too.
But I wasn’t upset because one day their young kids will be teens too. And I wish on them the happy moment when their kids make so much noise having innocent fun that a young family down the way mistakes it for nuisance and trouble and complains about it.
If this happens to them the way it happened to us, for a moment, they’ll be the happiest family in the world.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
