Blogging from A to Z with The Private School Mom : M is for manners

One of my jobs, as a private school mom, is teaching my children good manners. When they grow up and have dinner with their classmate (The President of the United States of America), I don’t want them talking, to the leader of the free world, with a mouth full of chaeaubriand. Spitting food at your dinner host, because of poor manners, is not acceptable behavior.

PUBLIC MANNERS

Chomping gum at the opera is also frowned upon. I’ve never taken my kids to the opera because it’s mind-numbingly boring. There are just a lot of overweight ladies screeching. I try to keep the members of my household thin and quiet. If you love the opera, I won’t judge you. I love dirty south rap music. You probably don’t like dirty south rap music, so let’s just agree to disagree.

SUNDAY BRUNCH MANNERS

Please don’t tell the other private school moms I wrote this. If they knew I was an opera hating rap lover, they would not allow me to go to the Champagne Brunch with them on Sundays. Instead, I’d end up going to the breakfast buffet alone, or even worse with my children. I don’t like going with my kids, they have the worst table manners! But, they are still young and I still have a few years left to mold them in someone that would make Emily Post proud.

HEIRLOOM MANNERS

Manners were created to be respectful and not offend the other people’s feelings or sense of well being. According to Peggy Post (Emily’s daughter), “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.” Emily was a great mom for raising such intelligent children. As an overachieving private school mom, I not only teach my children to be mentally nice, but to also be physically nice.

PHYSICAL MANNERS

Not hitting people is important. Let’s take the TV Show “60 Days In” (my current guilty pleasure on A&E)  which is about innocent people being incarcerated for 60 days, to reform the prison system, as an example. If you hit another inmate, you’ll catch a charge (increase your sentence) and probably get sent to isolation/solitary confinement (jail term for sitting in time-out).

PRIVATE MANNERS

More importantly, I have taught my son, specifically, not to hit girls. I’ve done this for purely selfish reasons. This year, my son is taller than me. As his mother, I still say NO to him most of the time (see my post on delayed gratification) when he wants something. He may get annoyed, but he does not hit me because I have taught him manners. He is taller than me and stronger than me. I’m outnumbered by my kids. My family keeps me around because I have trained them to think I am valuable. I keep them just a little reliant on me for things like hugs, food, shelter and an allowance. If I am of no use to them, they would get as far away from me as possible, as evidenced by every teenager that has just received their drivers license.

SUGGESTIONS FOR MANNERS

I feel confident that my children have good manners and they won’t spit food in the President’s face or punch him out and allow me to live another day. Please comment below suggestion for other manners that I need to teach my children. Please help me raise them not to be jerks.