To The Manner Born

“The hardest job for kids today is having good manners without seeing any”.
Fred Astaire

Is it just me, or are we totally losing the plot with how we agree, or allow ourselves, to be treated these days? What’s happening to us? Why are we constantly being abused or mistreated, and seemingly at every turn.
When we encounter poor behaviour towards us generally, it is bad enough, yet how about if we are paying for something and don’t get the expected service we should? I believe I am a reasonably affable fellow, yet notice that I am becoming increasingly intolerant and wound up by the treatment I am receiving from others, often perfect strangers, for apparently no reason whatsoever… and often I am effectively paying for this mistreatment.
It wasn’t that long ago when manners were ‘indoctrinated’ into you at a young age. It seemed that children in my generation had special places on their body where manners were physically implanted by an able and willing parent. Manners seem to be conceptual, but I learned fairly quickly that they entered and left my body through the back and top of my head. This must be true, because every time I forgot them, my parents would smack the back of my head in an effort to put them back where they had escaped from.
Manners in today’s day and age are being allowed to slip and because children can’t be physically reminded of their wrong doings by parents any more, manners have escaped from children, and thus physically can’t be replaced though the bodily part from where they broke free.


In my forties now, and with hereditary pattern baldness lurking at the top and rear of my head, it would seem that in my family at least, manners made a break for it from there. Perhaps all that constant replacement therapy administered from my parents put the manners back and simultaneously gave me hereditary hair loss to emerge in my later years. In hindsight, I would have preferred not to lose my hair because my manners were trying to escape. Little buggers. Why couldn’t they have made a break for it from my backside or from the back of my legs, like they did with other kids?
It seems that whenever we venture out into the world these days, we are experiencing the aftermath of manners having successfully made a break for it. There’s so much going on in our worlds these days, we can’t be expected to know everything, yet the extension of a little courtesy and good manners takes little time and costs nothing. Yet these seemingly minor behavioural patterns, values perhaps, maybe even ‘ways of working’ seem all but lost on the majority, which I feel is rather sad and society as a whole is losing out.
A simple task like shopping can be full of trials and tribulations. Were we to receive just a little consideration as consumers, and be plied with good manners, how different an experience might it become?
First of all, we have to find a place to park the car. Why is it that this simple process is made so difficult for us? If we are going shopping, we usually visit a mall or complex of some time. How aptly these are named. By the time you actually find a bloody parking space you feel like you have been mauled and the process of simply being able to park your car is decidedly complex for sure! Of course, we usually could have been able to park earlier than we eventually manage to, were it not for some completely selfish bastards who believe the best way of protecting their cars from impact from other people’s car doors is to occupy two spaces.


You know the type, don’t you?
The kind of person who can’t possible manoeuvre his car between two lines and has to use the middle line from two spaces to line up with the centre of his bonnet. And even then half the time the car is parked angularly. Thanks for the consideration pal.
I want to know where you can buy those little adjustable spring firing guns that chiropractors use. The ones where they fire a rubber ended knuckle-like device into your back in order to manipulate your vertebrae. That would be great to put dents in these people’s cars and with extreme accuracy. See if they continue to take up two spaces when dents have been put in their car doors in a pattern that says “I know I have two parking spaces, but I can’t help being a selfish prick”.
Anyway, you end up driving round and around the car park looking for spaces, and trying to find someone who is actually leaving their space.
You can’t do that near to the mall entrance though, because in every aisle there are cars with hazard lights flashing, awaiting some shopper in that parking aisle to leave. If you drive anywhere near these people you can see their windscreen instantly start to fog over from their heavy breathing.
If you dare to stop anywhere near them, or really slow down even, then their windows go down in a microsecond in order to allow for a barrage of verbal abuse. “I was here first mate”, except they tend to use somewhat more colourful expressions to get their point across.
What is wrong with these people?
You’d think it was bloody Dunkirk ‘this is my aisle and I will protect it at all costs’.



