It must have been fifteen years ago, but I still remember the incident. My wife and I were at a church picnic with a lot of families and several of our church’s pastors. After a meal, we were a bit involved in an ongoing conversation with adults. But we couldn’t help notice that one pastor’s daughter of ten or twelve years was waiting on her mom and dad while her younger sister and the rest of the kids were roughhousing and making a lot of noise. We had noticed that the younger sister was ignoring her older’s requests for help. And when pushed a couple times, she had rather pointedly said she was playing with her friends--and took off. But contrarily, several adults had commented that it was “so nice” that the pastor’s daughter was helping at the picnic.
After the third or fourth person commented how nice that the older daughter was helping, I looked at my wife and she rolled her eyes and got a similar response from me. Since it was a fairly large group of adults I stood up and my wife immediately joined me for a brief walk out in the forest. “Well, I suspected that. . .” and before I finished my wife responded, “yes, it was obvious.” “Gutsy younger daughter,” I added, to my wife’s laughter and agreement.
We didn’t have to say anything else because we both recognized that the pastor had some fairly narcissistic behaviors that were negatively impacting his older daughter--and that she was being ignored by her younger sister. In other words, it wasn’t “so nice” that one daughter was taking care of her parents. At her age she should have been free to explore, play with her friends and get dirty, instead of wearing a nice dress—and being unconsciously controlled by her parents.
And the “rudeness” of the younger daughter? Probably good stuff. I suspect that goes against the grain of a lot of parenting. But there are a couple very important pluses in “bad behavior.”
Kids need plenty of autonomy, more than many middle and upper-middle class parents permit. It’s important to allow kids to be themselves without a heavy emphasis on compliance. That helps them to grow into adults who are independent, creative thinkers. Blind obedience, in contrast, can make a kid vulnerable to abuse from others. If that means they’re freewheeling and a bit rude as a kid, so be it.
In an intriguing Boston Globe article (10/22/19), Nicole Lipson points out that good manners don’t always indicate kindness—and “can even be a mask for darker impulses.” As a former pastor, I knew “preacher’s kids” and “leaders’ kids” who were impeccably mannered in public, but behind closed doors exposed a destructive side. I will never forget the teen-ager who cornered me after church to tell me that my eldest daughter “swore” on a trip with the high school church kids. I looked at him, knowing the prominent family from which he came, commented that she probably learned it from me and walked away. My wife, who usually just smiled at my antics, laughed out loud when I told her what I had said. We never mentioned it to our daughter. The boy, a closeted gay--because his family could never have dealt with the truth, sadly, was murdered in his twenties. If you have a psych background, this impeccably truthful anecdote has a load of psych insights waiting for download.
So, should you teach good manners? Of course. But the key, as in any educational experience, is to explain the “why” underneath the “how” of the behavior. For example, why send a thank you note--and how to write it. Why say “thank you,” “please,” or “excuse me.” And for my daughters, what these behaviors (including opening a car door) say about a date with a boy. And when you explain what these manners mean, they take on a new meaning. They’re also an opening for understanding empathy and respect.
Manners will always have an important place in our world. But, like any behavior, there’s a potential downside to them. And explaining that complexity helps a youngster to develop critical thinking skills.