Mind Your Manners, Or Don't.

Table Manners, in particular.

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Do manners become outdated?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?

For me they are an easy and interesting target. I keep my "manners" in my back pocket and use when necessary. I hadn't given much thought to manners until recently when my dad got somewhat annoyed at a restaurant at Willoree's not using nice table manners. She was eating a spaghetti noodle with her fingers. She's four. When asked to use a fork, she asked Why? And my dad's answer?

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.

Spelling her N-A-M-E

Willoree is spelling her first and last name and drawing a lot of pictures. She's proud. We are too.

There's something great about the quality of that red ink, as well. It's nice close up; it's nice on our dining room table. It's been wonderful having Tom here...