What's the matter with kids today? Chapter 1: Table Manners
Amanda B Reckondwyth
Mystery Worship Editor
in Hell
I dined last Sunday evening in a nice restaurant -- not posh, but nice. Several tables away was a party of three -- appeared to be a mother, father, and late teenage (maybe 17 or 18) daughter.
The daughter's table manners almost made Miss Amanda grope in her clutch for her smelling salts.
The girl sat with one knee tucked up to her chest and her foot propped on the seat of her chair. She did not use her napkin. Her elbows rested on the table. She chewed with her mouth open and talked while she chewed. Her parents either didn't notice, pretended not to notice, or saw nothing wrong.
Are table manners even taught at all these days? If the girl wanted to behave at table like that in her own home, fine, although personally I wouldn't allow it of anyone in my home. But in a public restaurant? And a nice one at that?
Oy veh!
The daughter's table manners almost made Miss Amanda grope in her clutch for her smelling salts.
The girl sat with one knee tucked up to her chest and her foot propped on the seat of her chair. She did not use her napkin. Her elbows rested on the table. She chewed with her mouth open and talked while she chewed. Her parents either didn't notice, pretended not to notice, or saw nothing wrong.
Are table manners even taught at all these days? If the girl wanted to behave at table like that in her own home, fine, although personally I wouldn't allow it of anyone in my home. But in a public restaurant? And a nice one at that?
Oy veh!
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Comments
I mean, you've got two options here. Ignore other people's failure to adhere to your standards, or green ink about it here or elsewhere.
Neither will change anything so I'd personally opt for the first.
I did wonder at the possibility of neurodiversity when I read the OP. But it might just be people with a more laid back approach.
The other day there was a dog in the pub where I was eating, I thought that was a bit unhygienic - despite liking dogs and cats - and probably noticed it more than talking-with-mouth-open or swearing of other customers.
My mother used to get incensed by the latter and would frequently complain to the management and the rest of the restaurant about it. Unfortunately she didn't seem to notice that this was more annoying than the thing she was complaining about.
And, in the case of assistance dogs a restaurant couldn't refuse to let the dog in.
Quoth Socrates in whenever it was that Socrates was about.
Table manners have nothing to do with age. As you would know if you had ever had dinner with [a certain older relative of mine whose identity is here redacted to protect the guilty].
(This same great-aun, of German extraction,t lived in a Home for Distressed Elderly Jews for over thirty years before moving to residential care. She was always complaining about the food on offer [rarely good] - if they had a cook she moaned that it had been so much better when they had had "Ze Meals on Veels"; when the poorly-paid cooks left and they were reduced to said Meals on Wheels she would say how marvellous cook's catering had been).
I fucking HATE!!! seeing people eat with their mouths open, especially when they talk as well. But I recognise it for what it is, cultural conditioning, and just fucking deal with it.
And then of course there are people who come from other countries, maybe as students, or to immigrate. When I was studying, students from East Asia would slurp their noodles, because that was their norm. I hate the noise, but it is what it is. People don't automatically learn and adopt all the cultural norms of a country at once, and it must be confusing when different groups of people from the same country are demonstrating different norms.
Though I'm not even sure if this thread was started as a serious rant or just to get people talking about these things!
As a random thing, where I live, something that is frowned upon as the utmost in lazy, ill-bred, ignorant behaviour is leaving your washed laundry drying outside on the line overnight instead of taking it in in the evening. In the privacy of your own back garden, that is, so not harming anyone. When I first moved here and I worked in care homes, the other staff would rant in disgust about the people they know who do this, and how terrible and lazy it is. I said nothing, as I do it myself, not out of laziness, but because the laundry smells nicer if it's on the line overnight - they seemed very set in their opinions so would probably not be open to different ways of seeing things. My own next-door neighbour was quite disapproving at my doing it - she didn't say anything, but she got her son to ask me why I do it, along with asking about my other odd habits, and why my home is so untidy!
I'd grant that some people are allergic to dog hair, but they'd be exposed to the same hairs on the clothing of dog owners who have left their dogs outside. Maybe we should simply ban dog ownership to protect those with allergies.
Hopefully if I ever frequent the same restaurant as Miss Amanda they'll place me behind her, out of sight.
I've seen families out for a nice dinner, or a bog standard one, each glued to their own glowing device for a large part of the meal. I think I'd take elbows on the table and a tucked-up knee over that. But then I am from Australia.
I object to full nudity in restaurants, but I'm OK with the occasional wardrobe malfunction.
I was going to say that I disagree with erections in restaurants, but I actually think they could be quite entertaining. You could turn to your partner, a-la Bill and Ted, and say, "Look sweetie, that fellow has a full on robot chubby."
In food courts, I object to people failing to clean up the table after themselves, especially when tables are at a premium.
In take away restaurants I object to people who push in and order before people who came in first. I nearly got bashed for remonstrating with a fella for doing that once. I was quite insane at the time. I think I told him to leave our town and never come back.
