Coming in hot with a Thursday Thread on a Tuesday. I’m working on a rundown of some observations about how UPFs are changing the game. There’s more to unpack than I had originally anticipated, so I’m going to break it down into a two-parter, with the first part hitting your inboxes on Thursday, and the second part the following Tuesday.
In the meantime, I think today’s thread will provide lots of juicy discussion, so please jump into the comments with your experiences. Today I want to talk all things ‘table manners’.
When A was still really small, maybe two or three, he developed a habit of getting up randomly from his chair mid-meal. He'd hop down, circle around the chair a few times, and hop back in.
Or, he might hop down and climb into my lap. Or wander off for a few minutes and come back.
Now he's six and I don't know that he has ever stayed sitting for the entirety of a meal. He needs breaks to move his body, which is totally reasonable.
I was thinking about how different this is from my experience of mealtimes growing up, where the expectations were a little more... Victorian? We had to formally excuse ourselves from the table at the end of a meal. Nobody would have dared to get up and dance around their chair for a few minutes.
There were other rules too; waiting for everyone to sit down before starting eating, no phones or TV at the table, NO ELBOWS ON THE TABLE. If the phone or doorbell rang we ignored it.
What we think of as 'manners' are obviously culturally and historically specific. Some of the things that Avery does at the table would send a Victorian to an early grave, like refusing to use utensils for, well, most things. Then again, huge swathes of people around the world eat with their hands and it isn't considered rude. Using a fork may be considered more 'civilised' in some places, but only through a racist, imperialist lens. Manners are also deeply entangled with ideas of class and race.
So I'm curious to know how you are thinking about table 'manners' now as an adult and a parent?
There are two parts to this:
What kind of table etiquette was expected of you as a kid?
And what are you teaching your kid about ‘table manners’ now?
Where are the similarities and differences? Are you more relaxed than previous generations? How do you strike the balance between not having unrealistic expectations/lowering demands of kids while also helping them learn to be decent humans in public? How do you deal with mismatches in expectations between how you approach things at home versus with grandparents or out and about? How do you balance expectations about age/developmentally appropriate behaviour versus Victorian ideals of 'manners'? How do you support accommodations for kids who need to move or eat with their hands when this might be considered 'rude'? How are you challenging your own perceptions about what is considered 'good manners'?
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