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Courtesy is a lost art form
By GERIANNE WRIGHT
Staff Writer
I think I’m going to write a book and call it, “The Common Courtesy Chronicles.” It probably won’t be a long book. In fact, it might just be a pamphlet because courtesy isn’t that common anymore.
It should be. It’s something that should be ingrained in every kid before he even leaves the house for preschool. But something’s happened in the last couple of decades. There’s been a disconnect somehow that I find baffling. I have a lot of contact with college-age students, and for many, their lack of courtesy – even their obliviousness to other people and the lack of a sense of what’s right – leaves me wondering: How did what was once human nature become extinct?
Just like everything that has to do with our offspring, I think the blame, or part of the blame because we’ll always have those sociopaths among us for whom no amount of parental support is enough, lies with parents.
For the last generation and a half, parents have decided they’re going to be their kids’ best friends instead of what God made them – a force to be reckoned with. These best friends are going to give in to the trends and the whines and the demands of a spoiled and indulged population to the point where that population has no sense of its own responsibilities, abilities and moral compasses. Why should they? Their parents have abandoned their posts. They’ve left the navigation of life up to their children instead of standing their ground and refusing to turn over the wheel.
One time when I was at a hotel in the company of my sister-in-law, Connie, and her two kids, who were about 8 and 10, and my two, who were about 5 and 7, we came upon a group of college basketball players who were staying on the same floor of the hotel where we were staying. The basketball players were sprawled out on the floor in the hallway, taking up room, stretched from wall to wall. Not one of them stood to allow us easy passage.
As we maneuvered our way through the mélange of bodies and came to our room, Connie turned to her two and said, “If I ever catch you behaving that way, there will be consequences.” Consequences. There’s something a lot of kids never have to face, especially when it comes to how to behave, or, more accurately, how not to behave.
What has all this have to do with “The Common Courtesy Chronicles”? Everything. Courtesy is learned at home. It’s learned by example. It’s learned by doing. Every time someone walks by and doesn’t hold open a door for the next guy, every time someone doesn’t step aside to help a parent struggling with little kids in tow, every time someone leaves his garbage sitting on a tray on a food court table, every time someone leaves his coffee stirrers and empty sugar packets on the counter of the coffee shop is an example of a lesson unlearned.
Courtesy dictates that you hold that door open, that you move aside for that parent, that you bus your own tray and throw out your own debris (and not on the ground or out the window of your car).
Courtesy dictates that you help someone who’s dropped something, that you allow a person with a couple of items in the grocery line to go ahead of you when your cart is full (and even if it’s not).
You might argue that these are small slights, that if they’re perpetrated by kids it’s not a big deal. They’ll learn. I ask you when? When will they learn? When they’re on their own at college? I’m here to tell you that they haven’t. They haven’t learned that you don’t leave your garbage sitting on the countertops of the cafeterias and dining halls. They haven’t learned that you offer a hand to someone who’s struggling with full arms at doors that open in. They just stand there waiting for the door to be opened for them, just like it’s been opened for them their whole life. Just like it’s been picked up, taken care of and put away their whole life.
We do our kids no favors by requiring less of them than they are capable of. Because in this, they will exceed our expectations. My girls know that if I ever catch them dropping the courtesy ball, there will be consequences.
And believe me, they’d rather have them doled out by me than their Aunt Connie.
Comments
So, true! Isn't it a shame, when in the North Country you open a door for someone and it's like you've intiated a strange social custom? It resembles the reaction of someone who never hugs, getting a bear-hug from a stranger.
People don't know what to do half the time.
Either they stand back in utter, speechless shock, or merely duck their head and walk on through the opened door.
What's a shame is that while courtesy doesn't, and never should, depend on the gratitude of the other person, many people lack the ability to share the experience by offering a simply thank-you.
Now, this isn't always the case. As a college-aged male, I find when I open the door for a generation more mature than mine there is often a smile, a look of quiet surprise. Often times if there is another set of doors ahead, they will return the favor.
Good for you with that discussion on consequences. You're kids will thank-you. If they don't, the person whose arms are full of groceries, with kids at their knees, and a massive door closed before them - that person will thank-you for such courteous fellow human beings!
Posted by: Lucas | February 15, 2009 8:46 PM
Thanks for the comment, Lucas. I appreciate the observation from someone who represents an age group I refer to.
Posted by: Gerianne Wright | March 13, 2009 2:57 PM