Please Say Please!!

I am a mean mom. I will freely admit that. I am also a mean Aunt, babysitter or hostess of sleepovers/playdates. In my home, manners are not optional. I drive my niece Lilli crazy when she visits. She will come up and say "I'm thirsty." I will reply "It's nice to meet you Thirsty, I'm Aunt Toni." She will then say "No! I'm THIRSTY, like for a drink." I will follow up with "Okay Thirsty Likeforadrink, I'm Aunt Toni Pleaseaskcorrectly." This can go on for awhile, but eventually she will ask if she can please have a drink. I think now she might do it just for fun. However, most children whom I encounter these days do not use basic manners. I have heard several parents proclaim that their children are "too young" to learn manners. That's interesting. My nephew Tyler is not yet two, and has been saying "please" and "thank you" pretty much since he could talk. My own son, also nearly two, has said "thank you" for months. We just finally nailed "please" in the last few weeks. The look of shock on our faces when I said "Can you say please Lucas?" and he said "Peas!" instead of "Uh huh!" was pretty comical. I don't understand not teaching your kids manners. Why wouldn't you? My children learned simply because I use my manners. I will ask them to do something, and say please and thank you, so they do it too. I am constantly told how well behaved and polite my children are when they go to their friends' homes. My oldest calls his best friend's mom Mrs. Herlastname, thanks her for letting him visit, and according to her, uses his manners while he is there. I would be mortified if he didn't! Now, don't get me wrong, my children are not perfect. They can be downright monsters! The older two are awfully snotty sometimes, and my youngest is in a super fun screaming-when-he-gets-mad stage. It's truly amazing. However, they still use manners, even when tattling. Yesterday, Matthew came up to me and said "Mom, may you please tell Alyssa to stop jumping on my bed while I'm trying to read?" After I complied, he thanked me. To them, manners are just second nature. They very rarely even need to be reminded. Teaching your kids manners is very, very easy, and can begin at birth. If you use your manners in front of, and with, your own children, they will follow suit. My sister Tracy used to make fun of me for making my kids ask for things correctly, even at very young ages. Now that she has her own child, it doesn't seem so silly to her anymore. I feel the same way about manners as I do about grammar. When it comes to my kids, I don't care if they are gay or straight. I don't care if they get married and have babies or stay single and have cats (or married with cats even). I will not care if they decide to be doctors and lawyers, or instead move to Paris and become starving artists. As long as they are safe and happy. AND as long as they are polite, well spoken individuals with a good sense of right and wrong. Oh and as long as they NEVER think they are better then anyone. EVER. (But that is a blog for another day.) That is really all I can do as a parent. It's not too late for you either. If your children are among the ones I see out there that aren't required to use manners, now is the perfect time to change that.

"I Seen...."

Yup, that about sums it up. I hear, and see, this frequently. It drives me crazy, and quite frankly, lowers my opinion of the person's intelligence. You SAW it, you did not SEEN it. I just don't understand how that even sounds right to anyone. People who say it have to know that it makes them sound unintelligent. Right?! The way you speak matters! It really does. You can be a super smart Harvard graduate, but if you say things like "I seen", or "I ain't got none", you sound like an idiot. I am sure that seems mean to those of you that say "I seen", and you are probably right. It is mean. Go ahead and tell people how mean I am, heck, even write your own blog about it. Just please, please, don't tell people that you "seen" this blog...