Erin's Finishing School of Pain

Here's a rule of parenting I think we can all agree on.  We have to teach our children at least some manners. They need to go forth into life knowing how to treat other people, what's considered rude, and, as my mother used to say, "how to ack at a banket". 

What we do not agree on is the method for teaching them said manners.  I think it's safe to say that by instinct, most mothers who are teaching their own children how to behave in polite society would do so gently, pleasantly, with many quiet reminders. 

I'm here to tell you that approach is flat wrong.

Exhibit A:

This is my baby brother.  Isn't he adorable?

Now my baby brother was, as we all are, born with a shocking lack of manners.  Well, okay, his lack may have been more shocking than most.  My mother, of course, loved him and wanted what was best for him, so she went about teaching him to be a civilized human being in the quiet, repeated, gentle way.  I didn't really care about him so much, in fact he was really irritating, and so I began to teach him manners by a much more effective method. 

Embarrassment and nagging.

Every time we'd sit down at the dinner table I'd hiss at him, "Why don't you put your NAPKIN in your LAP?  Ugh!"  Then he'd inevitably turn to me and say something, a mouthful of half-chewed food revolving in his mouth.  "I MIGHT understand you if your MOUTH weren't full of nasty food," I'd say.  I must have been a pleasant dinner companion. 

When he'd have a cold, and go wiping his poor runny nose on his sleeve, I'd descend on him again.  "OH!" I'd gasp, "How disgusting!  Use a handkerchief, you barbarian!"  And so on.  It would seem, in retrospect, that both of us could have learned something from our mother. 

My own level of maturity aside, fast forward to the time that picture up there was taken.  You'll doubtless have noticed he's not alone in that picture.  He went off to college, he grew up some, and one day the inevitable phone call came to my parents.  "Hi, Mom, listen, I like this girl, and I've met her family, and they're great.."  You know the drill.  My mother had heard it, let's see...seven times before? 

But she was unprepared for his description of his visit to meet his sweetheart's family.  "I went and had dinner with them, and you'll never believe this!  They really DO put their napkins in their laps, just like Erin said!"

I wasn't standing there with my mother, but I imagine that hearing that from her baby boy, the one she'd worked so tirelessly and gently to bring up to be a well-mannered man was rather like a kick in the teeth.  He went on.  "I'm so glad she taught me all those things, like how to use a handkerchief, and which fork to use..."

I blush a little as I write this.  Sorry, Mom. 

Now I have four little uncivilized people of my own.  They put their elbows on the table and wipe their noses on their sleeves.  I know that it's my task to bring them up to be well-mannered adults.  My mother's sensibilities say, teach them gently, repeatedly, quietly...

But deep inside I know I'm doing it all wrong.  You see that smiling young man up there?  He's a graduate of Erin's Finishing School of Pain.  And so I have to ask myself another of those hard parenting questions:  Why am I wussing around?  I know what works.

~Mother Bird~