Some kids need lessons in respect

July 16, 2004

Graffiti. Is it just kids being kids or the new generation's lack of respect for other people's property?

Year-round school in Oakley is back in session and some residents are saying "thank goodness." The hope is that with kids back in the classroom they will be less likely to be out running around the streets and causing havoc. Like last year at this time, residents are complaining about graffiti showing up throughout Oakley.

One thing the residents can give credit to the city for is keeping up with the mess. Over the past few years the city's community relations department has worked hard to organize groups to help clean up the mess. The help usually comes from local residents, some who have been affected by the graffiti and others who just have an eagerness to keep Oakley beautiful. The group spends a weekend morning with some paint and cleans up the mess.

Regina Morris lives in the Gateway subdivision. On Saturday morning she headed out to do some grocery shopping and as she drove past the back fence of her home she noticed that someone had spray painted a "very colorful word."

"I can't even describe how I felt when I saw that. It is a very degrading experience," she said.

Although Morris said that she didn't feel that the graffiti was anything personal to her, she did take it personally. While usually the police say that graffiti is done at random, how can a person not feel that it is anything but personal when it is on their property. At the very least, Morris said it shows a lack of respect for her, her family and for the people in her neighborhood.

At first Morris said she hoped to keep the whole ordeal under wraps. She had left at 7 a.m. and for a Saturday she figured not too many people would have heard of the problem. Later she started thinking about it and as more time went by she became more and more angry.

It wasn't about the cleanup. She called her son who had a similar problem in his hometown of Pittsburg last year. He had found a special cleaner that took the spray paint off the fence. Her son came right over and she said that by 9 a.m. it was as if the paint wasn't even there. She said that the issue was the action itself.

She hoped that with school starting again this week, kids would calm down. Her thinking was that parents would have their children in earlier and there was less of a chance for them to get into trouble. Of course, the only kids who are back in school are the year-round track kids at Vintage Parkway and Laurel elementary schools.

The more likely suspects to this vandalism would be middle school and high school aged children who are not expected to go back to school for a few more weeks. They are on a modified traditional schedule. And while their summer vacation has been shrinking over the past few years, they still have some time to get into trouble.

Really though, would having the children back to school stop the problems. Is it just that the kids are out of school and bored and looking for trouble. Maybe. It is more likely that Ms. Morris touched more onto the problem: Some kids don't have any respect for people's property. Not even their own in some cases. Respect is a hard thing to teach. Believe me, I know, having a 10-year-old myself who has caused his share of trouble. It is a constant battle to keep kids under control these days and important for all parents to keep working on keeping their own kids in line on a regular basis.

We've all seen the public service ads about keeping up with your kids. Know where they are and who they are with and what they are doing. Other people like Ms. Morris shouldn't have to feel violated when she walks out of her house to head to the grocery store. Oakley is a wonderful community. Let's teach our kids to keep it that way.

Roni Gehlke's column on life in Oakley appears each week in the Brentwood News.

Distributed by the Contra Costa Times

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