Then when you finally manage to park your car, which is in a convenient place around 700 metres away from the nearest mall entrance, you need to find a Pay and Display vending machine so you can put some pox ridden sticker inside your car, alerting any would be thief to the fact that your car will be unattended for at least the period of time on the ticket. Plus, conveniently, to get back to your car with heavy shopping, you’re probably going to have to take a bus at best or maybe even take a train.
Brilliant!
Upon parking, your car is effectively a bright neon sign saying “come and smash my windows and thoroughly pillage my car, anytime during the next 90 minutes or how ever long has been prepaid for… I won’t be back until then; honestly… that’s why I prepaid for 90 minutes”.
Who invents a parking system that actually tells thieves what their window of opportunity is? What are you supposed to do to combat this and convince would be thieves that your car isn’t unattended? Put internal lights within the car on a timer switch? Put lace curtains inside your car and hire Macaulay Culkin to dance around inside whilst strategically wielding cardboard passenger cut outs?
Then, of course, there’s the fact that the nearest Pay and Display vending machine is slightly closer than the south of France, but unfortunately that machine, after you have finally reached it, and had your shoes re-heeled twice en route, is out of order. The next nearest machine is probably in the south of France.
By the time you get back to your car resplendent with a prepaid parking ticket, two cases of wine, three bottles of champagne 1000 duty free cigarettes, and a French accent, it could be on bricks and every mortal piece of engineering could have been removed, inserted into another car, and THAT car could have already qualified for, and successfully passed, a statutory MOT test.


Why can’t mall owners accurately work out how many parking places they will actually need?
And why can’t they work out that most people don’t want to walk hundreds of metres just to get into the mall. If they did, they wouldn’t have driven there in the first place, would they?
Surely they have some idea how successful they plan to be and what the traffic / parking requirements might be at peak times?
The malls are full of people undertaking market research as to how often you make love, how many lovers you have, how often you buy replacement batteries for your love toys, are your pets actively involved, etc. etc. Surely someone can work out the most popular times that people go shopping and how many people arrive via their own, or alternative methods of transport? How hard is this to research?
Knowing whether shoppers make love regularly or not, and whether animals are involved, may well tell mall owners if it’s worthwhile rerunning Deliverance at the cinema, but at the end of the day no one will watch the movie if they can’t get into the mall. And arriving at the mall three hours before the movie would start anyway, to cater for the walk from your car, isn’t that appealing, is it? It’s enough to make you squeal like a pig
(♫ Banjo : deee de ling ting ling ting ling ting ding♫ ).
Why are consumers, who effectively pay the salaries of these mall owners, treated so badly? It’s just plain bad manners if you ask me.
Industrial engineering is deployed extensively inside the shopping mall itself, because that is revenue producing. But providing for people who actually have processes to battle first, in order to be getting inside and be able to give these bastards money? Forget it. Anyone would think that shopping is designed to be an outright chore – you wouldn’t want to make it a pleasurable experience, would you?


Especially if you effectively think…
‘Shoppers are the dumbest people alive anyway, so let’s spend all our time and effort creating ways for these jerks to part with their money when they are stupid enough to finally find their way in”…
“by the time they get inside they’ll be so stressed out they’ll load up their credit cards with retail therapy – lovely jubbly… they’ll be gagging for it”.
When you finally do get to the entrance door to the mall, then perhaps you might think that the stress level will lessen and you can begin to relax a little. Yeah right.
What happened to that previously subscribed to custom, involving doors? You know what I mean, the one where if you go through a door, and someone is directly behind you, then it is polite to hold the door for them until such times that they can keep it open for themselves, or hold it until they are through the door completely should they be female, elderly or have both hands loaded down with shopping.
Where did this practice go? Its simply decent manners, isn’t it? Why do people not do this anymore?
These days you are more likely to find the door swinging back into your face, and that’s such great fun to have to deal with, isn’t it. Even age old road safety advertisements stressed that if a moving body is going in one direction, and hits another moving body in the opposite direction, then effectively you end up hitting a stationery object at least with the sum of the two speeds. This isn’t a new concept.
Mall doors are no different. You are walking briskly and are hit by a fully sprung, heavy, and potentially maiming door. Another reason to go to the chiropractors for help, I guess.



