Mastodawn

ebluegh Feb 8, 2024

Libraries should be quiet and should stop catering towards moms and their toddlers.

Libraries should be quiet and should stop catering towards moms and their toddlers. - Lemmy.World

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 you can leave” This is society now…everyone does what they want with no regard for others.

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Nefara Feb 9, 2024

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.

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Treczoks

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?

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Nefara Feb 9, 2024

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 (which is at least appropriate for the sub).

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Treczoks Feb 9, 2024

I read his post as primarily aimed against mothers who don’t care about what their children are doing, even if those children pose a problem for other people. And while I think it would be good just to talk to those mothers and tell them that they should take better care and teach their children the necessary respect for people and places like libraries, I can understand that he does not. Some mothers, especially those who don’t care and therefor create exactly those problems, can be annoyingly aggressive. I’ve met this kind, I had to tell such a person to leave the premises (not a library, but that does not matter) for being unwilling to reign in her kids. I had to call security, but after attacking me, she left before security arrived.