This used to be a nice neighborhood: artists, laborers, immigrants, postgraduates. Good, clean, quiet, hard-working people all. But recently, your children have begun to creep into my lovely neighborhood, and, since their arrival, this place has really gone downhill. Your children are unbelievably intrusive. They thrust their lifestyle onto the rest of us in every possible respect. They are noisy and domineering, their domiciles messy and smelly.

I know it is not politically correct to talk about it, but your children are terrible citizens. There is a 100 percent unemployment rate among them, and they endanger the neighborhood with their reckless behavior—running out into the streets without looking, going off with disreputable strangers and tying up the police force in fruitless searches, spreading disease with their dirty hands and mouths. They bring nothing of value to the neighborhood, and the programs that cater to their “development” plaster the subway stations and alleys with their ugly, unintelligible artwork and poetry. The other day, one of them actually rooted through my purse in broad daylight as I lunched at my favorite sushi café, and when I smacked the offending child, I was the one thrown out into the street! Oh, well, heaven forbid we be accused of violence to minors—it carries a greater charge! Your children really have a grip on the country’s legal system, and they’ve obviously completely taken over the schools. One can’t say anything against them—people clam up immediately, and you can see the horror in their eyes.

I try to live and let live, but your children make that impossible. Not satisfied with the right to conduct their affairs privately in their own homes, your children demand that everyone cater to—and participate in!—their revolting and immoral behavior. They insist on their right to suckle naked breasts right out in public. They clamor to be listened to—and, yes, petted—by any stranger they happen to approach. One can’t escape their deafening (not to mention inane and ungrammatical) chatter in public businesses, and any attempt to shush them leads to an altercation. It’s heartbreaking to see the poor servers and retail workers pretend not to be disgusted by them, trying not to cringe when your children grab at them with their sticky hands.

Speaking of public businesses, as your children arrive in droves, the local establishments begin to cater to their degraded tastes. Just half a block from my home is a “play center” catering to their demographic. It’s appalling—throngs of them crawling all over garish “jungle gyms,” contorting their bodies and frequently exposing themselves, right in the storefront windows for all to see. Only slightly less offensive is the loud, repetitive, maddeningly grating music that spills out onto the sidewalks and into the surrounding coffee shops and bookstores. Further, since your children have begun to infiltrate my neighborhood, I can’t help but notice an increase in the number of ice-cream pushers trolling the streets. Unlike the old neighborhood dealers (who more than anything desired anonymity), these peddlers are shockingly flagrant, at times going so far as to solicit passersby through bullhorns. Moreover, I notice a decline in the offerings of the cinemas, which play ever more puerile, offensive tripe, and of the theaters, which now pump out shallow, noisy, plot-driven fantasies—and all in matinees! The local tavern owners close down earlier and earlier due to relentless hounding by the cops. In fact, these once vibrant, sociable streets are now entirely deserted after nightfall—your children have chased the populace indoors.

I know I face censure for speaking out against your children, but I refuse to be intimidated by the crushing of dissent. Your children have ruined my neighborhood, and I’m not afraid to say it! They are enforcing their agenda on me, and devaluing my way of life, and I will no longer stand quietly by and watch it. If the government won’t help me, if the courts are deaf to my pleas, I will take to the streets and mobilize the populace. This is America, we are free, law-abiding adults, and we will not be infantilized without a fight!