Anyway, you pick yourself off the floor, brush yourself down, and check you haven’t lost any teeth or broken any ribs. And do the people who let the door close apologise?
When you utter your dissatisfaction towards them, don’t they always appear in a state of complete shock? They look flummoxed at best, and more often than not wear a totally gormless expression. They often genuinely cannot comprehend what you are complaining about, because that element of their manners successfully made a break for it, long ago most probably (and they perhaps don’t have pattern baldness from manners replacement either).
I think you owe it to them to help them understand what has happened, and thereafter to help their manners re-enter their system. It would be rude not to, when you think about it, and you would simply be behaving responsibly for the good of society as a whole. I conclude that it would be prudent to smack them around the back of the head and reprogram their manners – it worked for me. For better effect, assume they only respond to rote learning technology… so smack them over and over again.
Once you enter the mall, different challenges become evident, as soon as other people are further encountered.
I remember well in school that we were always taught to walk on one side of a corridor. That way, people can pass easily and you don’t end up getting bumped into every 5 metres. This isn’t difficult to do, and you end up avoiding hitting, hurting or disturbing other people; this avoidance is plainly good manners.
Again manners in this context have gone AWOL it seems. Walking through shopping malls or arcades these days takes me back to the Monty Python sketch “Upper Class Twits of the Year”, whereby a group of morons undertook a hilarious race, ‘the one hundred metre dash for people with no sense of direction’.


Unfortunately, this reflection is less amusing these days, because you ill-fatedly find yourself involved in this race for real, the contestants are oblivious to the race itself and any associated rules, and John Cleese & Co aren’t around to make merry.
Why do people find it so damned difficult to walk purposefully in a straight line? Isn’t it just plain good manners to prevent oneself from knocking into other people or completely blocking their way? It doesn’t matter what country you live in, it’s a truism that traffic is supposed to be limited to one side of the road. Why can’t people just bear that in mind when walking through malls? Or anywhere else for that matter? It isn’t hard is it?
Not only do we have people with no apparent sense of direction inhabiting malls, but we also have the self afflicted variety too. They are the Typically Walking Adjacent To Sight people, or as I fondly now term them,
‘T.W.A.T.S’.
You have all seen these people. They are affected by a malaise whereby their chins seem to have been affixed at birth to their left or right shoulder, and so they walk purposefully in one direction, whilst their head, and thus line of vision, is 90 degrees off from this… usually in the direction of shop windows.
Have you ever watched pro basketball from the US, the NBA games?
If you have, you will have noticed a new ‘high 5’ type gesture that players uses to congratulate each other. It involves jumping towards each other, with your back arched, so that your barrelled chests strike each other, whilst both celebrators are in mid air. This behaviour, to me at least, used to look completely ridiculous and perhaps a wee bit too perverse from some perspectives.



However, this act of gratitude and congratulation, however odd it may seem, now can be effectively used in UK shopping malls to great effect.
Simply congratulate the TWATS walking towards you in this NBA method… because incredibly, this gesture serves many purposes all at once.
Firstly it restores lucidity to the TWATS, as almost immediately they are awakened from cognitive slumber.
Secondly it seems to restore the TWATS’ head to its natural position, without surgery.
And thirdly, maybe the manners are being reinstalled, if you congratulate them hard enough, of course.
Typically the TWATS can walk properly after this gesture, at least for a while, and manners have been repatriated.
I haven’t tried the NBA tactic yet, but I have had people walk towards me whilst looking elsewhere, on an all too regular basis. The first time someone does that whilst I am out shopping, I typically let it go by the by and utter a suitable comment. But if I repeatedly experience this, I soon tire of people’s lack of consideration. Usually I just stand still, and brace myself for impact. They bang into you, are totally dazed, and then have the temerity to tell ME to watch where I am going. I typically don’t argue further, as I am a pretty big guy and they usually utter their dissatisfaction from a seated position in any event.
My partner is Singaporean, much slighter than me, though through a lot of gym activity is very solidly built. She has no more patience for these TWATS than I do. She doesn’t have the ability to just let people bounce off her, so she chooses to accelerate into them instead. She has mastered the manoeuvre that police use in high speed chases to just clip the person, yet totally spin them around.


