Topic: Modern parents have discovered table manners & the NYT is on it!

[Pandora]

One of my favorite things about reading the New York Times and other liberal publications is how they frequently present age-old ideas we’ve all known about for centuries as new trends.

Now, the NYT presents the brave new world of…teaching your children table manners. I can’t decide if it’s encouraging that parents actually want to do this or depressing that they’ve just discovered it might be a good idea and are now outsourcing it because they’re too wimpy to do it on their own. An account from a San Francisco restaurant:

For parents who choose to outsource, there are "Etiquette Classes".

[LadyVirginia]

He recalled one child who wouldn’t settle down, and he threatened to tape the child’s mouth. The child told him to go ahead and try.
 
“I went to my office, got some blue painter’s tape, came back and ripped a piece off,” he said. The kid piped down. “The parents looked at me like, ‘We’re going to try that at home.’ ”

I seem to recall a teacher getting fired for taping an unruly child's mouth shut a few years back.

We were at church a few weeks back and the toddler was misbehaving and wouldn't settle.  the mother desperately tried everything to get him to quiet EXCEPT take him out. That would have inconvenienced her.

I think parents aren't teaching manners for a number of reasons.  They don't know the rules of good manners themselves, they didn't think they really need to teach them because all that's important is being nice (same reason you don't need religion any more) or it's too much trouble to be that kind of parent.

When you're with your kids enough teaching manners comes easily.  Sitting around the table together every night means no one wants to put up with messy, unruly kids every time.  Plus from the earliest age the kids see a proper example from their parents. I never had to really teach my kids how to sit at a table because they saw it from the beginning.  I have taught them things like which side of the plate a fork is placed, etc. 

When my oldest two kids were preschoolers I did put them in an etiquette class.  The kids in the class were darling.  The boys and girls were young enough that they put their hearts into trying to be proper.  The funniest day was the last day when families were invited to watch them show all they'd learned.  They were to introduce properly their family members to the teacher.  My oldest went to introduce her grandmother and froze after she said "Mrs.".  She didn't know my mom's last name.  LOL   She only knew her as "grandma".

“Say the words ‘manners’ or ‘etiquette’ to kids these days, and they run the other direction,” she said. She prefers teaching the children that they are “building the brand called ‘you.’"

YES! Let's teach the kids that it's all about them. 

[Pandora]

When my sister's boys were small, she'd feed them early at their little kid's table or let them eat in front of the TV; she and the BIL would eat together when he got home.

Since she didn't sit with them while they ate, they did what they pleased, as kids will do when they are taught no different.

But, THEN, when we all went out for dinner together, she'd instruct them as to napkin on lap, etc.  Or try.

The oldest is 22 now and he doesn't like to eat in front of other people.

Both my sister and SIL used to just plop food on the high-chair trays for their kids and let them eat with their hands instead of using a plate and teaching them how to use utensils.  Drove my mother insane.

[Alphabet Soup]

Leftists typically have the attention span of a fruit fly so everything is new to them - well, except for their prejudices which they wear on their sleeves so they never forget.

[LadyVirginia]

Both my sister and SIL used to just plop food on the high-chair trays for their kids and let them eat with their hands instead of using a plate and teaching them how to use utensils.  Drove my mother insane.

I don't get that.  My kids had plates, bowls and age appropriate utensils.  And no sippy cups! 

[IronDioPriest]

When I was in grade school we had a unit (in social studies, IIRC) on Amy Vanderbilt's Rules of Etiquette. We all thought is was uncool and old fashioned, but some of it sunk in - at least in me. Can't speak for anybody else I s'pose, but if I had to guess, I would say that being exposed vs not being exposed produced more kids with better etiquette.

It's the parents' role for sure, but areas like this are the types of "socialization" skills that I would find acceptable in taxpayer funded schools. Queer safe-rooms and free clinics, no.

[Libertas]

My rule of etiquette growing up consisted of my fathers hand or my mother saying "wait until your father gets home".

Proper table manners and full details of ones daily activities were mandatory and the TV was turned off at meal time no matter what, if you missed a program in those days you could wait a long time to see a re-run.

.