After months of tireless drilling, Quinn now consistently uses the phrases “Thank you”, “Please”, “You’re welcome”, and “Gesundheit” every time their use is warranted.
He may grow up to be a genius physicist, a famous artist, or the slacker clerk at the adult DVD store down the road in Claremont, but he will be polite.
24 Comments
June 11, 2008 at 10:34 am
Ok, so, now we only need to get the other 37 million parents of toddlers in the country to be more like you.
June 11, 2008 at 10:44 am
Been thinkin’ that for a long time, perlhaqr.
June 11, 2008 at 11:23 am
It feels good to be the parent of a polite child, doesn’t it Marko?
We’ve graduated from “Please” to “May I please have a ___” and it makes me very proud.
We’re still working on “Gesundheit” though. I think the sneeze reboots his cerebral cortex and he can’t bring up the word fast enough.
Turkish Prawn
June 11, 2008 at 11:45 am
I’ve never really understood why we care when someone else sneezes.
Why don’t we have something friendly to say when someone farts?
June 11, 2008 at 11:48 am
Oh, yeah, congrats on the please and thank-yous! That’s SO much better than “Give it to me NOW!!”
On a more serious subject. My 2 year-old nephew has learned the F word. His parents are working on changing that one to “darn”. :O
June 11, 2008 at 11:49 am
Just wait till total strangers start comlementing you and your children for them being polite. Always makes us feel good.
Chris
June 11, 2008 at 4:25 pm
If manners are the grease that smooths the skids of civilization, no wonder we’re in such a bad state.
Children don’t see the advantages of being polite primarily because so few adults practice the art. Just ask anyone who works behind a cash register or waits tables. I began working with the public at age 14, and it was a real education in how not to behave.
Thankfully, my parents were of your mind, Marko.
June 11, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Just make sure at some point you explain the rationale behind politeness, not that it is something you just “do.” Granted, I still haven’t figured out my own reasons….
June 11, 2008 at 11:34 pm
GreatBlueWhale: I hear you. I’m a cranky old punk, myself, but I still always say please and thank you and excuse me when I walk in front of someone. It doesn’t hurt to be polite, and when you look wild, it’s even fun to see people’s brains twist over when you are, because they aren’t expecting it from you!
June 11, 2008 at 11:36 pm
MFH: Rationale — It keeps you from getting into fights you don’t have to, and people who are happy with you will do more stuff for you. Maybe it’s a selfish reason to be polite, but hey, if it works…
June 12, 2008 at 5:30 am
<blockquoteJust make sure at some point you explain the rationale behind politeness, not that it is something you just “do.”
It was a sad day for civilization when “because that’s just how it is done” became insufficient rationale.
June 12, 2008 at 5:36 am
Dammit, it was a sad day when I stopped checking my html before hitting “submit”, too.
June 12, 2008 at 7:12 am
Hrm… maybe I’m the odd duck, but doing something for the sake of doing it or because it’s how we’ve always done it before, without ever exploring the reasons or questioning it, seems a hell of a lot like how we find ourselves doing really stupid shit repeatedly in the name of tradition or culture.
“Because that’s just how it is done” could just as easily apply to any number of heinous actions. Knock down a door with a “dynamic entry”-style warrant? That’s just how it’s done!
Then again, I’ve sort of tried NOT to act randomly and do things without reason in my life. My lack of rationale comment was me being facetious.
My reasons? Mutual respect as the normal denominator – as the normal state in which I choose to initiate a greeting or conversation – ensures that I do not underestimate another human being or simply pointlessly insult or brush off. That person might be someone I want to know, someone I can trade with at mutual benefit, or that person could just be some jackass on the street. If I start with a high assumption, I might be disappointed, but the positive outcomes seem to outweigh the negative.
I am polite – always have been. The difference is that I know why and I don’t force it.
June 12, 2008 at 7:24 am
I’d be bitter too, if I had such a hard time with the bon mot.
The thing I hate most about the pro-freedom movement is it leaves me surrounded with humorless Trekkie randroids.
June 12, 2008 at 7:31 am
So… your entire rationalization behind your actions is simply that it’s how it’s always been done? The same traditions and habits some cultures and entire nations seem to have which disregard an entire gender or relegate certain races, classes, or sexes (well, I guess there are only two) to property have very much the same rationale as to what they propose.
Actually, no, there’s is sadly a defensible argument. They can at least trace their habits or actions to particular events on some of these.
Share your toys. Give to the poor. Give to the needy. Give to the wanty. Why? Because that’s how it’s done!
You’re really going to call someone an android when your only apparent reason for your own politeness is that you were TOLD to be that way at some point in your life?
Never questioned it, tried to rationalize it, just went with it?
Humorless? On this, yes. If we’re just going to be polite just because our parents did, then why are you surprised that the politeness seems to disappear if that instruction misses a generation.
June 12, 2008 at 7:31 am
Hrm. I can’t spell.
June 12, 2008 at 7:37 am
As George Will once said, civility is to civilization as a foundation is to a house.
June 12, 2008 at 7:37 am
*sigh*
Nothing further, your Honor.
June 12, 2008 at 7:39 am
Agreed, Jim.
The difference is that we don’t just lump the foundation there because it’s always been there. We have reasons for the foundation and we have reasons for the way it is a certain way (we have reasons for why it is flat, it is made of this material). We plan it, we know it, and we study it.
I simply advocate we do the same for civility. If you don’t know why you’re doing it (or, more importantly, why you are not) then there might be a problem.
June 12, 2008 at 8:18 am
I think the problem wasn’t so much that people started to question why things had always been done a certain way, but that those who considered it important to do it so didn’t have a good answer. When the only answer to “Why do I need to say please?” is “Because it is nice, and it is what you are supposed to do” it leaves a lot of gaps in a child’s mind.
What if I don’t want to be nice?
Why do I need to be nice?
Why am I supposed to do it?
Even worse, is when the child just accepts it, and comes to believe that things are so because some athority figure said so. Reality by fiat is a difficult concept to get rid of once held for a while.
June 12, 2008 at 11:34 am
Bravo to you for being an active parent! Rude kids grow up to be rude adults, and Lord knows we already have enough of those!!
June 12, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Kids don’t have the kind of abstract reasoning skills required to actually understand why courtesy is a good idea until they’re a lot older than Quinn is.
“Well, dear, we are polite because we need some kind of system to readily identify others as acceptable members of society who are cooperating in good faith, because we no longer lives in groups small enough to know everyone by name and history.”
“Because I said so”/”Because that’s how it’s done” aren’t used because adults are lazy, but because kids are underdeveloped. It’s only when that’s still the answer at age fifteen that it’s because adults are lazy.
June 13, 2008 at 5:41 am
In the South, it’s considered courteous to use: Yes, ma’am; no, ma’am; yes, sir and no, sir. My sister moved north and her Yankee husband convinced her that it makes people sound subservient to use those phrases.
Now when her children visit they sound so rude that it’s embarrassing to hear them answer an adult so curtly.
What do you think? Are those phrases demeaning or passé?
June 25, 2008 at 6:29 pm
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