Is anyone minding the kids?

Re “The tyrants of summer,” Opinion, July 23

Poor Marc Cooper. He seems to think that he’s still living in a time when parents are supposed to behave like parents, and children are supposed to behave themselves, period. He simply fails to understand that today’s parents are never supposed to behave like parents. Today’s parents are supposed to encourage their children to scream as loudly as they possibly can, especially in public places that other adults have to pay to get into, such as hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, airplanes and symphony concerts. And everybody else is supposed to just act like they don’t even notice.

David Oehl

San Diego

It’s nice to know I’m not the only grumpy old(er) person. At the shore of a fishing lake in a supposedly rural area of northwest Montana, the problem is not the level of vocal activity of the new neighborhood kids. In the last few years, we have been invaded by three families who buy their kids -- all their kids -- all the loud noisemaker machines possible, such as ski boats, jet skis and four-wheelers. The kids have them running back and forth (on land and in the water) from dawn until dusk. I am thinking about buying a weekend place where I can go to get away from encroaching civilization and uncivil Gen-Xers. But where would that be?

M.J. Snyder

Proctor, Mont.