Do you have teenagers or other kids in your neighborhood that you know exist but never see? Do you have a mystery teenager in your house that does not go outside? Today I saw my neighbor’s teenage son for one second as he pulled out in his car to go to school. It is the first time I have seen him since they moved in a year and a half ago. Is that strange? There is another teenager in my cul-de-sac that I see only about one to three times per year.
I see all of my adult cul-de-sac neighbors fairly regularly. We are walking our dogs, taking care of our yards, washing our cars, getting home from work, talking out in the street, taking out the garbage, or running errands. I have younger kids so we are frequently playing outside. Where are the teenagers?
Probably sleeping. Altho’ my teens seemed very busy while in highschool. Afterschool activities and sports. My son always worked while in highschool. If I had had neighbors they would not have seen my kids much.
My kids spend all their time in the house. It’s not all electronics. They spend a lot of time reading, and they even play board games and such. Outside, in our neighborhood, there aren’t any kids. Not a lot to pull them outside, unless we roust them for a bike ride or a walk.
Probably kids from a previous relationship for one of the partners.
My collegaue has three daughters with her husband. Met them all. One day she mentions her son.
Turns out from Ex-hubby and lives there.
As a kid I lived on the opposite side of a narrow alleyway from one of my classmates for around 3 years, so her house was right outside my window, around 4 metres away.
The only reason I know this is because where we lived came up in class; I never once saw her.
We weren’t friends at school, in fact she ignored me utterly (I did try and make friends, she wasn’t having any of it), which was was a little weird in itself; the school wasn’t in that village, but one 5 miles away, and there were only 28 pupils in the whole school, and out of that 28 only 7 lived in the same village as me. The other 6 and me were all in and out of each other’s houses all the time.
When I was in high school, I didn’t see the neighbors much and they didn’t see me. I was actually almost never at home- but my comings and goings were not at the same time as theirs. I would either get home at 4pm (right after school) or at 11pm (after some activity/work/socializing)
We had one circa 1982-95 or so we sometimes referred to as “the neighbors hermetically sealed daughter”. From the age of say 5 until she was in her early 20s we may have spotted her about two or three times a year. And that was about average for all of us on the block. They were that quiet family that kept to themselves in the extreme. This is inner-city and odd describes just about all of us but we still found it strange. Once she was an adult and we saw her at different places it pretty much turned out she went to a private school away from the area and had interests in things like astronomy and is pretty much a standard general-issue-person. But when you know the names of the family pets and NOT the families only child, I still find it all a bit odd.
My kids up until middle school, were always outside playing in the yard or biking to and from their friends’ houses. Once they were involved in sports, most of their free time was practice and games or just playing the sport on their own. My son loved hockey more than anything else. He started playing at the age of 5. In the winter, if he didn’t have a game or practice, you could find him at the outdoor rink with his buddies “rink ratting”. On a Sat and/or Sun he’d have me drop him off at the rink after breakfast and we wouldn’t see him until supper or sometimes even later. He’d bring food or buy it at the concession. My daughter and her friends would spend every waking hour on either the phone or at the mall. She also played basketball. Then when they were able to drive, they were always out and about. Also, there was a lot of sleeping in!
So I think not seeing a teenager around isn’t out of the ordinary. They have stuff to do.
Our next door neighbors had 4 kids (3 in high school at one time). We went from seeing them every day in elementary school, to twice a week in middle school, to quarterly at best in high school. We see them more now when they come home for college. high school has different time patterns for life (evening sports and plays and homework) than anyone else so they are just in and out.
There’s a (relatively upscale) development not far from where I live. I sometimes go through there on runs, and often there is no one outdoors (adults or kids) even during fine spring or summer weather.
We refer to it as “Neutron Bomb Estates” because it looks like a weapon took out all the residents but left the buildings intact.
We really lucked out! We moved to our very first house when our first daughter was born, in a neighborhood where there were 22 kids between 7-14. In one (long) block!
And we used to kid about our “free-range children”… if our kids tried to do an indoor activity, ten minutes later an army of “lost boys” would be tromping in: “C’mon, a huge tree fell down in the woods and we’re making a fort out of it! Bring a hatchet!” (“No, you’re NOT taking a hatchet…”)
They’d disappear after breakfast, surface to grab an apple mid-day, then back home for supper, with other hungry kids in tow. One time we discovered that they’d found a trampoline by the curb, reassembled it and rigged up a system where they’d swing from a rope off a garage roof, bounce off the “tramp” and land in a wading pool. Or prickly bushes if you missed…
Anyhow, the neighbors saw our kids ALL the time. Probably wanted a break from it…
It may be a combination of busy schedules and access to electronics/TV. If the kid is involved with a sport, they probably have practice right after school, and would not come home until around 6 PM. It may be that they leave before you and get home after you (it was that way for my daughter - she was the first one to leave in the morning and the last one home at night - she spent weekends sleeping or doing homework). My son spends a lot of time with his computer and games, along with being involved with a sport, so not a lot of time spent outside. In fact, a neighbor we used to spend a lot of time with when the kids were small (but now see only occasionally) came to our door a few months ago, and my son answered. They had not seen him in a long time and thought we had taken-in a room-mate.
I am thinking back to my teen years and I don’t think I spent a lot of time out in front of my house, either.
Anyway, we do have a neighbor across the street who moved-in several years ago. As a family, they spend NO time in their front yard (and the landscaping shows it). We occasionally hear their one son playing basketball in their back yard, or playing piano (he is really good). They typically race in/out of their driveway, and do not associate with any of the neighbors. I was shocked about 6 months ago to learn there is a younger brother! :eek:
More likely a probably to all of the above. There have been recent surveys done that indicate that kids today are spending about half as much time outdoors compared to their parent’s generations and it is easy to see why. There are vastly more entertainment options available in home than there used to be. In addition particularly for more upper-income families it seems like structured extracurricular activity is more pronounced/pushed than when I was a kid.
I saw and talked to the parents of both kids today. One was getting mail, the other parents were coming back from the store. I think what is odd to me is that the teens don’t seem to go anywhere with their parents or help them out with stuff that needs to get done in the front yard. I do know that one of the kids is on the swim team, so that would explain at least partially why they are not around sometimes.
