By Neal Wooten
I think the days of kids learning basic lessons about manners and etiquette are long gone. Sit up straight. Don’t talk back. Don’t talk with your mouth full. Respect your elders. Etc.
I was the manager at Rhodes Furniture in Montgomery and must have interviewed several hundred people over many years. I was always amazed at how younger people showed up for their interviews, if they even showed up at all. Guys and gals would arrive for their interviews wearing ratty clothing, poor language skills, and absolutely no proper mannerisms at all.
I often felt sorry for them for not having a mom like mine. I can remember when I was a kid trying to get a summer job as a bagboy or even a job at a potato shed. I dressed up in my one dress shirt, one pair of dress pants, and one clip-on tie. You know, that ensemble that was normally reserved for weddings and funerals. Then my mom would sit me down and go over the particulars.
“Sit up straight.”
“Say ‘yes sir’ and ‘yes ma’am.’”
“Speak up clearly.”
“Give them a firm handshake.”
That was Dad’s favorite bit of advice — the firm handshake. He hated the “dead fish” handshake and figured if you didn’t hear bones cracking, you weren’t doing it right. Oh, and hold your head up high and look them in the eye.
But kids aren’t taught these things by their parents anymore. Maybe it’s due to one-parent families, or parents working so hard they don’t have time, or maybe society is simply changing on us. It worries me to think that kids today are not being instilled with values at an early age like they used to be.
Maybe it goes hand-in-hand with discipline. It’s all about teaching kids the difference between right and wrong, not just with the big things like stealing or cheating, but the simple things like respect and manners.
As many times as my parents sat me down to teach me etiquette, there were many more times they stood me up and bent me over to teach me respect. Those lessons resonated much more clearly. I can still hear the sound my Dad’s belt made as he whipped it off, the leather creating friction as it zipped across the denim. He was a true artist. It made an unmistakable “whoosh” that was scarier than the roar of a grizzly bear or a demonically possessed person’s head spinning around.
It wasn’t just at home. My dad believed discipline was to be administered anywhere. I can even remember him doing it once at a restaurant. I said, “Dad, please, wait until I get off work.”