https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-...
Among other things, playing the jingle in the same place repeatedly is prohibited.
If it were a regular jingle, I'd have no problem. Perhaps one that could be turned down so you don't hear it from halfway across town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_BF88VYRvE
The "hello" is bizarre. It's like something a weapon AI from Metal Gear Solid would do to flush out its enemy.
The tune is also weird. It's not a recognizable folk or children's tune, and it sounds vaguely Japanese, like background music from a Sega Pico game.
If I heard an ice cream truck playing this come down my street, I'd think I was in an episode of Black Mirror, or some sort of analog-horror scenario. I'd do my best to find a good hiding place and avoid being seen. (Maybe crouch in a cardboard box?)
Ultimately, local civic engagement is often what matters most to your day-to-day life, which is good. I think effective and durable self-governance must start at the local level. But we get blasted by media related to national politics at every time and season, to the point that the thought of trying to stay dialed into local government is a non-starter for many. If all the attention we can bear to allocate to politics is monopolized by the national wedge issues of the day, who will muster the volition to save the ice cream truck music?
It could also be that the single person that did complain happens to be a close friend or even related to someone else powerful, or is just influential in the area in other ways. That tilts the weighting as well.
From a young age I learned a fascinating lesson, socially speaking, is that some non trivial percent of the population does not at all mind the proverbial “Karen” causing a ruckus for the community. However, the second you stand up and tell them you don’t agree, somehow, you are the one held responsible as the troublemaker.
It’s not the initial ruckus causer that matters, it’s the conflict causer that does. Too many don’t care about change in any way, they care about “the peace.”
I've always found it odd that most people would complain if someone sprayed water all over them, but are surprised when people complain the same way about obnoxious noise.
I do live next to an elementary school and enjoy listening to the children playing. Like the article says, that's a natural, even joyful, sound.
Incidentally, we just replaced all the windows in our house, and now the kids can't hear the ice cream truck coming, so chalk up one disproportionately expensive W, please.
This one is an odd area where I would think budgeting would be a good lesson. Set a budget aside for how much they can spend per day and per month on ice cream. If they have the funds, they can get it. If not, make it clear on when they exhausted their budget. In this regard, it should not be an open question on whether or not they can get something. And any "no" will be a direct result of something they have control over.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for avoiding unnecessary conflict. And a lot of conflict avoidance with kids is to not let them turn it into a conflict. You said no, you didn't start a fight.
My kids are 2,3, and 4. No works just fine for now, and we are laying the foundations for budgeting.
Not even Doom music!
I really don't appreciate your reply. It comes off as assuming that I'm basically an idiot. "Oh, just tell the children no!" Yeah, that doesn't really work when you have highly intelligent children you've been raising to be rational, thinking agents. They may not be developed enough to value long-term health issues over short-term pleasure gains yet, but they certainly are skeptical enough to call out fiat answers as bullshit. I'm actually rather proud my children argue with me so much, despite how exhausting it can be.
Hence me targeting my ire at the damn ice cream truck. It's not my children's fault they want ice cream (they are children) or that they are elementary school lawyers (I have certainly encouraged it, much to my in-laws' ire). It is the ice cream truck operator's fault for employing marketing tactics aimed directly at children. I keep my children off of cable TV and pay for streaming subscriptions to keep them away from completely unadulterated junk until they have brains developed enough to see through it, but this guy injects it out of my control.
It was specifically the use of the words "guilty" and "whining" that struck me as wrong there. I could see wanting to avoid seeing disappointment. But I don't consider that guilt. And I'm pretty strict on my kids when they start whining.
Combined with "karen" culture, people are more empowered than ever to complain about things. They forget that when they were kids, they'd be loud, play in their neighborhood, and get up to no good :)
It's a real shame, this mentality is what's moved us away from a feeling of community.
> cultural shift toward being selfish
I enjoy ice cream so damn all other opinions :)
So is defending the behavior and imposing it on everyone around you just because it's sometimes convenient for you to walk 10 meters for some ice cream once a month.
Like TFA says, we have to decide as a society what kind of noise we think is worthwhile. The sound of kids playing seems essential for a culture to stay friendly to family development.
