This is the message the kids who run the library during those hours want to convey, and I will comply. Apparently, this is the deal: when school is out, when aftercare is out for the little ones, kids between ages 5 and 14 go to the library and make it unbearable. They hang out in front screaming at each other, cussing, talking on cell phones, spitting on the sidewalk, and being generally hostile to anyone trying to enter the building.
Inside, they flock to the computers to check their MySpace pages, look at porn, do more yelling, eating, fighting, cussing in full voice, and are just generally selfish and loud. The poor library staff is powerless.
 Jennifer Longo |
Whether it is a kind of shameful surrender on the part of the adults in the building or simply exhaustion after years of this, I can't tell. Either way, the staff is doing all it can, and they need some help. Now.
But even more urgently, the kids need help. Now. They act entitled because they have been taught to. They can and do tell the librarians to screw off because they know they can get away with it. Obviously all teenagers act nuts; the difference here is that they are being allowed to.
I feel immense sympathy for the library staff and patrons but I feel even worse for the kids. Clearly adults aren't providing them with any kind of common sense or actual guidance. There are always two or three students there in the library trying to do homework during these hours and those poor kids have no chance to concentrate. Two little boys sat at a table with my daughter and me, they were no older than 5 or 6. They were cussing and talking about the "hot girls" in the comic book they were passing back and forth. We finally gave up and left.
I have begun a search for homeschooling groups because I want to live here in this town, but I cannot see any possible benefit to making my daughter spend any amount of time each day with these angry, sad, self-absorbed kids. I would love to support local schools, but it's not just money and materials and good teachers that make an effective learning environment. More than anything, it is good parenting; parents who are invested fully in their children's lives and education. Without that, nothing the teachers or library staff tries so hard to do will make any difference at all. Without guidance and discipline at home nothing good that happens outside will come to any fruition.
We all need to take responsibility for our own kids and stop blaming anyone else when they are disrespectful, selfish, angry and mean. There are many, many kids at the library every weekday making it miserable. There is no excuse for all of them being let down the way they are. It isn't fair to the staff or other patrons, to the students actually trying to do their schoolwork, but most of all it isn't fair to the kids themselves.
Sadly, being a lazy parent is not against the law. So I have no idea what the solution to this problem is. Except to say that if you want to go to the library during the week, you should go before 3 p.m. or after 5 p.m. - unless you enjoy MySpace and porn.
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Jen Longo is a Half Moon Bay resident.
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