My mother was a stickler for manners. When company was expected, she led with, “Shake her hand and look her in the eye.” I resisted mightily, and yet I continued the tradition with my own children. My brothers and I stood when adults entered a room .We helped our grandparents on and off with their coats and held doors open for them. We were not allowed to call our parents’ friends by their first names. We were taken to task if we dropped our g’s (“I’m goin’ across the street.”) or substituted “Uh huh” or “Unh uh” for “Yes” and “No.” It was disrespectful.
My father focused on telephone manners. For some reason, it distressed him when a caller asked, “Is Ann there?” That warranted a swift, “No,” the reason being that he was the person on the other end of the phone, so technically, Ann was not “there.” Callers had better ask, “May I please speak to Ann?” or expect the dial tone.
We could not say “darn” (companion to “damn”) or “egad” (cover for “My God!”), and if any of the 3 of us issued a strong “Shoot,” we had better be certain to enunciate.
“Shut up” was a Class 1 infraction. If we said “Shut up,” we could expect a quick swipe of Ivory Soap across our tongues.
This was in the Fifties. The 1950s. Life was carefully delineated. Over here stood the adults. Over there, the children. When our parents hosted their Bridge Club at our house, we remained out of sight upstairs, away from the clink of ice cubes in the highballs and Old Fashioneds, out of the thicket of cigarette smoke, at a remove from adult conversation.
The attention to manners in my childhood home seemed obsessive. But fast forward to modern day, and where have manners gone? Who ditched the old response to “Thank you” – “You’re welcome” – in favor of “No problem?” And whence “Whatever?” What has become of handwritten thank you letters? I miss the comfort of old-fashioned manners. In a world of uncivil discourse, starting with politics and trickling down into mainstream culture, a simple “Thank you” and “You’re welcome” always bring a smile to my face!
My father focused on telephone manners. For some reason, it distressed him when a caller asked, “Is Ann there?” That warranted a swift, “No,” the reason being that he was the person on the other end of the phone, so technically, Ann was not “there.” Callers had better ask, “May I please speak to Ann?” or expect the dial tone.
We could not say “darn” (companion to “damn”) or “egad” (cover for “My God!”), and if any of the 3 of us issued a strong “Shoot,” we had better be certain to enunciate.
“Shut up” was a Class 1 infraction. If we said “Shut up,” we could expect a quick swipe of Ivory Soap across our tongues.
This was in the Fifties. The 1950s. Life was carefully delineated. Over here stood the adults. Over there, the children. When our parents hosted their Bridge Club at our house, we remained out of sight upstairs, away from the clink of ice cubes in the highballs and Old Fashioneds, out of the thicket of cigarette smoke, at a remove from adult conversation.
The attention to manners in my childhood home seemed obsessive. But fast forward to modern day, and where have manners gone? Who ditched the old response to “Thank you” – “You’re welcome” – in favor of “No problem?” And whence “Whatever?” What has become of handwritten thank you letters? I miss the comfort of old-fashioned manners. In a world of uncivil discourse, starting with politics and trickling down into mainstream culture, a simple “Thank you” and “You’re welcome” always bring a smile to my face!
1 comment:
Hi dear Ann,
I remember sitting in a classroom back in the day at the UofA and when the prof walked in I automatically stood up-needless to say the entire class just stared at me and laughed-old habit but one that was out of respect. I also remember the entire school standing up at Bishops when the headmistress walked into a room-assembly and when a teacher walked into a classroom. My parents were fanatics about manners.
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