However, and despite my own mad brush with pain, I do think that discerning wrong and complaining about it is a pleasure. I went to see an Abba musical recently with a couple of clients and another worker. It was so shit. At one point during the show, I was forced to let out the expletive, "Oh Christ". It was a bit too loud and just at a point in the show where the music had stopped. Two or three people near me turned and looked. Anyway, my two clients and co-worker absolutely loved it, and then they put me on the spot. I demurred and they pressed, so I gave four or five criticisms of the show and then said that I had a good time. Then it hit me. Me analysing the faults of the show was my way of engaging with it. I found that intellectual exercise stimulating and pleasant. So, even though the show itself was a burning bag of dog shit, I derived pleasure from it.
You too, Amanda, should continue to derive pleasure from your observations and criticisms of others. I know you won't let the naysayers hold you back. And keep looking for those sneaky erections, but don't be too obvious about that. You can get into trouble for it.
I'm with you, Miss Amanda. There are basic standards of behavior which should apply in public; unfortunately, too many parents can't be bothered to enforce them with their offspring. It is unfortunate.
Beavis and Butthead would read "wood fired grill" on the menu and say, "Wood [chuckle] [chuckle] [chuckle] [guffaw] [guffaw] [guffaw]."
She would turn and stare, but that would be considered rude of her.
I mentioned my older relative whose table manners would probably appal you (unless you would give them a pass for age). The reason I redacted the person’s identity is that their lack of etiquette at the dinner table is actually really not their fault. They were raised by disinterested, alcoholic parents in a household where food was in short supply and if you didn’t shovel away fast your siblings ate it all and you went hungry. I could try a remedial course in eating with your mouth shut, keeping your elbows off the table, and breaking off shovelling to make conversation with your fellow diners, but it would hurt their feelings and I frankly have other priorities.
No they’re not. They whinge and squirm and draw with ketchup using the chips as pencils like brats everywhere.
In the fancier places in France, the staff make you feel more welcome with a dog than with a small child.
Still, the manners commentary was valid. My sister and I were sufficiently terrified of our proper English grandmother - and her fiendishly quick and accurate serving spoon - to mostly behave when we visited. Not that flavourless boiled everything was too exciting, but it was hard to censor our wee opinions. Especially when said proper English grandmother had granted us with an abundance of snarky genetics. We were considerably less terrified at home - most of the time. Sometimes our parents would engage in a battle of wills with us about behaviour, and it rarely enhanced anyones sense of decorum.
What is the point of this rambling reminiscence, other than a demonstration of some annoying insomnia? Mostly that the fundamental purpose of manners among adults is as meta-signaling of respect, which is desirable, but the fundamental source of manners among children is fear, which is sad. The conflation between fear and respect among some people is pitiable (especially when it's me, with m own horribly horrible spawn).
It's easy to assign blame to the permissive parents of annoying children, but the behavioural calculus is probably being done correctly with respect to the least-disruptive gestalt. If the kids are well-behaved, they're either scared, really tired, or being heavily heavily bribed¹. Failing that, it is likely that the seemingly permissive parent realizes that publicly working through a power struggle with hangry children is a lose-lose-lose proposition (for parents-children-public). Of course, there will sometimes be occasion for some parent to lose their shit with witnesses present (because they're invariably hangry in restaurants too, parenting is hard work), and that seems to be the alternative that Miss Amanda and Rossweisse are suggesting. Unless they're proposing that the children should be pre-traumatized, for the sake of the masticating public.
¹ Working on a parenting book with my wife that has the working title "PLUG THE SCREAM HOLE".
But I hope it departs for your sake.
As they got older, we could take them to 'fancier' places, because their delayed gratification training had kicked in.
I don't know. They were pretty well behaved and we never had any real trouble (unless you count the time when the GIANT POSTMAN PAT freaked Master Tor out completely), but we certainly didn't expect anything spectacular from either the food or the kids for years.
We just checked in advance that the restaurant provided suitable food - ie Mac and Cheese - and went loaded with books, colouring etc to cover the wait. As long as she ate the food and didn't run round screaming we took the win.
TBH, I try * not to judge other parents as you don't always know what's going on. That "misbehaving child" might be somewhere on the spectrum. It might be the first time they've been out to eat. We're not born knowing outside manners. We have to learn them. Sometimes the hard way.
* Not always as successfully as I'd like
Fine by me.
Manners, such as those that tell us where to put our elbows are arbitrary nonsense.
Let me give you an example: Which spoon to use for soup = bullshit
Which fork not to shove up the arse of the disapproving busybody seated the table over = polite.
We think etiquette and such are “proper” because we were taught they were, but they have no purpose other than elevating one’s nose so to look down at others.
Etiquette and politeness are, above all else, about considering others before yourself. Undermining or ignoring them means undermining or ignoring that principle. If it doesn't matter how we behave in a restaurant then why does it matter how we behave anywhere else?
