Parents In New York Watch As Their 5 Year-Olds Participate In Full-On Fight Club

The following report is from Daily Mail:

Children, aged 5 to 7, have been battling it out in a so-called Kiddie Fight Club at a Brooklyn park while their parents watch, sparking a social media war among community members.

The young members of the Greenpoint Fight Club meet almost daily after school in McGolrick Park in the Greenpoint neighborhood of New York City, according to Curbed.  

The club, which is said to have less than 10 members with up to four competing at any one time, involves the kids engaging in a ‘full-on fight fest’ in the playground, wrestling each other to the ground and practicing martial arts. 

But the roughhousing has fueled a less playful fight between parents in the area, with spats erupting online in a local Facebook group.    

Parents of fighters claim they set rules for no kicking and punching and that it is harmless fun for their active kids, while critics say they were ‘shocked at how aggressive it was’ and that the antics could scare other children.      

Mom Julie Wilson, whose 6-year-old son Zack plays in the Fight Club, told Curbed the group is nothing like the movie namesake and is simply a way for the children to play fight and practice martial arts. 

There’s a bunch of kids who like play-fighting. Some of them (including mine) take martial-arts classes and use the skills they’ve learned.

Some just like to wrestle and jump on each other. Because we all have VERY active boys, we’re in the park every day. 

At some point most days, the kids end up fighting, usually on the rubber mats by the tightrope where there’s the most room.

She insisted the parents ensure the kids don’t get hurt while roughhousing and have rules around not being violent with one another. 

As parents we don’t want anyone to get hurt but we want our kids to play the way they like, so we set some rules (no kicks, no punching) and let them do their thing.

Another mom told the outlet the club has brought families together and accused critics of not wanting “to be part of the community.”

The families have become close. My son is watched by many families in that community.

I guess you can look at the fight club as an issue of private parenting in public but I look at it as a bunch of people who didn’t want to be part of the community.

I mean, the thread got so insane. People were commenting on things they’ve never seen.

However another mom told Curbed she did not want to speak about the saga for fear of making “some enemies among the ‘park parent’ community.”

It’s cut throat lemme tell you!

The fighting among the parents in the leafy, public park first erupted when one parent posted about the Fight Club online in May.

Before then, the Greenpoint Fight Club had been true to the rules of its movie namesake as a secret club in which famously its first rule is: “You do not talk about fight club.”

Did anybody see the kids ‘fight club’ happening at McGolrick playground today? I don’t know how else to describe it… I was a bit shocked at how aggressive it was and it was apparently parent-sanctioned as there was a group watching.

A concerned mom wrote on local Facebook group Brooklyn Baby Hui

She said she was concerned the fighting would scare her own children who often play at the park as she slammed the ‘jarring’ sport as a ‘full-on fight fest’.

I’m all for kids wrestling and having some fun. My kids do it at home all the time, but watching this full-on fight fest was very jarring and something I wouldn’t want my kids to witness.

The mom suggested the parents of Fight Club members relocate their kids out of the playground to a “grassy area instead.”

Her post sparked a fierce debate among parents in the neighborhood, where the median household income stood at $104,216 in 2019 – higher than the New York median of $72,108, according to City Data. 

Parents of little ones in the Fight Club leaped to the defense of the group and accused those complaining of being “entitled.”

We should definitely not be banished from the playground.

So you want to make a 6-year-old move to the grass because he wants to play a sport he plays so your child won’t see it. That feels kind of entitled. Lots of things happening in a public park that I don’t agree with. But it comes with the territory of living in New York City.

One of the mom’s in support of the Fight Club

Meanwhile, others blasted the club for leaving other parents and children feeling unsafe in a public park supposed to be enjoyed by everyone. 

The public playground is a great space for everyone to [blow off steam] but everyone also needs to feel safe doing so and this post is about someone expressing they do not feel safe.

One parent wrote

[Roughhousing] might not be behavior everyone wants their children exposed to.

Another parent stated

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

Any REAL martial artist will tell you that the skills are meant to be used in self-defense only, not going out on the streets and beating each other up, let alone toddlers for crying out loud!

But this is how far this nation has fallen, where now we got little children who are not too far removed from wearing diapers to now throwing hands at each other. And now these rowdy children will grow up to be aggressive brutes, that, as soon as they don’t get their own way, they’ll be the ones slapping their mothers around thinking that they can.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;

1 Timothy 3:3

That verse is in the context of a man in the office of a bishop, and he is told not to be a striker or a brawler. Now, I am not against learning how to throw and take a punch (which I know I just frightened some professing Christians with that statement – who want to act like they are suffering for Christ because getting walked on like stairs and getting their face shoved in the sandbox some how makes them more spiritual – conveniently ignoring that it was Jesus himself that told his disciples to sell their garments if they had to, to buy a sword for defense (Luke 22:36-38)). If action must be taken, there is nothing wrong with that, and learning how to do so is not sin, just as learning to load, fire, and clean a gun is not a sin. I wanted to mention this because I don’t want people to think I am a pacifist, but that also I am in no way shape or form condoning open violence in the streets, whether it be children or grown adults.

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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