Etiquette courses are springing up for parents who no longer have the time to teach children manners. ...NYT
Wait! If they don't have time for manners, do they have time for children? Does this explain a whole lot about the problems -- including, yes, school shootings -- that have gone from rarities to near epidemic? The above Times quote comes from a front page lure leading to an article explaining that parents now send their kids to a restaurant in San Francisco to learn manners at almost $300 a pop (or mom).
The place is Chenery Park, a restaurant with low lights, cloth napkins, $24 grilled salmon and “family night” every Tuesday. Children are welcome, with a catch: They are expected to behave — and to watch their manners, or learn them. Think upscale dining with training wheels.
Chenery Park has many allies in the fight to teach manners to a new generation of children. Around the country, there are classes taught by self-appointed etiquette counselors — Emily Posts for a new age — delivering a more decentralized and less formal approach to teaching manners than in years past. A few restaurants, like Chenery Park, and high-end hotels set aside space and time for families.
These etiquette experts say that new approaches are needed because parents no longer have the stomach, time or know-how to play bad cop and teach manners. ...NYT
Honest! This restaurant thing is a symptom, not a cure.
Go ahead. Scoff! Laugh! But first please vote for every elected Republican across the country be sent to Chenery Park. They had or have lousy parents.
Parents prove to be no more civilized than their children, another manners counselor points out.
“Kids have stopped making eye contact at one another,” Ms. Neitlich said. “They bring their technology to the table. She added that it is true of parents, too: “Everyone is in a hurry. Things are clipped, clipped, clipped.”
It all makes teaching manners at home challenging, said Faye de Muyshondt, the founder of Socialsklz, which teaches workshops in New York City on etiquette and social skills. Modern children seem to want no part of the conversation, she said.
“Say the words ‘manners’ or ‘etiquette’ to kids these days, and they run the other direction,” she said. She prefers teaching the children that they are “building the brand called ‘you.’ ”...NYT
Puh-lease. No more "me's"! Could we reintroduce "us" as a concept? Even Ms. Neitlich talks about "making eye contact at one another." How about "making eye contact with one another"?
