i have a thing about manners; specifically ill mannered people. a simple "please" or "thank you" is all it takes to make me happy, but in these days it seems that it's a lost art. it's not pressed upon the current generation to be kind of thoughtful, or even express thanks.
case in point are my niece and nephew. their parents are a couple of boors who expect us to babysit their kids on holidays. these kids, meanwhile, misbehave at every dinner and mouth off and wipe their dirty little hands over peoples' good clothing.
back in my day (oh christ here we go), we were not allowed to get away without saying "Please" or "thank you". we were in shit if we didnt address people correctly, as in saying "mrs. smith" instead of calling her by her given name. if we happened to err, we were given stern lectures about addressing people with either mrs. or mr. and nothing less. that might explain why sometimes i hesitate in calling someone by their name when i'm talking to them. who knows.
i think my niece and nephew are definitely manners challenged and sadly, there is no one in the family to help in that matter either. my sil seems to think that without her mom there (their grandma), the kids would be lost. i disagree heartily, but never said anything to the sil. see, in this family you dont dare speak out against the matri and patriarchs without rebuttal from their #1 defender. so she was going on about how grandma is the onlyyyyyyyyyy one who will teach the kids any manners and yammering on about it and all i could think about was when we were on our holiday last year and how grandma turned a fucking blind eye to those kids and their behaviour during every dinner on the seven night cruise. not once did she ever speak out or chide the kids, she just continued to ignore them while she slurped her soup.
if those kids had been my sister and i with our parents and grandparents, we'd have been in tears god damned every night. we'd be sitting up straight and focussed straight ahead, lest we get a pinch on the knuckles (gee thanks, dad, for that little gem) or a stern lecture with forced teary apology afterwards from our mother. our grandmother? well you never wanted to dissapoint her, so you were always making sure you were on your best behaviour with her because it was never good to be in her shadow and upset her.
but there the niece and nephew were this past xmas eve day saying, "grandma, i want more strawberry milk" and grandma would get up from inhaling her ham lunch and go and make strawberry milk. you can tell she thinks it's cuuuuuute that the kids want things from her (i swear there are fruedian issues at play here that manifest in present day situations). you'd never hear her say the words my grandma would utter: "what do you say? please AND thank you?" never. nor would you ever hear a lecture coming from her about how it wasnt genteel to drink directly out of the glass.
if my sil says that her mother is the queen of manners, she is dead wrong. bitch is an amateur.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
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i have a thing about manners; specifically ill mannered people. a simple "please" or "thank you" is all it takes to make me happy, but in these days it seems that it's a lost art. it's not pressed upon the current generation to be kind of thoughtful, or even express thanks.
case in point are my niece and nephew. their parents are a couple of boors who expect us to babysit their kids on holidays. these kids, meanwhile, misbehave at every dinner and mouth off and wipe their dirty little hands over peoples' good clothing.
back in my day (oh christ here we go), we were not allowed to get away without saying "Please" or "thank you". we were in shit if we didnt address people correctly, as in saying "mrs. smith" instead of calling her by her given name. if we happened to err, we were given stern lectures about addressing people with either mrs. or mr. and nothing less. that might explain why sometimes i hesitate in calling someone by their name when i'm talking to them. who knows.
i think my niece and nephew are definitely manners challenged and sadly, there is no one in the family to help in that matter either. my sil seems to think that without her mom there (their grandma), the kids would be lost. i disagree heartily, but never said anything to the sil. see, in this family you dont dare speak out against the matri and patriarchs without rebuttal from their #1 defender. so she was going on about how grandma is the onlyyyyyyyyyy one who will teach the kids any manners and yammering on about it and all i could think about was when we were on our holiday last year and how grandma turned a fucking blind eye to those kids and their behaviour during every dinner on the seven night cruise. not once did she ever speak out or chide the kids, she just continued to ignore them while she slurped her soup.
if those kids had been my sister and i with our parents and grandparents, we'd have been in tears god damned every night. we'd be sitting up straight and focussed straight ahead, lest we get a pinch on the knuckles (gee thanks, dad, for that little gem) or a stern lecture with forced teary apology afterwards from our mother. our grandmother? well you never wanted to dissapoint her, so you were always making sure you were on your best behaviour with her because it was never good to be in her shadow and upset her.
but there the niece and nephew were this past xmas eve day saying, "grandma, i want more strawberry milk" and grandma would get up from inhaling her ham lunch and go and make strawberry milk. you can tell she thinks it's cuuuuuute that the kids want things from her (i swear there are fruedian issues at play here that manifest in present day situations). you'd never hear her say the words my grandma would utter: "what do you say? please AND thank you?" never. nor would you ever hear a lecture coming from her about how it wasnt genteel to drink directly out of the glass.
if my sil says that her mother is the queen of manners, she is dead wrong. bitch is an amateur.
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