Politeness


You know, it's questionable whether I have any right to gripe about politeness these days. The truth is, it seems no one is really polite anymore -- one only has to drive down the street to see that. I mean, some days it seems that every goofball in the world is waiting to pull out in front of me -- or they're looking for the address of that rummage sale they read about in the paper, not realizing they're not even on the right street, much less the right town! I try to be nice, I don't pull out in front of people if I can help it, and if I do, I get on the gas as quick as possible, so they don't have to slow down for me. If someone is driving faster than me on the interstate, I get in the right lane -- I try to keep a decent distance between me and the car in front, you know, the stuff you learn in Driver's Ed. I suppose the main reason I do that is because I also ride a motorcycle, and when you do that you have to assume every other driver in the road is completely incompetent -- no matter how day-glo your colors might be, how bright the day or your headlight, no matter how close you are -- that guy sitting at that road waiting to pull out doesn't see you. If you don't think that way, you could end up dead. But it's more than that -- I return waves, say good morning, answer honestly to "how you doing?' without being annoying, I even hold the door for you if you're close enough (otherwise you might feel that I'm waiting on you). And when we go to McDonalds, or other fast food joint where there are play areas for children, we make an effort to keep our child from behaving like a complete a******. I was waiting for my food, and some little runt comes up to the counter and yells(!) "I want more soda NOW". The people behind the counter were all scrambling to fill orders, and weren't in the best position to give little lord fountleroy his refill at that exact moment -- I looked at him and said, they're busy, just hold on. The assistant manager told him never to yell across the counter again. As he walked away she said "some kids.." -- I said "even worse, some parents...". I got my food, went out to the play area, and sat down. The rude kid was only one of at least a half dozen totally uncontrolled kids -- they were running around, knocking kids over, climbing on the outside of the play equipment, throwing balls, yelling at the tops of their lungs. One kid climbs up on top of the shoe holder -- he jumps down, and a 2 year old kid climbs up after him. This tiny little boy is almost 5 feet off the ground -- I'm looking around to see if there are any other adults concerned for the safety of this child, there weren't -- so I quickly go over and pick him up saying "this is a really bad idea for you". No sooner do I put him down than another kid starts to climb up there! I look at him and say "get down, you've already encouraged one little kid to do something stupid, you don't need to do it again". I sit down, and his mother asks me why I yelled at her kid -- because you weren't I answered -- Yes I was she replies -- well ma'am, we see how much good that was doing, didn't we. I really don't understand it at all. If my daughter behaved like that, I would be terribly embarrassed -- I'll even holler at my nephew and my cousin's kids if they need it. And they usually listen, because they were brought up well too, but some of these kids are outrageous. The sad thing is, it even happens at church. We're sitting at Wednesday Night supper, eating whatever it was (leftovers from the thanksgiving banquet I believe) and there are several children running loose in an open area of the fellowship hall. I grab one of them in my daughters age group and tell her not to run in church, and Doug tells the whole group to stop -- but their parents are off at another table socializing instead of keeping tabs on their kids. The same girl I stopped Wednesday night nearly ran into the parking lot one Sunday morning as we were leaving so she could say good-bye to my daughter. She could have been saying good bye to the world if somebody in a car hadn't seen her. I practically ran back to get her out of the parking lot -- her parents were inside gabbing to someone and didn't even realize she was gone.

I really worry sometimes about our kids. Ever since Dr. Spock wrote his society destroying book on child rearing, things have been getting worse -- and don't tell me it isn't. If you spank a child, you're abusing him (which is insulting to children who have truly been abused -- they have endured genuine tragedy, a child being spanked is just being annoyed), if you tell him to stop doing an unacceptable behavior you're stifling his personal development (6 year olds who still suck their thumbs will soon be getting far more ridicule from other 6 year olds, than they ever would have gotten from kindly adults who could have help phase out that behavior years before). What's sadder is most of the examples I mentioned in this article have occurred in my own church!!

Like I said, I really worry.