I often wonder if much of this rudeness, and lack of manners, is owing to people nowadays just ignoring the fact that anyone else even exits. It appears so, at least to me.
When we actually enter stores in the malls, we are faced with challenges anew. Most stores have an array of items for sale, and the various items are largely categorised to make shopper’s lives easier, in theory.
Different generic categories of items are usually found together, departmentalised, hence the term ‘department store’. As a result, if you want to buy audio visual equipment for example, you can just look for the AV department. This is pretty simple, huh? Logical? If only it was.
When you reach the AV department, a virtual swarm of employees can be found. Their behaviour can be predicted with incredible accuracy, in the main.
Firstly you are pounced upon by the first species in our shopping experience, the ‘Coiled Spring’ salesperson.
This person will bear down on you, mid stride, as soon as you enter the department he is attached to, with the speed and enthusiasm of a cheetah that’s just finished detoxing and has realised you may be ‘out for lunch’
“good a.m. sir – how can I help you today?”
This always seems like the most pointless question because it’s so generic, and I actually was walking towards the equipment I am interested in, (I can see them, after all), before he stopped me to ask me what I already know explicitly.
If I needed help, wouldn’t I ask for it? And you ask me this to make sure the sale is placed through your commission account? How nice. How considerate.




Don’t you think this is kind of rude? Where did the manners go? Where’s the foreplay? I prefer to get kissed before I get screwed… give me a chance to draw breath for Christ’s sake.
“Why thank you for your offer of assistance. Actually, I don’t need much help to be honest. Can you get me the winning lottery numbers for the next drawing and for amusement in the interim, a female voluptuous, gorgeous, 20 something beauty pageant winner who just happens to be a nymphomaniac, totally sexually adventurous and superlatively skilled, being one of a batch of quadruplets, all of whom are like minded, like skilled, like attractiveness, yet prepared to pay me handsomely for stud fees, and who always do absolutely everything as a foursome.”
Whilst the ‘Coiled Spring’ salesperson is reeling from your verbal salvo, (and possibly trying to fathom if he can get hold of winning numbers and hot blooded quads, to guarantee his commission), you inevitably meet the second species of salesperson in the department, who is attached to the specific product lines you are interested in.
This individual has singularly managed to lose his American version of that famed board game where Professor Plum did it, in the library, with the candlestick.
This is the ‘Clue less’ species of salesperson.
You can ask any question regarding the piece of equipment you are interested in, and the response is singularly predictable – ‘let me get the brochure’. Whether you are actively experiencing the equipment doesn’t matter either.
I find I just have to ask them ridiculous questions to see them totally bewildered…
“So how do you actually spell Matsushita Electric Company?” “Err… I’ll just check that”



“Can you get these new LCD lamp projection TV’s with different coloured screens to match your decoration when it’s switched off?
“Err… I’ll just check that”
“Does the remote control come in an array of colours and floral patterns?”
“Err… I’ll just check that”
“I have a fish tank… is this TV guaranteed waterproof?”
“Err… I’ll just check that”
“Your display TV is actually mounted onto the wall… is the wall included in the sales price?”
“Err… I’ll just check that”
Doesn’t this ‘Clue less’ attitude just drive you nuts? Why not reduce the sales price by saving on the sales person’s salary? Skip the guy and place pallet loads of brochures in the store instead.
Same result methinks.
I find that this approach is totally aggravating and pretty rude in most cases, because the person who has been hired to provide assistance to me has the cognition of a microbe and the charisma of a potted plant… and the implication is that I will appreciate help from someone like this, that they are capable of adding value. What does that make me then?
Why is it not possible to have store personnel know the details about the products they are selling? Isn’t it their job to ask consumers pertinent questions, as part of a structured needs evolution process, and then make appropriate recommendations, with references to upsides and downsides of various items or pieces of equipment, that effectively provides for a weighted and informed consumer choice to be made?


‘Sales person Clue less’’ and his clones are everywhere and whenever I encounter them, again I feel as if I am being treated like a subspecies that has a shade between my ears other than grey.
Effectively I am being abused, being treated rudely, and again this is a case of pure bad manners.
Not all sales people have this innate need to run for a brochure though. The third species of salesperson is equally present in stores worldwide.
This is the species of sales person that I call the ‘A.R.S.E’.
The ‘A.R.S.E’ sales person has this incredible ability to create an unbelievably sophisticated labyrinth of nonsense that to the ill informed consumer might just become credible.
Why ‘A.R.S.E.’ I hear you ask?
Well, these sales people are so full of shit, hence Anally Retentive Spiel Expected. We have all encountered these sales people, they shoot from the hip and have imaginations the depth and breadth of which might suit them well if they chose to embrace fictional writing.
They do, however, have this belief system that consumers are basically the most cognitively challenged section of the human race, and can be convinced of virtually anything as consumers have either been lobotomised during infancy or their parents legally signed away all potential for critical thinking and analysis at birth.
“AH, the xyz TV sir. I saw you eyeing that baby, and what a wise choice that is sir. It kind of draws you to it, doesn’t it sir?”
“Hmm… are these TV’s totally cable ready?”
“Why Sir, this TV is the flagship TV of the millennium. This TV is more receptive than the Swiss at a peace convention Sir…


