# Goddammit, teach your daughters to not scream all the fucking time! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 28, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798 "2014-11-28T02:43:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/41 "2014-11-28T20:16:51Z")
I live on a canal in south FL and one day was in my apartment and heard BLOOD CURDLING screaming…“HELP!!! HELP MEEEEEE HELP MEEEEEE!” in a register I previously thought only dogs could hear. I nearly broke my goddamned neck running down the stairs to see wtf was what (it was coming from the water) and raced to the canal- only to see 2 girls of about 10 playing on a floating raft in the water. HOLY shit, I was so panicked from it I bitched at them for a solid 5 minutes about it and when their mom came out to see what all the bitching was I bitched at HER about it some more. I was 99.9% sure I was running down to a serious emergency situation and it scared me shaking. I was furious beyond words. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/42 "2014-11-28T20:22:39Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I love it; it’s the sound of unmitigated joy. My daughter knows the difference between an inside voice and an outside voice, and has since she was a toddler. But if she and her friends are playing outside I see no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to make noise. We used to live one house down from the neighborhood pool, for heaven’s sake. The noise was deafening. > > It seems to me that if you don’t want to hear children playing you have chosen a neighborhood with too high or low a density. You want to live either rural or highrise, not suburban. > > I wish the real estate business would cotton on to this. Every neighborhood should have a rating for its specific noise profile. Of all measures this one is the most likely to make people unhappy in their homes - why are we not addressing it? Could not disagree more. If it is after school shenanigans, fine. But I have a couple of Tween girls on my block who were out with friends playing Manhunt at 11pm a month ago. Screaming like idiots. Even my no-longer-Tween 14yo daughter wanted to kill them. I was patient and it ended after an hour. If it happened again, I would’ve had The Talk with her parents. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/43 "2014-11-28T20:53:37Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > It’s not just girls; young boys do it too. It’s called [“whistle register”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle_register), which is above falsetto, and children can do it effortlessly. Adults can also do it with practice, e.g., Minnie Ripperton and Mariah Carey. That explains the sounds my favorite cousins used to make when they were little - I’ve heard a peacock squawk in response to them… (good times…) ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/44 "2014-11-28T21:02:40Z")
Kids can’t go near water without shrieking. At a museum the other day and there were a million little fuckers running around seemingly uncontrolled. Some guy (not me!) was going off his brain about it being due to living in a society where all kids get ribbons on sports day. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/45 "2014-11-28T21:40:16Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Could not disagree more. If it is after school shenanigans, fine. But I have a couple of Tween girls on my block who were out with friends playing Manhunt at 11pm a month ago. Screaming like idiots. Even my no-longer-Tween 14yo daughter wanted to kill them. I was patient and it ended after an hour. If it happened again, I would’ve had The Talk with her parents. OK, tween is too old,and 11pm is too late. Obviously. That is not at all the type of scenario that I am defending. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/46 "2014-11-28T23:11:11Z")
> [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](#): > > This. ^ It worked on me. > I’m beginning to wonder if parents are not hearing it because of hearing damage from iPods. After talking about this with another neighbor, it would seem that the parents _aren’t_ hearing it, because they are apparently leaving this little girl home alone while they’re at work. The girl and her family are Mexican (we have a large Mexican population here), and I have noticed over the years that Mexican parents often seem to assume that other people in the community will watch out for their kids. I first noticed this at our town’s big annual festival. While the white parents were all keeping a close watch on their small children and not letting them out of their sight, the Mexican parents allowed their young kids to go where they will. And maybe that’s how it works in small towns in Oaxaca and Michoacan. It doesn’t work here. Neighbor and I are getting _this_ close to complaining to the landlord about this girl. It’s not just the shrieking. The girl has no sense of “boundaries”. She thinks it’s hilarious to knock on people’s doors and run away. And if you don’t open the door because you know it’s her, she’ll proceed to pound the living fuck out of your door and scream for you to open up. She’s smeared mud all over my stoop and door. She’s left a large rock right on the threshold of my door, almost causing me to trip and go asshole-over-elbows down the steps. > [@overlyverbose](#): > > Out of curiosity, what time was it, anyway? About 7:30 PM, and dark. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/47 "2014-11-28T23:22:42Z")
> [@turner](#): > > Hmmm…what were you doing on the internet without pants? Strangling the Thanksgiving Turkey? Mashing the sweet potato? ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/48 "2014-11-28T23:31:20Z")
Anecdote here - I recall being a child and occasionally being told not to scream and being utterly confused because I was not screaming, as far as I was concerned. Screaming was on tv when someone was scared. I was laughing and playing and not at all thinking of the sounds I was making. As mentioned above, there was no intent to scream. There was another word I didn’t get, too. Whining, maybe? Not sure. But I associated with a particular sound (like a pet might make) and I wasn’t making that sound. And don’t even get me started on parents who said “don’t do X in the house” and then got on to me for doing X outside. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/49 "2014-11-28T23:40:27Z")
My landlord’s granddaughter/great granddaughter used to come by on the weekends and she was the most terrific screamer. The fence, the ground, the birds, the dog, the sky, everything had to be shrieked at like she was being gang raped by Alien Xenomorphs. She sounded like she’d seen and memorized every horror movie scream you ever heard and it cut right through the walls and doors and right into the pain center of my brain. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2014, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798/50 "2014-11-29T05:13:12Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Three years olds know and recognize the difference between loud, uninhibited play and shrieking. Open your eyes and look around, other children refrain from doing so because their parents have taught them it is unacceptable. Thank you. My three year knows this, and I think (hope) it’s because we’ve made a point that shrieking means she is hurt or in trouble, and when we hear it, we will come in and SHUT IT DOWN. We feel the positive message is that if she really is hurt or in trouble, she can count on us. The negative message is that if she ISN’T hurt or in trouble, she can also count on us. We just had Thanksgiving, at which we had girls who were 2, 3, 5, 7 and 8 years old. There was loud talking. There was some screaming. There was giggling and maniacal laughter usually associated with spree killers. There were 10,000 renditions of “Let It Go.” All of this is the reason that wine was invented. However there was no shrieking. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-teach-your-daughters-to-not-scream-all-the-fucking-time/705798.md?page=2)