Table Manners
And other unwritten rules
The ancient parents are visiting, so we organize a pre-Christmas treat, taking them to The Grove for afternoon tea.
The sofas we are led to are too much of a challenge for the old folk, so the staff obligingly set up a small table with upright chairs alongside us. The rest of us are perched on the edge of the sofa to eat, not entirely comfortable, but hiding it well.
“Sit up straight” says my mother to my daughter. “It’s not very ladylike to slouch”.
The twelve-year-old shrugs. Being ladylike isn’t her top priority just now.
I suffer a curious sensation of having all of my Mum’s old eating strictures cascading into my mind at once.
— Don’t talk with food in your mouth — Elbows off the table — Don’t slurp — Tip the soup bowl away from you — Finish your dinner or you don’t get any dessert
Some of this must have been local conditioning. A friend from Ireland, raised in a well-to-do household, said that he was obliged to leave something on his plate, otherwise people would think he was hungry. In our house we were encouraged to clean the plate by being urged to think of the starving children in Africa.
How did that generation have the energy to invest in micromanaging the dining experience? Since my children were babies I have patted myself on the back if the food actually ended up in their mouths, whatever route it took to get there.
More broadly, it took me decades to challenge the general rules of behaviour which were instilled in us back in the 60s. Where did they come from? Why was I still following them 40 years later, and was there any obligation on me to pass them on to the next generation? Here’s a particularly insidious one:
— Children should be seen and not heard
The appearance of the word “should” implies an indisputable rule of behavior, which is not open to challenge.
However, having learned and fully integrated the lessons of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, “should” is now a red flag word to me (along with “must”, “always” and “never”).
The questions I ask myself when I hear it are
1 — Who made up this rule?
2 — Do I believe it?
3 — Does it help alleviate the current circumstance?
Often I’ll find that someone has just made up on the fly the idea that a man/parent/child/husband “should” act in a certain way.
Other times it will be a throwback to the mental rules that their parents unthinkingly maintained (like “Children should be seen and not heard”)
I saw these problems with “should” highlighted most amusingly in posts by Michelle Monet.
Elsewhere traceybyfire commented on an even worse construction which is “you should have…”, ie an exhortation that needs a time machine to comply with.
Meanwhile, back at The Grove, my daughter decides to wind up her grandparents (and her father) even more by dabbing a blob of soft green icing from a Christmas cupcake on the tip of her nose, ending up looking like the Grinch.
She wipes it off for a minute, to my relief, then reapplies it, and repeats the whole process five or six times, by which time her Mum has joined in the fun and I am just about ready to walk out.
I guess some of those childhood lessons on table manners must have stuck with me after all.
Many thanks for reading!
If you are interested to read more about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, you may enjoy these:
