Manners

[LJSteinmetz]

Originally Posted by KennyGolub

We're living the final years of the Roman Empire.

Originally Posted by flaggship1

We are... ???

A few years before his death, the author James Michener wrote an op-ed piece saying that he believed America's influence and leadership in the world would peak by the year 2050. At the time I thought it was a ridiculous statement to make. However, as I get older and the more PC this country has become, virtually unrestrained immigration, idiot politicians that can't see past the end of their noses and only care about their own welfare and reelections, biased political indoctrination at most of our colleges, our lack of resolve when it comes to calling an enemy an enemy, etc. I no longer doubt his prediction and wonder if he wasn't actually being generous in his timing.

[CampDaven]

Originally Posted by RodgerS

Few care as chivalry is for the most part, extinct. Chivalry was a system of mutual behaviors that has basically died from lack of mutuality. Of course, there are exceptions, but how do you know your behavior will be understood or appreciated?Your behavior may actually be ignored or resented by the "ladies."

I say it can be taught and be appreciated and make life kinder and gentler. Efforts to be genteel are more than acceptable.
So many were never taught; really too sad!

Originally Posted by MartySQ

As a Lady... I'll say this... if you display those manners... and it is ignored or resented by the ladies... they are not the ones you should be interested in.
When they return eye contact with a smile, you know it is understood and appreciated.

Agree!!!
I taught my kids. They taught theirs. I always show my gift of chivalry, and it has always been appreciated by ladies young and old, as well as the elderly or handicapped.

[King Clark]

Originally Posted by woodfoot

Am I the only one that removes his hat when entering the dining room? Or elevator, if a lady is present? How about opening doors? When was the last time you held the door for someone else? Used to be a matter of respect when entering another's house, to remove your hat, what happened? Too many ballcaps at the table, and no one seems to care anymore. Now when you mention this lack of respect or manners people get upset. I guess because they never were taught manners or respect for others. Have we really gone that far down hill that quickly? Or was it so slowly no one cared?

I open doors, hold doors, all the rest of it but as far as caps go depends on where I am. If it is the custom of the place to keep it on then I follow that lead.
On hats I would be hard pressed to to leave a 20X Stetson anywhere that someone could pick it up, set something on it, touch it with their dirty hands, have some unattended child think it was no different than their toy box cowboy hat. I have seen some posts on another site talking about cowboy hats that stated good hats can be as much as $250.00, a Stetson 20X will run you around $500.00 plus. Perhaps that is the reason around here the boys do not take off their hats except to acknowledge a female has entered the area.

[Mike_Harriet]

Totally agree with comments on degradation of our manners in this country. My Mom had three rules, never to be broken. NO cursing! If you need to curse to make a point, you don't have a point worth considering. Respect your elders, even if you are one. And, learn to speak the "queens english" correctly. Her maiden name was English. I opened a door at a mall for a mother/daughter in strong cold drizzle once and was berated by the daughter for thinking she was incapable of doing it herself. I explained it wasn't for her, it was to honor my mothers memory. Her mom firmly told to be still and allow the gentleman be one (obviously didn't know me that well 😆&#128520. That's how I was raised, and too old/stubborn to change now.

[Dixie Dogs]

My mom being from the South and me being raised here most of my life....good manners never go "out of style". I always heard "only ladies and babies wear hats in the house". Yes ma'am, no ma'am, was just the way I was raised. I hold doors for all..and I try to be an example instead of not.

One of my biggest pet peeves.....let me get off the elevator before you get on. Could go on forever...

[TwelveVolt]

Originally Posted by Mike_Harriet

I opened a door at a mall for a mother/daughter in strong cold drizzle once and was berated by the daughter for thinking she was incapable of doing it herself. I explained it wasn't for her, it was to honor my mothers memory. Her mom firmly told to be still and allow the gentleman be one

The assumption by many in this thread is that we all were, or should have been, raised exactly the same. "If everybody thought and acted just like me, the world would be a perfect place." The down side is that we would have nothing to complain about or a gauge by which to establish our superiority.

