And what role do they play in the modern or not so modern family? In my family? Manners are conventional. We all operate from conventions. Some staggering stat I read said that people operate from our subconscious minds roughly 96% of the time. That means that only 4% of what we do, say, how we act, react, respond is "clear" for lack of a better word. (A discussion of that could be its own little project.) But seriously, that's insane. I'd bet that manners are among the things that we value just because someone else who had influence over us at an earlier time valued them. Why do some people require manners so hard? Who are these people (besides my grandparents and my Dad?) Who are manners really for -- seems always the other people at the proverbial table. So I don't get it, but yet I like manners. I feel like they're valuable. I appreciate and use (most of the time) "good" manners, or I try to. I even have gone so far as to lightly judge (?) people around me to don't -- which is perhaps the uglier side of the "nice", social convention. There are things that to this day (and because of my grandmother's sneering disapproval) annoy me in restaurants. It doesn't bother me that my daughter reaches across the table for more bread, per se, but I notice it...for better or for worse.
Do manners become outdated? Or are classic manners just that -- never to die or change. Maybe there's value in their antiquity? A New vs. Old Money-like stigma, if you will. Do they bring us closer together, or make us feel ostracized from one another? Classism? Elitism? Middle Class-itis?
Because I said so.
OK. So that tells me nothing and so much all at the same time.
I am certain that manners are more or less benign things, but they have some serious potential to trigger deeper, uglier, more loaded emotions I've suddenly been confronted with. This is interesting to me. I'd like to know more from you, my dear readers. Please pass the the commentary.
The above photos are of my grandparents, Bess and Walker Geitner, on a trip to Egypt ca. 1955.
5 comments:
Fantastic post - I too have seen the "Because I said so" reason, which certainly bears looking at. Sometimes it seems that manners are to keep others from feeling their own emotions around non-conventional behaviors. "I don't like how I feel when you do that, so I'm going to tell you to stop, and I feel I have power over you". I'm not a fan of the kids learning that power trip.
A dear friend called me on the "because I said so" at a restaurant. The kids asked why they had to eat jello or noodles with a utensil - because I said so...as Mark noted I didn't feel comfortable watching them eat with their hands. Mainly because I hadn't been allowed to because of "manners". This same dear friend pointed out all the cultures that eat with their hands and how that actually helps recycle the prana as we eat. Well, doesn't that make total sense! So I try to be aware of the manners "war" (either mine with the kids or mine with strangers, etc.) being nothing more than my own trip.
when Max and I are home all alone, we eat with our feet on the table he usually sits on my lap and we don't do manners. Then we have, restaurant manners or family's over rules. (ie. no feet on the table, be calm).
He does know when and where with a little reminder ..
During some of my most "sponge" times of growing up, much of what filled and remains in my brain could have been a lot more useful, but at least it got me teenage and college jobs in the restaurant industry, and gave me a certain confidence amongst adults and in formal situations-- and that is almost all you need, right?
Funny, adults saying "Cuz I said so" are looking to preserve their comfort mostly. I mean, why else exert? Also funny, is that the comment is the same over generations-- "because I said so", the baton passed generations down.
Imagine if grandma, grandpa would actually launch into reasons that expose their deeper rationale and comfort levels ("I am used to it", "It's the way I learned it", "It makes me feel funny when I see your fingers get in the sauce and touch that wily noodle, it makes me quiver and I can't enjoy my meal as well as you, I can just see some of that tomato sauce making its way to your inner ear or onto your nice frock. And that feels like chaos. But really I tend to get almost a bit jealous, if not approaching an outrage based in ancient power struggles implanted in me from my grandparents to follow a custom that is supposed to be right. This, child, is why...(approaching tears)")
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