… It is HD, has its screen images produced by LCD, it’s so clear that if you watch a little porn Sir, you might catch an STD. Compatible with VCD DVD and the guy who delivers it has got an HGV. It can handle wide screen, full screen, half screen, split screen, and all you need is the ice cream.”
“But does it come in a larger screen than 21 inches?”
OOPS!
Whenever I encounter the ‘A.R.S.E’ salesperson, I tend to mimic being in the presence of the most malodorous concoction known to man, once the spiel has been delivered in its full splendour. I start sniffing uncontrollably
“what is that smell? It’s familiar, but I just can’t place it”
“I am sure I don’t know sir, even this TV isn’t aroma ready”
“Hmm.. is it pork?” Sniff, Sniff. “It’s not chicken is it?” Sniff, Sniff. “It’s not sheep.. AH – I have it, I know what it is!”
“Sir?”
“It’s bullshit, plain and simple”.
I find there’s nothing more bad mannered than having a consummate idiot assuming I am also an idiot… at the very least, please give me the credit for being a complete idiot… at times I have mastery in this regard that has been subtly crafted and honed over my lifetime.
The fourth type of salesperson is probably someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact pretty much any place in the store is the wrong place, and any time would seem to be the wrong time. From my perspective it strikes me that department stores may well be reasonably big, but they aren’t that big are they? How is it that assistants behave singularly rudely in the way they respond to the simple question “can you tell me where I can find XYZ in this store, please?”


Invariably the look you then have cast your way is total and complete befuddlement at best and expressive opaqueness at worst. The kind of person who, if they called you on the telephone, you would be convinced you could hear the sea on the other end upon answering. Here enter the fourth species of sales person, the ‘Sex Pistol’.
Why ‘Sex Pistol’ you may ask? Well, their attitude is sufficiently rude through disinterest to incite “Anarchy in the UK” as far as I am concerned, and their demeanour can only be translated as “Pretty Vacant”.
I mean, they work in the bloody shop, don’t they? How big can one department store be?
How can you not know where other departments are? There are even small clues as to where departments are, provided by bloody signs. It isn’t reasonable to expect consumers to know where these signs or directories are, and all I know is that you can never find one when I need one… they seem to be hidden.
It’s as if the store planners sent people out with limited instructions to come back with GPS references to determine where these directories should be, purely at random… a great approach for Easter Egg Hunts, though less appropriate when mapping suitable locations for store directories. Ordinarily, the only way you come across them is by pure chance when you don’t need them, because you are browsing fairly aimlessly.
In fact, in many department stores, their interest in making consumers lives easier is so misguided that I am surprised they don’t hand out mapped directories, to help you find the store directories.
Try approaching a typical ‘Sex Pistol’ sales person and ask the question
“excuse me, can you tell me where XYZ in the store is please”.


This question is invariably answered with total predictability…
“sorry I am new here” ( at this point I find it best to try and dismiss the manager title on the lapel badge), or
“It’s not my department”.
I enjoy taking the Mickey out of people who behave this way, and on occasion have taken the opportunity to go visit the ‘Sex Pistol’ again…
“good morning. Sorry to trouble you, but I thought I should tell you that a 6 foot 5 inch middle eastern guy attached to a portable dialysis machine and wearing an ‘Al Qaeda Rocks’ T shirt just abandoned a crate that is stencilled with the words ‘weapon of mass destruction’ in the toy section”
“Oh, ok then, but it’s not my department” or
“good afternoon, I don’t know if it’s ok, but there is a couple on a bed in the furniture section, totally naked, with the Karma Sutra open beside them, and writhing with incredible dexterity and speed. They are making booming guttural sounds that appear to be frightening young children in that department. Worse still, the man’s backside is awfully spotty. Is this some sort of yoga exhibition that goes on most Wednesday afternoons?”
“I don’t know… I am new here”.
Why can’t these people say what’s really on their mind? Why not admit that they hate this job and at work have lost the will to function beyond basic life support levels? Better still; maybe hire people that genuinely like helping people?
When you experience this abject disinterest, it is purely bad manners again.
I live in Asia these days, and have done for some time. The retail experience here isn’t any better, that’s for sure.



