My kids have asked me in the past why manners matter, and why it’s important to be polite, and my answer is always along the lines of, “because it shows respect for the people around you, and it demonstrates to others what kind of treatment you expect in return.”
Do unto others… really, that’s all it comes down to.
And, in this social bubble also comes respect for your elders. This means the grown-ups are in charge. You may not always like the rules, and you may not always like the mode of the message, but you will not sass those older than you.
When I was twelve, my mother once asked me to do something I was far too busy being a sassy pre-teen to do whatever it was, and after she had to ask me a second time, I rolled my eyes at her.
This was a mistake.
“Tracey,” she said, with her finger pointing at me, “don’t you dare roll those eyes at me, or I’ll slap them right down your face. You understand?” It wasn’t a question. And my mother is no slapping-mama… but she never made idle threats, either. She never had to. I think she stared at me for a full minute without blinking. Whoa.
She meant it. I apologised, and I never, ever did it again. Not even behind her back. That would have been suicidal, for sure. (All mothers have eyes in the backs of their heads, right? Everybody knows that.)
Eye-rolling is the perfect way to show contempt for the person you’re speaking to. What you say doesn’t matter to me, you idiot is what it says. It’s rude as hell. I don’t do it to other people (unless in jest – there’s a huge difference) and I won’t accept it from anyone else. Especially not a from a child. Not just because I’d want to knock their eyes out of their heads if they tried, but because it absolutely sends the wrong message. It says, we’re equal, and really, we are not.
This is not about wielding power – it’s simply that the grown-ups are in charge, until the children are grown and are in charge of themselves.
And when generations of kids start growing up, making demands and being cowed to about what they will and won’t eat for dinner, and telling YOU when they will to go to bed, and having massive tantrums over every little thing they cannot have, and the grown-ups around them try to placate them because they’re terrified that their children won’t like them, and give in to their every demand, make them feel as if everything they say and do is precious and golden, make them feel as if there is NOTHING more important in the world than their happiness in this moment, make them feel as if they are the ones driving the bus… well, you get horrendous matters like this ferocious gaggle of twelve year old boys harassing their elderly school bus monitor, completely unprovoked, with their potty-mouthed diatribe, which just got more and more wicked and violent as they went on. A ten minute verbal attack on a lady just sitting there doing her job of trying not to let things get out of hand on the school bus on the way home. I have NEVER in my life…
*squeezes temples*
I don’t know what kind of resolve that poor woman had to have as not to backhand those smart-mouthed boys. Talk about a twitchy palm. A level-head would opt to avoid jail time, I guess… but, maaaan. Had it been my child? I WOULD SLAP THE BLACK OFF HIM. (Believe it.)
I’ll mention here that I understand how mob-mentality works. One starts uttering outrageous things… it goes unchecked… another says something louder and more brutal, and the sky does not fall down… and the next thing you know, the group is ALL on the wrong side of correct, and this kind of thing gets whipped into such a froth, you can’t tell who started what and everything goes to ruin in hurry. It can be easy to get swept into this kind of sea of maliciousness, especially if you’re used to sassing grown-ups in your regular life, and telling them to eff-off with your eyes when you’re not getting your way. I mean, how different is it, if you behave in a watered-down version of this every day?
And then it gets easy to rip a turban off that brown kid in your class. Or lynch that gay kid down the street. Before you know it you get genocide, and concentration camps. (Yes, seriously.)
I really don’t know what’s to be done, but tightening up on “acting right” has got to be a big part of the solution. The alternative is just too sobering.
I feel sick and disgusted. Don’t you?
I know what you mean, Sara – they got caught, so of course they’ve got to “act right” because their parents are ready to hang them, and the world is watching… this whole thing is just brutal.
Word, sistah.
Kim – I started reading you post and was like ‘ah she beat me to it’ – I was going to say the same but really sarcastically. Of course they’re mortified! Of course they apologized – can you imagine the crap they’re in! Do you think they would have been mortified had they not been busted? Very doubtful. I agree its great that they’re taking their kid to counselling – I really do. But did you watch the video? I’m not sure this is dumb teenagers. I think it’s brutal that people are turning vigilante and hunting those kids down etc – that is awful BUT – I’m sorry, and maybe it’s just me – but I can’t believe for one minute in the sincerity of those apologies.
GOOD NEWS! The boys have apologised and have been “mortified” by their own taunts when it was exposed to them. Several different articles have written about this now. One parent said he is taking his boy to counselling and he was not raised to act this way. The kids AND parents taking accountability and responsibility is great and refreshing news. A hard lesson learned. They are “dumb” teenagers. They made a mistake and must face consequences of those actions. Now hopelfully they’ve learned an incredible lesson to never do it again and next time they will STAND up to others who do it. 🙂
I can’t even watch videos of people being evil to each other, it just makes me ill, honestly.