Many years ago I was exiting the subway. The doors were heavy, often made more so by the vacuum caused by the departing train. I pushed the door open, went through, and paused a moment to hold it open because I perceived that there were people a few steps behind me. I heard a young female voice exclaim "chauvinist pig!".

A gentleman holds the door for the lady and allows her to go through first. Simple rule, easy to follow. Then I read a rule that a gentleman always gets on the elevator before the lady. Presumably because in the event of a malfunction, he will chivalrously go crashing to the basement without her. Ever since, I have been faced with this dilemma when waiting for an elevator. If I enter first, then I am either a gentleman or an ill-bred fool, depending entirely on whether or not she is aware of that rule.

If your entire party sits down in the restaurant wearing hats, and you are the only one to take yours off, who is not following the norm?

[SomeDay]

Originally Posted by CampDaven

I say it can be taught and be appreciated and make life kinder and gentler. Efforts to be genteel are more than acceptable.
So many were never taught; really too sad!




Agree!!!
I taught my kids. They taught theirs. I always show my gift of chivalry, and it has always been appreciated by ladies young and old, as well as the elderly or handicapped.

Absolutely I truly believe during the influencing years: monkey see, monkey do. You become like those you associate with.

When we chose to have children we did so for our own selfish reasons = we wanted children. We owe it to them to teach them right from wrong, respect, and generally how to become a good citizen for their future enjoyment as well as society as a whole. I personally am thrilled the number of times folks meet my children in their 20's/30 and even back when in their adolescent teens, and said "your Charlotte is so lovely" or "I have a lot of time for your Carla she's a doll". Our youngest tells me often that she intends one day to rear her children with the same morals and upbringing she had which warms our heart and naturally makes us proud. Yes, it may be seen as old fashioned and Victorian in some ways but for us it's worked and we couldn't be happier.

If children aren't taught right from wrong as they grow up, how are they to know? Once in a while a child has the fortune of meeting an outside of the family member that is able to impact their lives exponentially when it is lacking in the family unit. We have seen this and been involved in this, but these opportunities are few and far between. With all the difficulties for screening, police checks and hoops to jump through nowadays, we are seeing many good influential friends of ours not involved with things like big brothers, brownies, scouts, school aides, youth groups etc any more. Teachers today that would love to have more of an impact and show affection a student may not be getting in the home environment are afraid today and their only recourse is to contact social services which usually leads to even more problems for the child. We understand the need to a "degree" of checks being made but many have got so ridiculously out of hand at the applicants cost and can take several months to complete to become a volunteer, that many good folks just say, forget it = this is sad but a fact of life and we hear it time after time.

We all have our own thoughts and ideas - thank heavens we do for variety, but I personally believe half of the problems today have occurred in part due to loss of dedicated family times. We still sit down to meals as a family on average 4 or 5 times a week to reconnect and catch up on each others news, goings on etc. For the last several decades, maybe since women started working outside the home, maybe not; maybe since Sunday trading started, maybe not; more recently all the technology used now where folks don't know how to verbally and face to face communicate any more, maybe not?

Are these some of the changes that have caused this lack of manners or the time for influence of previous generations on new ones. I don't recall divorce being as prevalent several decades ago as it is today, which begs the question is that another reason? With 24 hour shopping, corporate expectations to climb the ladder etc now, there doesn't seem to be that distinction between folks work day and folks family times.

We knew a wonderful family slightly younger parents and children than us 20+ years ago we met - they were so so busy with Hockey games, football games getting involved in this, that and the other and coaching themselves, totally way overstretched with one child, then the other, then the other, but separately. Both parents working, two huge dogs that had to be walked twice daily.

Unfortunately, they lost the art of dedicated family time and creating loving bonds together as a "whole" unit - sitting down together as a complete family for dinners and preparing/doing things together as a whole. We could see it unfolding before us - now the mid 20's children despise the mother, they are divorcing bitterly after 25 years marriage, one has been driving with no license or insurance for 6+ years, police have been knocking at their door and two have records, etc etc etc. They lost balance in place of setting too high achievements and thinking just getting their kids involved in expensive sports would keep them on the straight and narrow. This in turn meant they were working longer hours to pay for it all. Misplaced priorities?