When I first moved to the Philippines, I recognised fairly quickly that the road quality was less than great. In fact, I pondered long and hard for the first few days why people would actually dig up a highway and plant potatoes in it… it certainly seemed as if someone had.
Anyway, it seemed to be obvious that an ordinary saloon car wasn’t cut out for these roads and that an off road four wheel drive number might be more appropriate. In one car showroom I was looking at a behemoth of a vehicle and a salesperson approached fairly quickly.
I wasn’t sure if this was a ‘coiled spring’, a ‘clue less’, an ‘A.R.S.E’ or a ‘Sex Pistol’ at first.
I started to ask questions and for some inexplicable reason this salesperson appeared to have spent way too much time watching Yes Minister. Every question I asked was answered with a question of his own, and that question of his own was singularly oriented to the fact that the model now had a promotional giveaway… a DVD player and TV screens inbuilt within the car.
Predictably I got tired of his evasiveness and being directionalised so amateurishly so I had to do something – at the very least I needed to know if he was one of my usual four categories of annoying salesperson, or had I found a fifth?..
“This DVD entertainment system really looks fantastic. Are you sure this is included…At no extra charge?”
“None Sir”
“Wow – the kids will totally love this – what a fabulous deal”
“Yes Sir”
“Tell me, can you get cable on this in-car system?’
“Err – I’ll just go and check sir”



AHA, the ‘Clue less’ salesperson, after all… that would have to be a hell of a lot of cable, after all… and who would wind it back up again when you get home? It was probably best to go and check.
I recall very well seeing one of the most amusing handcrafted signs whilst in Hong Kong in the early 90’s. At that time, there was, and still is, I believe, a reasonably well known clothing brand name called Hang Ten. I entered one of many Japanese department stores at that time and noticed that clothes were on sale, so I thought I would take a look. When I got off the escalator, I was greeted by a huge stencilled sign, with no logos, that read
“Hang Ten Kids – Less 30%”.
I pretty much wet myself as I had visions of crazed mid sale shoppers kidnapping kids and lynching them at checkouts to avail of an additional 30% discount.
“How are you doing?”
“Oh, I only have managed nine so far… see you in a minute – keep my place in the queue”.
Cut to images of private school principals launching themselves off tall buildings in lieu of school closures through lack of attendance. I mean, how can you not notice the implications? Hilarious.
But talking about queues - where did manners go to when the concept of queuing is concerned? It seems to me that when it comes to queuing, manners haven’t just escaped, they have firmly migrated on an inter-planetary scale. It’s bad enough in the UK, but here in Asia, and the Philippines for sure, the very understanding of the queuing concept is lost.
The only queue you will find that’s respected here happens to belong to Effren Reyes or Francisco Bustamante – two of the best pool players in the world.


And even pool here is called billiards, which it isn’t of course, as billiards is a totally different game, so CUE the dictionary, I guess… if they get the names of one of the nation’s favourite pastimes wrong, what chance have they got getting a word like queue right?
Compared to the average Asian, a six foot three 200lb Caucasian can hardly be seen as inconspicuous. Yet here I regularly am, queuing for this and that, and people just walk right in front of me as if I just wasn’t there.
This isn’t just an Asian phenomenon either – it happens commonly in the UK too.
This is shockingly bad manners and it effectively is a statement that someone else’s time is more valuable than yours, in its essence.
I get extremely angry by someone jumping the queue on me and retort the same way every time…
“excuse me, do you speak English?”
Bewildered looks. “Yes”
“Ah, good… then it’s reasonable to assume you studied the alphabet at school I guess?”
More bewilderment. “yes”
“Excellent. So you are aware that the last letter of the alphabet isn’t ‘P’ and the ‘P’ is followed by ‘Q’. It’s spelt q-u-e-u-e for your information and the back of it is in that direction. I was here before you – so goodbye, and get lost”.
I have never yet had this little retort not work and I find its best delivered at a loud volume.
Adults are losing the plot when it comes to manners. This isn’t good in itself, but the future generations are already being very poorly educated in elements of manners and etiquette.



