Manners

Time for a subject that affects us all . . .

People can often be heard to complain about or, less frequently, to compliment someone else's manners. As with many things in life, the good is often not recognized as quickly or with as much clamor as the bad and the ugly.

But what are manners? Wikipedia does a pretty good job of describing the reason for manners, also known as etiquette, and some of the attendant challenges involved in observing them.

Growing up in Virginia, I learned a very specific set of rules of etiquette, which, of course, I took to be universal. It has been quite an adjustment throughout my adulthood to adapt to the highly diverse population in which we live, and I'm guessing—pretty accurately, I think—that many of our multi-ethnic society's interpersonal abrasions can be directly linked to our family and cultural understandings of what constitutes good manners. What is good manners in one culture is a non-issue, or even bad manners, in another. Personally, my own bias is toward the adoption of the rules, even if unspoken, of the country in which you find yourself.

The problem with my thinking, however, is obvious from my own experience living in another country. My husband and I used to live in Japan, and I know that it is highly unlikely that anyone not growing up in a culture will ever truly figure out all of the complexities and nuances involved in properly and fully observing the etiquette rules of that culture. Bring all of those various codes together in one place, as in the U.S., and it is no wonder that people are unsure when and if to be offended by the actions and possible intentions of others.

Even so, however, some manners would seem self-evident. For example, I have to fight the irritation I feel when someone breaches what, to me at least, is a minimum of etiquette, such as saying, "Thank you," when someone holds open a door, thereby allowing the another to walk through it. In the first place, it is a polite consideration to hold the door for someone else, often a stranger, and in the second place, the holder of the door is implicitly and voluntarily giving a primacy of honor to the one who walks through the door first. Unless you're THE KING or QUEEN—and we don't have any of those in this country (in real life, anyway)—no one should even be thinking of walking past the door holder without acknowledging his or her act of kind thoughtfulness. Just my opinion, sure, but I can't help but wonder how much nicer everyone's day would be with an extra thank you or two thrown in.

Having stated the above, I must admit to many breaches of the rules of etiquette as I learned them growing up. My biggest offense, I think, is in not sending formal "Thank you" notes to people for favors and gifts especially. I cringe at the number of times I have failed to send one. I was quite good about it when I was younger, but once became a grown-up and had seemingly a million other urgent matters to deal with, I am ashamed to admit that it was a practice that often stuck around on my To-Do list until it was almost more embarrassing to follow through than it was to forge ahead. I should have forged ahead. At least I might only be half as chagrined at my own lack of manners.

The bigger problem is what the generations are losing as we move down the timeline of history and culture. Last year, my then-sixteen-year-old daughter fumed one day after I had been nearly run down by a tall teen-aged girl who was walking into a clothing store right "past" me without any intention of stepping aside for a woman who was obviously her elder. I thought I would have to peel my daughter off the ceiling. Only my finer sensibilities were injured, however, and the silver lining to this episode was that I know my daughters have learned their manners. Bless all those parents who have taught their children well, and bless all those children who take to heart the lessons given them by their parents. Those lessons will serve you well.

It's never too late to begin adding manners back in to daily life—even if that life has become busier and ever more complicated. Perhaps one day we will have a universally practiced code of good manners in our country (I'm a realist—I'm not buying stock in that one), but until then, I'm going to put my Thank-you's at the top of my To-Do list, and do my best to cross them off rather than have them stare unblinkingly back at me.

For those who care to, when you have a few moments here is a list of websites that came up pretty quickly in my search this morning. Some are humorous, some are seriously packed with information for any and all circumstances (yes, it takes a tome to get it all down!), but all are useful in one way or another.

George Washington's Rules of Civility:

Emily Post

ThinkQuest-A History of Etiquette

Independent.ie—A Brief History of Manners . . .

U.S. Flag Etiquette

Etiquette Hell


Cheers.