I had to walk out of the library the other day. I was wearing noise canceling headphones and listening to music at a normal volume and yet a mom with three kids drove me out due to the fact they were running around and yelling like it was their house.
I travel and this is the new normal at libraries throughout the U.S. Many libraries now have an open area children’s section where the kids can play on the floor and be as loud as they want.
I do use study rooms at the library but not all libraries have them and a closed glass door does not block all the noise from a screaming baby/toddler.
Libraries are a shared space and in the past used to be quiet. Now in the effort to be inclusive to everyone they don’t enforce any noise rules because they want those moms and their screaming kids to come visit the library.
And of course, you cannot complain to anyone about this because if you do so you are a Karen and no one will care and then they’ll tell you “if you don’t like it you can leave” This is society now…everyone does what they want with no regard for others.
As a mom with a toddler, I love my local library. We go for toddler story hour or just to explore new books. He’s a voracious reader and has lost his patience with the books we have at home so having a huge range of children’s books to pick from has been great for “dialing in” to what his reading level is at week after week. It’s been a wonderful resource and the librarians know him by name and I’ve been able to meet and network with local moms.
Toddler story hour does have chatter and activities and songs and general noise but I personally have never seen a kid running around wild like you described. Not to say I don’t believe it’s ever happened, but that this supposed pandemic of ill behavior and dreadful permissiveness that is painted in your post and the comments sure has a “get off my lawn” perennial quality to it. I acknowledge my obligation to teach my (and when appropriate, others’) kids how to behave in a public indoor place, but there always have been and always will be bad parents.
From my experience, libraries are becoming a secular community place. Ours has a crafting club, lego group, gardening group, and runs D&D games as well as the kid activities. The children’s area is separate but it’s not a huge building. The way I see it, you could be just as mad at a D&D group getting excited by a game or a bunch of Lego spilling on the floor, because you’re sharing the space with others. Regardless of a library’s stereotypical sound profile of hushed silence, it’s still a public space and people will be making noises in it. A one time occurrence of kids being noisy is annoying, but so are coughs and sneezes and loud typing and books thumping and other people in general.
If you think kids running around screaming, and people sneezing and “thumping books” are anywhere near comparable, you urgently need to book an appointment with an audiologist to make sure your hearing damage isn’t permanent.
Or, it could be simple Stockholm syndrome. You’ve become so accustomed to the constant assault that you’ve forgotten how unbearably disruptive kids can be.
I’d support tax funding for library outlets in playgrounds where the little shriek machines can scream to their heart’s content. Libraries should be places where people can read without undo disruption.
These hypothetical screaming wild children running rampant through the halls of America’s libraries are apparently sparing the libraries I attend, because as I said, I’ve never seen children acting out like that and I attend literal toddler events, with an actual toddler regularly. Note that they didn’t say “screaming shouldn’t be allowed in libraries”, they said toddlers. If OP can’t handle the sounds of toddlers at the library (which, again, I witness regularly) playing with wooden toys, doing puzzles, making crafts, having books read to them, then OP should find somewhere more private and not be mad at the public for using a public space.
It sounds like, rather the eras old horrible pandemic of the ever worsening “youth”, OP had a bad experience one day with some unusually poorly behaved kids and rather than say something to the parent, or the librarian, or hell even the kids, they decided to play out a hypothetical worst-case-scenario in their mind and then use it as an excuse for inaction. Then they came here to rant impotently and make it sound like some wide-spread problem it isn’t. And I just don’t think that’s a good enough reason to try to make me feel unwelcome.
Do you have a reading comprehension problem? OP wrote: “I travel and this is the new normal at libraries throughout the U.S.”
That indicates more than one, understand?
The whole issue is about rudeness and people having no consideration for others. The next time you go to a movie theater and there’s a baby crying or people who won’t shut up I hope you remember what you wrote above. You sound very entitled and selfish.
OP provided one example, and then used it as a sweeping generalization that directly conflicts with my lived experiences. Do I just attend uniquely peaceful libraries with uniquely well behaved toddlers? Maybe I’m living in a haven of quietude and utopian standards of parenting and never knew. Have you gone to any public libraries lately and experienced what OP describes? It should be easy to if it’s an epidemic worthy of telling me and my son we don’t belong there.
Of course I agree that we should all be considerate of each other and respect others’ rights to enjoy public spaces as they’re intended, but that’s not the title of the post, is it?
I am absolutely fine with a “toddler reading hour”. But I agree with OP that a library should take reasonable steps to allow to function for everyone. Even when this impedes some peoples’ desire to be loud.
If a library allows or even supports as loud activity, it should provide an adequate space for these, and adequate here would mean that these activities should happen in their own space and acoustically seperated from the rest.
If there is not enough space, those groups would have to share, yes. But a toddler reading group in the morning, some school children activities in the afternoon, and a D&D session in the evening should be able to get along.
And whoever uses the library PCs with loudspeakers instead of headphones should be kicked out immediately. Why on earth does that PC even have speakers in the first place?
If OP made a post that said “people in public places should be respectful of others” or “libraries aren’t a place for screaming” that would hardly be an unpopular opinion. So if you’re fine with toddler reading hour and the concept of young kids being welcome in libraries, then you and I are in agreement.
OP explicitly said moms and young kids shouldn’t feel like they have a place in the library, on the basis of a bad experience, which I don’t agree with (but is at least appropriate for the sub).