But broadcasting an advertisement jingle to neighborhoods because you want to make money, perhaps not.
Granted, using smoking as an example is hilarious to me. I confess near zero sympathy for that going away. If anything, I'm pretty sure I'm more dumbfounded that people still smoke in any real numbers.
It is however annoying when the addict does their thing in public with zero fucks to give for anyone else around them.
Check out Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking, if you're interested. It helped me think a lot more about what I was doing and feeling, and turned out to be useful in a bunch of other areas in my life. I found the audiobook ripped from cassettes as a torrent.
The surprise on my end is usually that new people smoke. Anyone that had already developed the habit, I am not surprised still does it. In that regard, it is not unlike any other drug.
I also realize I should count myself incredibly lucky that smoking does not impact me at all. I literally feel nothing when I try a smoke or cigar. Can barely even taste it. Reminds me of my grandfather who used to smoke to be social. When he found out they were bad for you, he just stopped. Had no withdrawal at all. Yay genetics. :D
We have a small playground here and for a number of years there were exactly 3 people being loud and obnoxious. One mom and her two sons. None of the other kids ever bothered me. :P
And, I'm fine that we disallow extreme things such as sonic booms. Yes, that should remain banned. For really good reasons. No, that does not extend to sounds of life.
Does it somewhat suck to live near a ball field during playoff season? I guess? Isn't exactly a hidden part of life, though. It also somewhat sucks when the chickens are upset about something out back. Or, heaven help you if you have frogs nearby.
Reminds me of the hilarity of people that want to point out how horrible fireworks are for pets. You aren't wrong, but fireworks are nothing compared to a standard storm in many places. So, maybe tone down the bitching about it a bit?
Edit: Amusingly, I'm currently working from basically under an airport at the moment. Also a very loud place.
So sure, kids doing kid things can be loud and obnoxious. But it is not really any more annoying than anything else. The ice cream truck playing a jingle is just not that big of a deal.
Now, I do suspect some folks have obnoxious trucks that play far far louder than they need to? In this vein, it is a lot like cars going down the street. At a base level, it makes noise and it doesn't really make sense to complain about it. That said, it is extra obnoxious to have people trick out cars and motorcycles to be loud on purpose. And those I have no sympathy for getting banned.
Both you and the author are rankly speculating.
Worse, the author is outright misleading:
> Trying to suppress that energy by demanding silence or defaulting to screens is damaging.
The word "damaging" links to an article by Haidt with evidence of damage from defaulting to screens, but decidedly not evidence of damage from demanding silence.
They make the same bait and switch with screen time in a separate paragraph, again with a link to a Haidt article.
I have to say I resent both you and the author for forcing me into having to side with boomers! But you have zero evidence that forcing kids to play sardines instead of tag is detrimental. Given that, I must begrudgingly respect the boomers' grudge and side with your local council's ban (or at least say that it appears innocuous). :(
Look, even if I wanted to give my kids ice cream every day after school, I am at home and would just get it from the freezer. Even if I say yes to ice cream today, it’s another exhausting round of “why can’t we get ice cream” tomorrow.
At the park yesterday, two trucks were making the rounds. Meaning every 15 minutes, there was an argument. I overheard multiple exhausted parents saying things like “because I already got you ice cream!”
> church bells, kids playing football, carol singers, or ice cream trucks
One of these things is not like the other. Some people like carol singers. Who likes Turkey In The Straw blared through a cheap speaker on loop?
A lot of the so-called Karen culture is like this I think: people who can't manage their own internal issues trying to outsource the solution to them by imposing demands on others just trying to live their own lives..
It’s not really ethical to market that aggressively to kids, because kids just want. All the time they want. Most people here were children themselves once, or at least know people who have been children. If kids had the credit card, they’d spend everything on Pokémon cards and candy.
Here’s a better question before you call me a Karen: given that most people have freezers, who exactly benefits from daily ice cream truck visits? Not the parents, for reasons above. The kids find it frustrating too. The fact that they had ice cream yesterday usually doesn’t ease their disappointment.
If provided with consistency, yes that's exactly what happens. I've raised three kids who have not had repeated meltdowns over hearing an ice cream truck.
