Last week I opened up the paper and started reading. Normally it is a grim experience as so many stories are about war, death, murder, over taxing the poor population and the like, but this time, what I read made me angry. Very angry. I read about a lady who has made a living from going into preschools, kindergartens and primary schools teaching children something. She teaches them manners. The article quite simply stated that her biggest lesson is the art of saying please and thank you. And what is more, the children are awarded for a medal at the end of the two-month, once a week “course”. Now please don’t get me wrong, I think this lady is wonderful for valuing something that has been so important to generations before and I am all for entrepreneurs – if a market could exist then by all means dive in there. But, I have a huge problem with the fact that children these days need someone else to come into their lives and teach them the basics of human, social interaction. Why are parents everywhere palming the responsibility off to someone else? Children shouldn’t be rewarded with a medal for learning such a basic part of our social customs. Manners are something that I personally believe every single parent out there has an obligation to teach their own children. Not an obligation to themselves, but an obligation to the rest of society. Even though I was incredibly disgruntled at this point, I continued reading. What I read next made me even more disappointed: this woman was providing checklists for parents to take home and help them to teach manners in the home. At what point did we stop teaching the younger generations about manners and etiquette? Because if the parents of these children need teaching too, we’ve clearly been doing things wrong for a long time. In our generation knowing the words please and thank you was as basic as knowing your own name. I can remember we would get in trouble if we didn’t call people by name or look them in the eye, but we certainly weren’t rewarded when we did do those things. Why? Because it wasn’t considered a “special skill” or something that set us apart from the rest – it was something that was as basic, common and expected as beans on toast. It was the children who didn’t use their manners that people would talk about… Not the ones that did. Last year I was dropping my grandkids to school, as my daughter was away on a work trip, when a parent came up to me. She was gushing about how well-mannered young Jack (age 5) was because he said, “Thank you, Mrs Anderson” when she gave him a chocolate chip cookie for afternoon tea. While I am proud that Jack knows what to say, I was blown away that to this lady, who was quite lovely, this was an extraordinary occurrence. Growing up, our social interactions only occurred face-to-face. We were lucky if we got any phone time unless it was a very important call; we learned these basic rules. Today, kids and their parents spend so much time emailing, texting and Facebook chatting that those basics have been forgotten as they just simply aren’t used anymore. Because of this, I have made the decision that I won’t ever compliment or gush about my grandchildren and their good manners, learned from their parents. Why? Because then I would be diving into the culture where manners are an extraordinary occurrence that should be praised instead of a baseline for how we should act socially. You may call me harsh, but I will never allow myself to become someone who doesn’t believe manners should be a basic part of every single day social interaction. How do you feel about the lack of manners in society today? Should parents be taking more responsibility for how they bring up their children? Are you passing the jobs that really matter on to other people? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below…
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 06:36:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015