May/June 2003

Missed Manners
Our DISS-integrating Culture

by Rhonda Rhea

I was in a fast food restaurant a few weeks ago. A teenager with a face full of jewelry took my order. I've seen colanders with fewer holes than this guy. But that wasn't the big put-off. Without so much as a "May I help you?" he stood at the register and just stared. I finally had to assume he was ready for my order. After I gave it to him, he responded with an eye-roll (Ouch, wouldn't that hurt with all those brow rings?). A few minutes later, he plopped my food down in front of me with the same kind of apathetic glare I've seen on my cat. He never said a word -- no "thank you," no "come again" -- nothing!

"Where Are My Manners?"

Wasn't there a time when folks asked the question, "Where are my manners?" when they caught themselves in an etiquette oversight? It seems these days, we find ourselves asking "Where are any manners?" Where do you suppose the young guy at the restaurant learned to be so rude in such a short life? Parents? Friends? TV?

"Our society seems to celebrate anything that is rude, crude or lewd." Jim gives some witty, yet still somehow disturbing examples in South Park, The Jerry Springer Show, Mortal Combat, Eminem, Dennis Rodman, restroom graffiti and "people with airline 'carry-on' luggage the size of compact cars."

How about closer to home? Watkins addresses other rudeness issues, too, when he draws attention to perfectly healthy people who park in handicap spaces, diners who confuse underpaid servers with indentured servants and people who wear enough cologne to prompt a stage 10 air pollution alert. He also hits on childish parents who coach Little League from their seat in the stands and self-important, self-absorbed people who talk on cell phones in restaurants and movies.

Hold the Phone

Talk about close to home. That last one hit a nerve. Not long ago, I was telling a great story. The listeners were graciously hanging on my every word -- I love it when that happens. Then, mid-delivery of my best line, a cell phone interrupted with a long and irritating shriek.

It might as well have been a bazooka. My line was totally blown. Not only that, every eye was jerking in every direction except mine to find that blasted phone. The really embarrassing part was that the cell phone/bazooka was mine!

Not only is the matter no longer trivial, it's becoming illegal. CellManners.com also warns that "if you're in a library, movie theater, classroom or conference center in Campinas, Brazil, turn your phone off and don't even think about making a call." The city councilmen back up their phone manners campaign with a hefty fine for rude phone flouters. If the impolite phone users don't respect those around them, they can at least respect a whopping blow to the wallet.

What's the Source of the Rudeness?

It's not just a phone thing. Bad manners in every form pop up in everyday encounters in every setting. Where are all these rude behaviors coming from? Many say it begins earlier than the teen scene, and most agree that civility, or the lack of it, begins at home -- TV influences, friends and, yes, parents.

I spoke with an exasperated mother recently. Her 15-year-old daughter had been skewered in the same style as my perforated fast food waiter. She had a matching "forget you" attitude, accentuated with maroon-colored hair, black lipstick, black nail polish and a smattering of hideous tattoos that made it look as if she'd been mauled by a mad cartoonist. Her mom shrugged her shoulders with a defeated sigh and said something like, "I guess it's just who she is." When did this poor mom sign the unconditional surrender?

"It is a parent's privilege and duty to make his children, by God's blessing, to be and do what they should be and do, rather than what they would like to be and do. If indeed this were not so, a parent's mission would be sadly limited in scope, and diminished in importance and preciousness. The parent who does not recognize the possibility of training his children, as well as instructing them, misses one of his highest privileges as a parent, and fails in his most important work for his children." Trumbull wrote Hints on Child Training in 1891, yet the message still rings loud and clear today.

The Buck Stops Here

Fast-forward a hundred years or so and we hear the message again -- and straight from the top.

The buck can't stop with our president on this one. In their online article "Why Manners Matter: Teaching Kids to Be Polite" in Focus Over Fifty, Roberta Rand and John Perrodin warned parents: "The buck stops with you. It's the careful modeling by parents and other family members that determines whether kids will internalize lessons on how to treat people."

Rand and Perrodin issued a charge: "Let's get serious in our commitment to nurturing respect and common courtesy in our young ones. By doing so now, perhaps in time we can begin to turn our culture of rudeness again into a culture of community and caring."

