Social Graces are not Old Fashioned

The guy behind the register is an employee.  He is required to get items for you and to serve your buying needs.  He’s even required, if he expects to keep his job, to put up with rudeness.  It is still no excuse to be pushy, say “gimme 5 packs of smokes,” or to omit your “pleases” and “thank yous”.  Being polite to service people is a hard concept to grasp for some folks.  But, the bad behavior does not stop at service employees.  In fact, grace towards unpaid strangers seems equally inconvenient for a lot of people.  Many younger people have come to feel entitled to treat others in any way that they find personally gratifying, completely unaware that their behavior may someday get them an ass kicking.   

It is, in my opinion, a symptom of narcissism that newer generations treat those around them with such little courtesy.  And it isn’t just the riff raff and dregs who are doing it.  So called professionals are no better.  Their excuses run the gamut.  They claim they’re too busy to ask nicely or they just aren’t paying attention or even this: “To get things done requires directness.”  Strangely, that excuse did not exist for people in the past who perhaps led much busier and harried lives than our current generation of precious snowflakes.  It also doesn’t hold true for other cultures who are no less productive, such as the British who still find it in themselves (for the most part) to be polite – and Canadians, of course the Canadians. The Japanese have one of the most complex social structures on the planet and they are still productive.  No, the simple truth is that these young Americans were raised thinking they are the only ones who matter.  And that’s a problem. 

Kids are not Little Adults:   

There is a difference between a child’s brain and that of an adult.  It should stand to reason then, that because of the generally superior functioning of an adult brain, children should treat adults with some degree of respect and deference.  The point being that, adults usually know things that kids do not; kids, being kids, have more to learn than they have to teach.  It is for that reasons that the younger generations are traditionally told to “shut up and listen” before voicing their own opinions (which were, and still are, 9 times out of 10, nonsense).   

Manners Never Hurt Anybody   

Holding Doors:  It’s a lost art.  Kids at our community center zoom in and out of doors, flinging them open and bolting inside or out unaware of people in front of or behind them.  I’ve seen young, baby carrying mothers, for instance, hurrying to stick feet in closing doors while half a dozen loitering teens stand 10 feet of the entrance deciding not to help (if the conscious thought to help or not to help even went through their heads in the first place).  When your son (or daughter) is old enough and strong enough to hold a door, they should be doing it.  Whether it be for an old person or a baby wearing mother, the act is one of simple courtesy and kindness.  Some people may say it’s old fashioned.  I disagree.  I think it shows social awareness.   

Excuse Me:  What ever happened to the folks who say “excuse me…,” “pardon me…,” “please may I have…,” “I would like…”?  These days all I hear is “Gimme” and “I want… .”  Are the polite people hiding somewhere?  I don’t know when people started thinking it was better policy to ask rudely for things than to be polite.  It’s so rare, in fact, to see a person with good manners that when they are spotten it’s noteworthy (when’s the last time you’ve heard sir or ma’am?).  More than once, my kids and I have gotten an extra scoop of ice-cream at the ice cream shop just because we’re polite.  Manners are a refreshing change for employees who put up with unkempt slobs all day.  My local Starbucks barista even gives me an extra shot of espresso in my cappuccino because I’m polite to her and she likes me (not that kind of like!).  The sooner kids learn to be polite to strangers, the sooner they will learn to get the most out of life and the most out of other people who share common breathable air.   

Have you ever seen that bumper sticker that says Practice Random Acts of Kindness?  Life is, of course, more complex than a bumper sticker, but that one always gets me when I read it.  To consider kindness a random act suggests that meanness is equally random.  Shouldn’t kindness be a baseline behavior, not random?  After all, if you’re not being kind, you must be either ambivalent or unkind.  A bumper sticker that says Try Not to be Such a Dick would essentially say the same thing.  When acts of kindness become random and unpredictable it means our society needs emergency lessons in social graces.