Miss(ed) Manners

August 24, 2008 - Sunday

Miss(ed) Manners Current mood: aggravated Category: Life I was in Walgreen's today, buying a multivitamin (I'm not quite anemic but apparently my iron runs a little low?) and some chocolate, of course - I love their chocolate covered malted milk balls. I got up to the check out counter and I saw something that even though I see it a lot these days, I'm still just NOT used to it. I know that little kids will be little kids, but I can't help remembering back to when I was a little girl - yeah, I was little once - and remembering how well behaved I was. Now I'm not saying I was perfect. (Please! My mom had to go out and buy a book by Dr. Dobson called, "The Strong-Willed Child" just to raise me without killing me.) But I was very well behaved when I was out in public. Part of it was that I feared what would happen when I got home, but part of it was simply that I'd been taught the difference between rude and courteous. As I stood in the check out line I saw a little boy, maybe 6 or 7 years old, running back and forth between where his mother stood at the cash register and the impulse-buy gum/magazine rack. The little boy was spanning about a 5 foot length, back and forth, each time he made the trip, and each time he made the trip he managed to run into someone or some thing. He nearly knocked a rack over a few times, and hit a VERY tall, bulky man in the butt at least 4 times (scary!), and almost knocked my CCMM balls out of my hands while I was standing there. Mind you, while the little would-be Olympic sprinter was dashing from mommy to magazines he was yelling, in a language that I do not fully understand, something about "mamma" and "look." Mamma, however, was not looking... mamma, was NOT paying attention... mamma wasn't even phased! Now don't judge; Mamma wasn't deaf, she just wasn't listening. There was a little girl, maybe a year or so younger than the Olympic sprinter, standing next to Mamma, and the little girl had no trouble getting Mamma's attention. As Mamma waited for the cashier to get to her purchases, little girl was tugging at Mamma's sleeve and hitting Mamma's behind while saying, over and over, "Mamma. Mamma. Mamma. Mamma." Mamma kept saying something over and over again, too, but I didn't understand what she was saying. Her tone, however, wasn't mean or chastising… in fact, in my opinion, it was a little too tolerant considering she had two very noisy and pretty obnoxious kids with her. I finally got out of Walgreen's with my vitamins and chocolate. Olympic sprinter never stopped sprinting, Broken record never stopped saying, "Mamma" and hitting her mamma on the rear, and Mamma acted like nothing was wrong. As I walked to my car there was this youngish looking man-child – a teen maybe or early 20s – who was walking in a direction that was going to intercept me. As I continued to walk so did he, and I realized I was about to enter into an unwilling game of chicken… who was going to veer off first? Well, I got my answer about 3 feet from my car. The man-child stopped in his tracks, looked me up and down and rubber necked at me as I walked past him to my car. I kept my eyes on him too, giving him a look that conveyed a number of messages like; "What!" "Please, fool." "As if," and "Psh, you couldn't handle this." He gave me this Joey-from-Friends-look that said, "How you doin'?" and I just rolled my eyes and got in my car. I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone tonight and she asked me what I was doing. I told her I was blogging. She laughed and asked about the topic. I told her it was on manners (or the lack there of) and she made a comment about kids in restaurants and how the parents let them run around and make noise when they're supposed to be sitting down and eating. I said, "Yeah, if I wanted to see that kind of behavior I wouldn't have come out to a nice restaurant! I would have gone over to my brother's house where the kids are loud and rowdy because they're AT HOME!" When did our society become so uncouth? I mean I don't remember this kind of stuff happening when I was here in the early 90s going to college, and I was way more "on the town" than I am now. It seems like everywhere I go I see kids, teens, adults, even elderly people just pulling out some of the most rude and inconsiderate behaviors! I'm literally appalled! It's in the way they act, they way they dress, the way they talk… it's like some disease that's spreading! The worst part about it is that it's being propagated as kids keep having kids. A socially unacceptable "Mamma" has a pretty good chance of raising a socially unacceptable child. I know I can't blame the kids… even though some times I want to beat their butts and give them a month long time out (I know, Super Nanny would be horrified that I mentioned corporal punishment AND a time out that doesn't correspond with the number of years of the child versus the number of minutes in the punishment). Truthfully, I can't even blame the parents because we as a society are becoming so stinking tolerant of everything that we just roll our eyes and keep walking. I don't have a big picture solution, but I think from now on I'm just going to say what's on my mind when I see behaviors that are ill-mannered or impolite. Next time I'll just say, "Hey, Mamma? Your kids are being really rude, loud and obnoxious… are you going to do something about that or do you approve their ridiculous behavior? Because if you approve of their behavior then I'll just chock it up to you being uncivilized and unintelligent, but if you don't approve, and you're just ignoring them in hopes that it will go away, then perhaps you'd consider taking a class on Reality and Parenting. They either learned this stuff FROM you or DESPITE you, and it's NOT going to go away." If it's an adult I think I'll jus ask them, "Were you born like that or is this something you picked up along the way because you thought it was cool? Newsflash: either way, it's not cool.. and by the way neither are you." Sigh. This particular vent is now closed.