Next thing we know you'll be saying people should just barge onto a bus as quickly as they can rather than queuing like civilised people. After all, who cares if a few old people who expect better of the younger generations get upset about it?
It is, of course, only a short hop, skip and jump from that to the total collapse of civilisation and a return to our barbarian animal origins.
The difficulty surely comes when different social groups with different etiquette norms combine. It is unlikely that anyone is knowledgeable of all etiquette norms of all the different groups. So that is where being gracious and understanding comes in, and then the most courteous thing is to try to make people feel comfortable and accepted.
Laughing or sneering at someone for not being conversant with your own etiquette norms is actually incredibly discourteous, and defeats the whole point of etiquette.
I don't want to be sprayed in the face with bits of food and saliva, thank you very much. If they're on the far side of the room, no probs. If they're talking to me, I will not tolerate it.
Out of curiosity, what do you do to stop it? And how does it vary according to the situation, the age of the person and/or their relationship to you?
I had an elderly man sit next to me on the bus the other day, and he was very cheery and chatty in a kind of childlike way - he'd got a new iphone and wanted to tell me all about it, how it synced with his hearing aids, and had pics of his 82nd birthday do, which he wanted to show me. He occasionally sprayed me with saliva when he talked, and he wasn't even eating. I considered I could ask him to stop talking, or I could tell him I wanted to get past him to sit somewhere else, or I could just ignore him and hope he stopped talking - but I decided not to do any of these, and just kept chatting to him, because he seemed really enthusiastic to chat and I didn't want to hurt his feelings, and I actually found him quite entertaining to chat to.
Though I've worked with kids and adults with profound and multiple learning disabilities, so maybe have a bit more tolerance of saliva and food spray - there is not really an option to not tolerate it in such a job. So I am curious what people do in general when someone they are talking to sprays them with saliva.
There are those guides for behaviour that are part of our existing together as a civilisation. Not one damn bit of those was part of the OP.
Those in the know sat away from the front row in church and avoided the kinds of topics that might induce ranting.
I guess he couldn't help it. But still pretty unpleasant.
What also muddies the water is that people accept that what they were taught as "proper" and have difficulty evaluating those practices objectively.
Well, I was thinking mostly of restaurants in the UK, and the waitstaff do take used stuff away after courses, if there is more than one course. Most restaurants do that. I do quite enjoy going to a fancy restaurant and having several courses. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's handy to be told in a friendly way which utensil to use for which course. Though most regular restaurants that have the table prelaid have the convention that a spoon at the top is for dessert and a spoon at the side by the knife is for soup, so that tends to be common knowledge. It's when there are several forks and spoons that it gets more complicated.
But equally if you are invited to someone's home for a meal and they have a poshly laid out table, they normally do clear away each course away after you've had it, not to be rude or elitist, but to make room for the next course, so the guests aren't crowded and uncomfortable. Sure, society is unequal in that there are different social classes and the wealtheir people have fancier foods and have decided over the course of history that they need different utensils for each one. I tend to see that as the more you have, the fussier you become. But once a person is in that system, they still need to navigate it, and that generally requires learning the ropes and going along with it, unless they're going to rebel at each dinner party and insist that only forks be used!
Realistically, most groups in society, whether poor or wealthy, have various traditions and ways of doing things that may have lost their original function over time, but they are done anyway. I do think it is courteous to try to fit in if they are welcoming you to join them. Like learning a bit about a country's culture when you visit, so you don't inadvertently upset people. And of course it goes both ways - a person may still make errors and so it is equally courteous to be forgiving of social faux pas and kindly let people know if they have done something (or might do something) which might cause a problem.
Incidentally, for those of us on the autism spectrum, this is our whole lives - trying to learn/understand the ropes and frequently getting it wrong - even in our own country, because so many of the etiquette norms are unspoken and change with context. You soon learn to distinguish the truly courteous people from those who do it for show or one-upmanship. And people from both categories exist in all social classes, regardless of how many utensils they use.
A fairly small percentage use cutlery, of those a smaller percentage use knife and fork.
Says the poster who apparently loses her shit because someone wants to bring a dog into the restaurant...
Anyway.
Seems to me what most rational people are saying here is that consideration is key. When you're sharing public space with the public, we should try to be considerate. And also by implication helping our younger folk to learn how to be reasonably considerate so that they, too, can enjoy the benefits of going to restaurants and such like without being treated or abhorred as social pariahs. Without making the experience miserably restrictive for them, that should at least be possible, yes?
We all have different standards. Even within families, let alone cultures. I have to confess that eating with an open mouth seems like a wilfully inconsiderate thing to do. As my aunt used to say, nobody wants to see what's in your mouth, dear, especially after you've chewed it around a few times. But maybe that's just me being fussy. I had a bad experience as a child with primary school custard. Still can't bear the stuff!
I agree with them on that. Where I disagree with some on this thread, including the OP, is what that consideration entails.
Try doing that in your local Wetherspoons.