Daily musings.am I Old School?
Manners are NOT that difficult!
I'm 54 and gosh I'm worried about the decline in manners with some of the next generation. My kids grew up with manners....my son takes his hat off when respect calls for it and stands up when a woman enters the room that he will be saying hello to. Both my kids will give up their seat to anyone that may need it. They hold the door open and look people in the eye. Their friends are the same....polite and lovely to be around. I try not to jump to judgement or maybe just quietly help out with situations involving strangers. The problem is, every so often I see something that sends me into "mommy mad zone" and I wonder if I'm old school in expecting good manners.
What would you do?
Today at the horse show I'm attending, there was a young man sitting in a lawn chair, drinking a beer outside the barn watching a woman struggle to haul a big trunk into the back of her truck. I was on my horse walking toward them so I saw this transpire from quite a distance away. I thought "surely he's not just going to sit there and watch her struggle". I caught up, my horse was quite agitated at this trunk being lifted and dropped, lifted and dropped so couldn't safely jump off and help. The young man was still there and I, in my mad mom voice said "aren't you going to help with that trunk?" At that point he decided to hop to it but by then the woman had managed to do it herself. Yes, of course she was capable to do it alone but it was a struggle and I can't even believe someone would sit in a chair and watch without offering to help. I felt like I was in an episode of "What Would You do?" and I was THAT woman that spoke up and put this young man in his place. I couldn't help it, it just got under my craw, he probably thought I was a real b*@#$.
Help me out here....
Wealthy Affiliate is a very polite community of people. All are respectful and helpful, I love that! How do you handle rude people? Do you say anything? Do you give them heck? Do I expect too much regarding manners? Anyone else notice the decline of manners? Am I a b*@#$ ? I'd love your feedback.
Sydney
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That is an awesome post there has been a decline in manners because parents today don't teach their kids manners. I am 53yrs of age and if I didn't say thank you or please I got a slap for it. So in our generation, we had to have manners the kids today don't know how to say please or thank you. I would ask if the person if there hands or legs were broken and then I would tell them what I think of their manners. So the bottom line is I would give them a good piece of my mind.
You do because it makes me upset when I see kids disrespected their elders and it is not right.
Wow, Sydney. That's amazing that a person would sit and watch someone else struggling like that.
I am vertically challenged...5' 2", and often can't reach things on the top shelves in the grocery store. I've been impressed and thankful when a tall person will stop by and offer to help without batting an eye.
And there are others who will be happy to help me if I ask, but are involved in their own grocery shopping and apparently don't notice me straining to reach the top shelf and missing by a mile!
But there are many more who just walk on by and don't bother to even look my direction.
This is not nearly as important an issue as that poor girl trying to lift the trunk, but it does illustrate that it seems to take all kinds in this world.
I find it is a real pleasure to encounter polite children like yours that you described, and I always try to comment on their lovely manners (not in those words...they'd think I'd grown another head!) But I do thank them for their help or whatever I'm commenting on, and they always go on their way with big smiles on their faces.
It does seem to me that people (not just kids) with good manners are, indeed, rare birds these days. I don't understand it, because if our generation was raised to be polite, respectful, and helpful, and we taught our children to do the same, why are well mannered people a seemingly endangered species?
Carol
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My glare at him would have let him know I thought he was a POS without saying a word. Always help! It costs you nothing but time and that's something we've all got plenty of right now.
Hahaha. The death glare. Love it.
Sydney