I have travelled a bit and have had the pleasure of good conversations with interesting people along the way. Years ago, I was at the end of a very long overseas flight and was finally on a connection from Chicago to Dallas. I was fortunate enough to be in first class, which I have only had the pleasure of a few times in my life. There was a seemingly nice family sitting across the aisle from me. The mother and father were doting on their four year old boy, who, at the time, was sitting quietly as we awaited our take off. The father and I took up a discussion on some topic, I forget now, but then it quickly turned to their son and how advanced he was and what schools he was attending to assure he remained advanced and gifted. The mother stated that he was learning Japanese and French and had just started violin lessons. It was apparent to me that impressing a stranger with their feats in parenting was extremely important to them. As the flight went on, the food cart came out, as did the little devil within their boy – as it always does with little boys. He saw that there was chocolate milk and became rather vocal, with extreme volume, that he also wanted chocolate milk. The mother was shocked, stating that he has never had chocolate. In that moment, it was more important to her to state she had not given her son chocolate, than it was to calm him down. The flight attendant was waiting on the people two rows ahead of us, but due to this boy’s outburst, the attendant leaned over the cart and handed the father a carton of the coveted chocolate milk. When the meal cart came along, the parents chose the fish plate for their gifted son. As you can imagine, he was just as vocal in his protest of the fish and green beans with rice. He jumped up in his chair and started hitting the head of the man in front of him and then threw the plate down on the floor, causing it to throw the contents on the other passengers, and loudly demanded McDonald’s. The mother, again more worried what others thought of her parenting skills rather than apologizing, went on to say he had never had McDonald's and she did not know where this was coming from. Now, you and I know that there is not a four year old on the planet that would ask for something out of having no experience with it. What we also can ascertain from this story, is that teaching this boy advanced languages and skills was taking precedence over simple skills in civility.
The current rage in parenting is all things French. Pamela Druckerman’s new book “Bringing up Bébé" sheds light on the contrasting methods of parenting in France versus the U.S. In reading this book, I found it to be quite similar to the methods in Germany. One section, in particular, discusses what Ms. Druckerman refers to as the “four magic words”: please, thank you, hello and good-bye. The French government runs the preschool programs and this teaching is in every curriculum across the country. She goes on to explore the importance France places on children and adults acknowledging each other with the civility of saying “Good day” when coming across each other. Living in Germany, I have found this to also be very important. Children will say either “good day” or “hello” when riding their bikes down the street upon seeing me taking my kids for a walk. If you go to a doctor’s office, upon entering the waiting room, you always say “good day” and when the doctor calls you in, you say “good bye” when you exit the waiting room. You say this to everyone you come in contact with – no matter to status or occupation. Ms. Druckerman describes that in France, this is to show the utmost respect. The book further explains that it allows children to be acknowledged as people as well – not only teaching children to respect adults, but for adults to respect them as well. I believe that is the root of the practice in Germany, and perhaps other countries in Europe.
My mother often says that she believes the end of children showing civility towards adults began when they were allowed to address adults by their first names, rather than surnames. An article titled “10 Questions on Jane Austen” was written about Jane Austen’s writings and described in detail the practice she had in always referring to the parents of her matriarchs by Mr. and Mrs., possibly because she felt writing their names would remove their power. So perhaps our laid back approach to our children with our “Just call me Joe” attitude is lowering our ranks from general to private. The less powerful, revered, and respected we are, the less our children can treat us with manners. Perhaps this, along with the abolition of cordial greetings of “good day”, is what has lead to our current society’s demise.
In today’s culture, parents have brought competitive parenting to a new level. It’s not just about sports as it was when I was a kid. Parents do everything possible to make sure that their kids are in the most prestigious and expensive schools and are enrolled in every curricular activity imaginable in order to mold the children into being a master of everything and the ideal candidate to Ivy League colleges and high paying jobs later in life. A man I used to work for once stated that trying to be a master of everything usually yields the result of being a master of nothing. Perhaps all this education being fed to children like spoons heaped with food, needs to be dwindled down to basics. Sure, it’s nice to have a child who can speak many languages while playing the violin and riding a horse while playing hockey, but if a child cannot be civil, then what’s the point?
This goes beyond children behaving rudely, as they had to learn this from the adults in their environment. Adults are taking insulting behavior to new lows, it seems. This goes back to what I said about entitlement in my other article, “The Age of Entitlement”. People will be rude if it serves their purpose. It’s a lot easier to be rude to someone you cannot see, so if you are removed from acknowledging another person’s existence, then it becomes easier and easier to be uncivil to strangers. Think about how irritated we are with people on the telephone, especially after being on hold for an inordinate amount of time. We cannot see the customer service person, how our belligerent behavior makes their eyes well up with tears and their smile turned to a grimace. Again, we forget that this person is, in fact, a person with a story and history and could be having a terrible day, and we have made it worse by behaving heartlessly. However, if we would rewrite the script of our culture and make it a rule of etiquette to cordially wish everyone a good day and good bye as we come in contact with them, then maybe our heartlessness would morph into something more dignified.
A friend traveling on holiday witnessed an incident which reminded me of a similar situation I encountered when I was eight months pregnant with my firstborn. My husband and I had taken the train to attend a lunch for me and the baby downtown to my office. Upon coming home, our train was packed and there were no seats available. We were told to go to the first class cabin because a pregnant woman is entitled a seat anywhere. While the train company felt this way, their passengers, unfortunately, did not. I walked up and down the aisles looking for a seat without success. So, my husband and I sat on the steps outside the upstairs of the first class cabin. We were very entertained by these lively fourteen year old boys who were shocked that no one would give up their seat for me. They even spoke loudly about their disapproval in the hopes someone would hear and feel guilty enough to give up their seat. While nobody ever took pity on me and my eight month bump, my heart was warmed by their manners. So I refuse to believe we cannot win the war in civility and will pay attention to my actions and especially the actions of my children. I hope my kids grow up to be like these boys as living proof that there are still some civil children in the world.
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