Mazel tov. Unfortunately for parents who aren't you, the act of providing the "consistency" you're advocating for, often DOES require dealing with repeated meltdowns, or even just maddeningly repetitive questions of "why not". Children are born wild animals (not yours, of course), and raising them is the act of civilizing them.
If there's one thing that annoys me about other parents, its seeing or hearing about someone dealing with a difficulty that your kids didn't have, and then patting yourself on the back for being a better parent. Every time you explain something to your kids, they just got it and stopped bothering you about it? Trust me when I say, you are in the minority.
> meltdowns over hearing an ice cream truck
I know for a fact, it just wasn't an issue when I was a kid, or even in our neighborhood until this year, when the trucks started parking on our street after school. For many children, that is a time of the day when they are exhausted and unlikely to be reasoned with. Maybe it's a sign their parents are "inconsistent" or whatever, but I maintain that there is a difference between a truck stopping by once every hour or 4-5 times per hour, and also a difference between an ice cream truck at the park vs stopping on residential streets one by one every day. There's no other business that works this way, it's not like they have some fundamental right, and that's not even talking about the noise pollution aspect.
It's not your job as a parent to 1) make sure your children are happy all the time 2) defend your decisions against all attacks.
I found that when children say "why not" repeatedly, they are actually saying "I am unhappy and want to find an argument to reconsider your stance". If you signal them that this is actually something to argue about, e.g. by repeatedly answering these questions, they will just play the game you are offering them.
I found that it's actually a good approach to only directly answer "why not" the first time, and to just answer it the second time by "I understand that you are unhappy about my decision. I have already explained it and will not explain it again. If you need help dealing with your unhappiness I will be there for you."
A lot of the maddening part of these questions is most often the parent not being able to deal with the unhappiness of the child. Once you accept that unhappiness is a natural part of life 1) this will be easier for you 2) you will model much better for your child how to deal with unhappiness.
I do actually and in particular a little one with autism, making part of the process for educating on certain things more difficult than average, but despite being far from parent of the year, I manage and there are things that work.
>You think you’re just going to explain to a four year old the rules about ice cream and they’ll just be like “you’re right daddy. I forgot we had ice cream from the truck yesterday. I’ll grab some carrot sticks instead”?
Well, yeah. That's what parenting is partly about. Establish limits or conduct through repeated insistence on certain rules and lessons to be learned learned, instead of trying to make complaints against others causing a minor inconvenience with their own source of making a living or food choices you don't seem to like.
Parenting isn't easy and each case is different, but if something as minor as a few minutes of ice cream truck marketing is too much to handle with your kids, blaming others isn't your solution to that problem.
And please, the whole ethics thing you describe is just absurd in this context. A jingling ice cream truck, which kids love and which hardly sells something terrible or deceptive, is far from the kind of manipulative marketing you're contriving here. It's just a basic and basically harmless reality: Kids love ice cream, and there's nothing wrong with someone selling a bit of it to them. You're creating an ethical knot that doesn't have any good reason for existing in a normal world.
Example: Every time I take mine home from school, we pass by a Dairy Queen that's on the route home. Oops, and guess what gets asked for each day that this happens? Some days I say sure, and we go get a cone or blizzard. Other days, it's a firm no, and that's that. Repeat insistence made this work out okay. And I don't blame the DQ for anything, even though this particular branch happens to also use music to market its very visible presence.
>Here’s a better question before you call me a Karen: given that most people have freezers, who exactly benefits from daily ice cream truck visits? Not the parents, for reasons above. The kids find it frustrating too. The fact that they had ice cream yesterday usually doesn’t ease their disappointment.
Totally subjective opinions of your own, and in no way justifying getting so annoyed that you want to ban these things, as you seem to. Again, how about not converting your personal dislikes of minor things into trying to shut those things down.
I saw one of the trucks at a school fete and asked about it. The guy said one person had complained about the noise so the local council banned them after 7pm! With most of their sales falling between 6-9pm, they decided it wasn't worth it for one hour and moved on to other local towns.
So not exactly "kids", but I think banning the normal, everyday noises involved in a local culture, whether that's church bells, kids playing football, carol singers, or ice cream trucks, is a slippery slope to nowhere positive.