All I know is that yes, it starts small, and you had better deal with it then, because it gets no easier as they golder and the problems get bigger. It’s eyerolling one week and harassing the next, as you say. I see kids who smack their mothers sometimes, and it is all I can do not to go over and lay into that child myself. You may get to question, or make your opinion known, I do believe in allowing children that measure of respect, but you do not expect that your opinion or desire is the only one that counts, nor that you are going to run right over what I have said is going to happen, oh hell no.
It IS unspeakable, Village. Le sigh. Scandalous!
it is unspeakbale.
Compassion and understanding is what separates us from animals.
How did these boys end up this way????
It makes me sick
Oh Kim. I know. I KNOW!!
I’m not a perfect parent either (none of us are) and I’m sure I’m harder on my kids than lots of others are, but no one walks in anyone else’s shoes but his or her own. We have to do the best we can. But indeed, the “special snowflake syndrome” poisons the well we all have to drink from – and the “casualness” of society is just… well, I think we’re just heading in the wrong direction.
I LIKE civil and pleasant culture. I think it’s right. I LIKE not being worried that a bunch of punks are going to come to my house to verbally assault me, or want to “piss on my door.” I prefer a world that thinks such behaviour is wrong, and in fact punishable. I mean, really! To chalk any of this up as a “boys being boys” thing or “well, if she can’t handle the job…” for goodness sake. I’m so cross about this, I can hardly speak. Grrrrrrr…
And they should be SO glad that wasn’t MY mother on the bus. I’d have been worried for THEM!
Tracey, I couldn’t even watch the video. i knew how sick and disgusted I would feel and just couldn’t do it.
WHAT is the ANSWER???????????????? Parents do not believe it’s THEM. Parents do not think they are harming their children in anyway by inteferring and being overly involved in EVERYTHING in their lives. I see it ALL the time. People are so sucked in…they don’t even know they are doing it.
My daughter’s swim coach said “I can not save a child from their own parents”.
Parents in general need to step the hell off. Seriously. A lot. Let the teachers, teach and the coaches, coach, the doctors um, doctor? (lol) and be parents, not friends to your kids. It’s insulting that you think you are better than everyone else, know more and need to direct EVERYONE on your child. Let them know life is unfair. They get bumps and bruises along the way. to their bodies and their egos. Get OVER it and help them learn to DEAL with it not FIX it!!!!!!!!! And then know the difference when it is important to intervene. Suzie Snowflake getting a B in reading in grade 2, even though she reads at the college level at home IS NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO HAVE A MEETING WITH THE TEACHER. If you think it is…then check yourself at Helicopter Parent and
The “special snowflake syndrome” is rampant. I’m NOT a perfect parent. not by a looooooooooooooooong shot BUT our philosophy on parenting, about raising these beings to be self-sufficient ADULTS, not insufferable, “forever” children is counter to the culture that presently exists.
Manners exist to keep the culture civil and pleasant, social graces that SOMEONE just isn’t teaching kids http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/almost-factual-news/2012/jun/19/no-unringing-that-bell/
I’m just so sad that kids could even think to behave in such a way. It would never have even occurred to me to say such things to someone my grandma’s age. Or to ANYone ANY age!! It’s really… just crazy. SHAME!!
Wow.
Disgusting. I just showed it to my grade 7 and his friend. They were appalled. YES, manners matter.
I’m hoping this kind of behaviour won’t become epidemic, holy crap…
I am outraged as well – watching that video once was more than enough for me. I don’t think I would have had that kind of gumption to speak to an elderly person like that either – never in my life – and my mother isn’t a violent person either (of course not) but she would have KILLED me if I came home with this kind of tale to tell. OHMYGOD.
And yes, this whole thing reeks of these boys being used to behaving this way, at least some of the time, and this is the first time they’ve been caught. It was too easy, the sickness rolling off their black tongues… and indeed, this is our future. For every four kids like this, there have to be thousands more who just haven’t been filmed, and had their antics posted to youtube… ack. 🙁
I couldn’t watch it past the first couple of seconds – seriously – and I’m with Elle. Mob mentality or not – never – never would I have done this.
Everything Elle says is how I feel. I’m so enraged. I just can’t believe it.
Where are the parents. Where are the parents. I’m sorry – but crappy kids come from crappy parents. Cut and dried.
I’m outraged! OUTRAGED. I can’t even stand to watch that video anymore. I squirm every time I see that poor woman just sitting there enduring their horrible words. It made me think back to my childhood and I had to ask myself, peer pressure or not, would I have done this?
I wouldn’t have. Other than that I never even thought it possible to speak to an elder that way, I’d have to face my mother when I got home. She wasn’t a violent woman, but I’m sure people would have had to hold her off of me if I’d done this. Clearly these children didn’t feel that sense of responsibility.
At 13, they should understand that speaking that way to anybody, much less someone old enough to be their grandmother is atrocious. The fact that they thought they could get away with it means that this has happened before and they HAVE gotten away with it.
This is our future that we saw harassing that poor woman.