We just got off a cruise where some parents were gambling in the casino for several hours throughout the day & nights, whilst their 10 year old daughter and 15 year old son were left till gone 2am or 3am in the morning to do their own thing. Mother told us of needing the cruise as a family to get away, as she nearly lost her son a few months earlier in an accident when he was out late at night whilst supposed to have been in at a friends house. Hmmmm, am I missing something here???

One of my biggest pet peeves is how parents don't seem to chastise their children any more and their unruly behaviour screaming, running around, lack of control, spitting in the street, graffiti etc - it seems pretty obvious where they are headed as they approach adulthood.

I was told many many years ago you have a limited window typically, to instill 'basic values and expectations' in a child and that is generally between the ages of 2 to 5 years for the most impact. Of course we all continue to learn and develop over many more years once the foundations are firmly in place. Previous generations that are open to listening to the wisdom of their elders for the most part, and elders willing to embrace to a degree some of the newer knowledges, ways, technologies, etc can surely only lead to a win win.

Now with all that said and done, YES, we do all meet that odd handful of wonderful teens that are polite, courteous, apologize if they were too loud etc. Doesn't it just make you smile and share with them that you were young too once? Shame that wasn't the majority instead of the minority though today

[Falcon190]

Originally Posted by B Bob

OK I have to throw this in. Appropriate dress on airplanes these days is Hazmat Suit Or NFL pads with scuba gear. One of the reasons I keep my motorhome is to avoid airplane rides.

That's funny but sadly true. My DW is a flight attendant (not a stewardess!) and you can hardly believe the stories she has about rude people. My recent favorite is the lady that told my DW that her daughter liked to kick the back of the seat in front of her and actually asked my DW to move the man seated in front of her daughter so she wouldn't have to discipline her child!

Oh, and when I fly (which is often) I dress nicely.

[B Bob]

Many people when they get to a certain age bemoan that the younger generation is going to the dogs. Seems like I read that National Geographic found comments to that effect made by Egyptian workers who were building one of the great monuments at Giza nearly 5,000 years ago.

If all people had the same good manners and the same smile on their clean washed faces the World would be pretty dull.

A few years back when someone cut me off on one of the local freeways and I sped up in my fairly fast car to return the favor, my wife commented, "The World is full of a$$h@((s, just try not to be one of them." Seems like a good plan.

[Dippelj]

Well, this is a big topic for me. My mother always insisted there should be no hats at the table and I agree. In fact I go to a hunt camp deer hunting in northern Ontario every year. All guys in the camp but even so, if anyone sits down with a hat on, someone will pick it off his head and it may end up in the fire.
On another note, I used to teach sales training for farm supplies and I always coached sales people to remove their caps during the sale. I would never buy anything from anyone who is not respectful enough to remove their cap.

[Beak12]

With 20 years in the Army it's (hats off in the Mess) but try to find a place to put it is the question. I hate be addressed as (Sir) I know I'm 75 but each time someone does that I get a year older. LOL

[wildtoad]

The slow dissolution of manners coincides with many other trends. I suspect many of you remember when Sprint ran adds stating you can hear a pin drop over a land line telephone. Of course no one used the term land line then. They spent billions in order to provide crystal clear calls. Now all that has gone the way of the dodo to be replaced with dropped calls, sketchy cell service everywhere, anytime.


Many of us remember drawing circles to improve our writing skills and having to learn cursive. Now many schools don't teach cursive, and hand written notes are printed and most of them can't be understood. Along this same line, man spent centuries developing languages with proper spelling, sentence structure, establishing proper etiquette as to when to send thank you notes, invitations, and so much more. Now to be replaced in the last 5-10 years with cryptic text messages, and very few send thank you notes.


So is the future really going to consist of illiterates with no manners?

[woodfoot]

YES!!! If we can't change it.

[Elf111]

I was raised to open doors for ladies put yourself between a lady and danger and still do but have you heard some of the language coming from the mouths of some modern day ladies, makes you want to slam the door in their face.