The way parents are seemingly abdicating responsibility for their children’s manners these days causes me to regularly become perplexed. Far more frequently, modern families are eating out in restaurants of all kinds.
Why can’t parents teach kids that there isn’t any difference, on any level, between a home dining room and a restaurant? Why can’t parents teach their kids that there is a difference between a restaurant and a playground?
Moreover, why should different rules apply to how one behaves at home or in a restaurant? Aren’t they both places where, in the company of others, food is consumed? Shouldn’t etiquette apply whether you are dining at home or outside? Manners aren’t to be applied dependent upon location, are they? Yet it appears that there is no discipline whatsoever being installed with regards to dining habits.
I watch how kids behave in situations like this and cringe. Half the time it seems that modern children cannot sit facing the table, their food, and those with whom they are dining. This should seem like a relatively normal approach to eating, but in real terms, is it really normal nowadays?
I see kids sitting at bizarre angles relative to the table with their food on it. The reason for this I can only estimate as where, in their house, the TV is located relative to their dining table.
This is learned behaviour, rehearsed on a daily basis, and thus kids grow up practicing that their torso has to be at an angle to the dinner table, they make all reasonable attempts to eat with only one piece of cutlery (how American), and put food in only one side of your mouth without moving their head and gaze… all this to allow for uninterrupted viewing at home. Kids don’t rationalise that they actually aren’t at home and there isn’t a TV in the same place as usual, except in restaurants where there is a TV… then they change the angle they sit at accordingly.


I also notice that for many kids, you know what they have ordered just by looking at them.
If you can’t tell by looking at their shirts to review spillages, then a glance towards them whilst they are chewing tells all. I don’t recall being a kid and depositing a good proportion of a meal down my shirt. Maybe because I was facing my food and sitting properly when I ate and, just maybe, because consequences would have been brought to bear by my father that I would have preferred to avoid. Had I chewed in a restaurant with my mouth open, I think my dad would have half killed me.
In addition, when kids have finished eating, then it seems to me that parents believe their kids’ digestion system is either weak, or malfunctioning. My parents always made sure I waited ‘for my food to go down’ before any form of activity was allowed. If I left my seat in a restaurant, other than to go to the loo, my dad would provide a response which most likely would cause me to move… probably in the direction of his hand after I had been hit with it.
Many modern parents oppositely believe that peristalsis doesn’t work automatically for their kids, and so it needs help to get going and send the consumed food to the stomach.
This must be true; otherwise why else would you allow your kids to finish eating and then run amok all over the place?
For the life of me I cannot comprehend this. At home kids get bored so easily, yet in a restaurant with nothing to amuse them whatsoever, they run riot. Is this atmospheric? Perhaps it’s a gustatory response of some kind?
Etiquette seems to be lacking when kids today are being educated, and there are so many instances.
Take conversation for example. My parents were extremely clear about how I should behave ‘when the grown ups are talking’.


My dad was very explicit… interrupt me when I am talking to an adult, and the ensuing events will result in premature death.
I was absolutely clear about this. If my dad was talking to some adult or other, our house could have been ablaze behind him and I wouldn’t have dared to even have commented.
Kids nowadays just feel they can interject during adult conversation at any time, and without even as much as an ‘excuse me’ at all. Additionally, modern kids assume that adults will yield to their interruption in an instant – as if we will be glad that a boring conversation is being made more interesting by their inevitable subject change.
My father’s favourite comment in this area was
“Children do not speak until they are spoken to”.
I found this hard to deal with and understand, as apart from school, it seemed I had almost no right to speak to anyone. On the other hand he spoke to everyone, which confused matters further. He’d be in the most innocuous of places and situations, and he would break his neck to start a conversation with most anyone.
I’d be at his side wondering why only adults were allowed to have conversations. As an infant school attendee I figured I’d be able to speak to adults when I reached 18 or so.
This is a bit extreme to say the least, but children should know when to keep quiet and when they can participate in conversation. You never know, it might just save your house from burning down.