A couple neighboring a parent with a toddler, upset from the noise and crying they routinely hear, decided to vent their frustrations by posting an anonymous article on theguardian.com.
A single layer of brick was our only protection from months of nightly screaming’: the letter you always wanted to write
The couple believes they are victims of a loud toddler living next door, and so they decided to blast the parents online (anonymously) with the hopes of gathering sympathy for their hardship.
In the article the anonymous couple explains that they have had to deal with disruptive noise from a toddler, losing sleep from it and negatively affecting their marriage.
They go on to say the parents never apologized for the loud noises. So instead of confronting the parents with their issue, they decided to cowardly complain online through a large news publication about their woes.
You never apologised, or even mentioned it. I saw no evidence you ever tried to mitigate the noise for our sake, by moving her to another room, say. I’ve known enough new parents to know it won’t have occurred to you to do so.
The anonymous writer expected to garner sympathy and feelings of righteous indignation, which they did in certain circles of the internet.
This sort of thing happens all the time. Parents must deal with frustrated neighbors who decide to scold the parent as being responsible for their lack of sleep.
Shaming parents like this doesn’t really do any good. Any person who has raised a toddler will understand, they are not as easily controlled as one might think. Shaming the parents like this will only serve to stack more frustration on an already frustrated parent trying to deal with their situation.
What does a letter like this actually solve? It doesn’t help the parent or offer a solution to an unruly toddler. It just serves the “victim” as a release of anger, selfishly, on to the parent.
You can read the open letter to parents with loud toddlers here