Traditional Catholic living in the modern world
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Manners
I'm so grateful to my friend Sarah H. and some reading I've done for the tip of modeling politeness. With John I didn't do that so much, except for often saying "no, thank you!" instead of just plain "no." With Mary from the start I've been saying "no, ma'am!" and I've switched with John to saying, "no, sir!" And it's really paying off, I think. One of those ways is that when John sees Mary getting into mischief, he virtually always says, "No, ma'am, Mary! No, ma'am!" That's a lot better than other things a big brother could be saying, which makes me gratified. (The other, bigger benefit to my speaking to the children politely is it keeps me calmer and reminds me of their dignity, so I'm maintaining more patience and not losing control.)
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I decided to try "no ma'am" with Emma today, and she got mad at me and exclaimed, "I'm not a man!!! I'm a girl!". So I explained to her that I said "ma'am", not "man". And she said, "I don't like that word!"
ReplyDeleteThink I have some work to do... :)
Janeane: That's really funny! Also I've begun enforcing that John reply back to me (at all and not ignore me) with "yes, mama" or "yes, ma'am." We're going to try to teach "ma'am" and "sir" for other adults. I know that's probably really foreign in California, from what I remember, but it's the norm here in the South and I like it!
ReplyDeleteIt definitely is a southern thing but it does add to the niceties of daily life! Manners are the grease that keep us all from wearing each other out as we rub shoulders! I've come to believe it's almost more important within the family than outside, since we have the most daily contact. My favorite thing lately is Christina's new saying, "May I hold that a moment?" Cracks me up every time.
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