Trumbull blasted the resounding charge in the 1800s: "Every child is in a sense a partially developed, an imperfectly formed child. There are no absolutely perfect children in this world. All of them need restraining in some things and stimulating in others. And every imperfect child can be helped toward a symmetrical character by wise Christian training. Every home should be an institution for the treatment of imperfectly developed children. Every father and every mother should be a skilled physician in charge of such an institution."

No need to surrender! Good parenting doesn't provide a money-back guarantee for turning out polite offspring, but a no-surrender policy might take care of some of the manners maladies.

Character-strengthening Exercises

How deep is the core of our rudeness? The real root is buried deeper than parenting. It goes further back than our birth. Incivility began with sin. Mankind fell -- and manners with it. The fall began the decline of strength of character that still continues.

In his on-line column, Jim Watkins quotes author Eric Hoffer: "Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."

Watkins comments on Hoffer's quote, "I think he's onto something! If I can't be clever, I can be crude. If I can't be loving, I can be lewd. And if I can't exercise restraint, I can be rude.

"To be anything other than rude, crude or lewd requires effort, ethics and a bit of education. It doesn't require too many brain cells or much moral fiber to call someone with a cart full of groceries in the 'Ten Items or Less' lane a 'blankety blank blank.' It does require strength of character to 'turn the other cheek' and 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'"

Staying on our toes, maintaining courtesy and keeping our manners in check is the way to exercise our character muscles. It's the way to live in the light of Jesus. Ephesians 4:17-18 says, So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

The rest of the passage tells us to "put off" the rude and lewd behaviors and verses 31-32 sum up with this: Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

What Can You Do?

Rather than yanking a felonious cashier's excess jewelry, our instructions are clear. We're instructed to be kind and compassionate -- even to the etiquette impaired -- and to forgive as God forgave us, without regard to tongue-piercing. We are compelled to keep on loving the offenders.

We can also make sure we're not one of them -- the offenders, that is. When we catch a glimpse of rude speech or patterns of impolite behavior in ourselves, we can get back on the good manners band wagon. Emily Post said, "Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can easily be learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality -- the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life."

Since it's all about the inner you, check your insides. If, as Emily Post says, our manners are an outward manifestation of the character inside, we can make outer improvements as we allow God to remake the inner man. As we imitate God, we learn to live the kind of unselfish, sacrificial life Jesus lived.

Finally, we can make sure we pass on politeness instead of rudeness to the next generation -- in our instruction and in our example. It takes time and hard work, but it's an investment in our future, our children's futures and even their children's futures.

In today's society, incivility seems to be the norm. Politeness is seen as weird -- even weak. In at least a handful of circumstances, I think I'm going to shoot for becoming weird and weak. Maybe I should be the weakest link! Goodbye! 

Manners Count Focus Over Fifty editor, Roberta Rand, included a Public Agenda survey in her online article, "Why Manners Matter -- Part 1" that stated 79 percent of Americans think that a lack of common courtesy in American society is a serious problem. Rand sites over-scheduled lives and the shift from community-based values to a "me-first" mentality as a factor in the courtesy decline. She even points a finger at (get ready for this one) fast food. Ouch. Rand says that when most meals are eaten on the run, "it's hard to imagine why knowing which fork to use is such a big deal." But manners are a big deal. OK, maybe not so much the fork issue. But Rand says, "Rules of proper social behavior were created not simply to embarrass the poor guy who doesn't know how to hold a soup spoon. Common courtesy and good manners play a much bigger part in maintaining the social fabric. They are part of the glue that holds a civilized society together. "Good manners communicaterespect for the sensibilities of others. Common courtesies let others know their comfort and feelings matter to us." Rand suggests if we let others know they matter to us, we just might make them think twice before cutting us off on the highway. Focus Over Fifty -- A Ministry of Focus on the Family, "Why Manners Matter: Part 1" by Roberta Rand, fromhttp://www.family.org/focusoverfifty/justforyou/A0020308.html

What's So Funny? Laughter is like medicine according to the Bible. But we don't have to take a toxic dose of off-color humor to get a good laugh. It's easy to get sucked into patterns of rudeness through ugly humor. The bulk of society may tell you that if you want to be funny, be crude. If you want to be popular, be rude. If you want to be the life of the party, learn how to deliver a good slam. As long as it's funny, it's okay. But sacrificing kindness for a laugh is never a good trade. Colossians 3:12 says to "clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." Go ahead and take your laughter medicine -- make it the holy kind. Take two good clean jokes and call me in the morning.

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