Manners, A Double Edged Sword

Alright, I grew up in a pretty strict society even though today it may seem very lax. Children would speak when spoken to, neighbors would greet each other pleasantly on the road and most importantly a child would never dare to pass an adult on the street and not recognize their presence. I guess by now the direction that my argument is about to take must be pretty obvious. I am constantly offended by the way some children in this my adopted nation, just kind of walk past an adult without even acknowledging them. What happened to good manners?

Maybe to some this may seem too inconsequential to even briefly mull over but it is a real blight on a society. Who are the parents of these cattlelike young people that just mosey along chewing their respective cuds and regurgitating insolence through their many stomachs akin to grass? How could they not know in their most basic being, that it would be nice to be respectful to a passing adult?

On close observation I note that this phenomenon strikes at every level of childhood, from the very young preschooler to those children close enough to adulthood that one would think should know better. And don’t for a minute think that your being familiar with their parents may cause them rattle their civility even for a minute…NOT! My neighbor lamented the other day that some children play with his kids, ride their bicycles in his driveway, see him sitting there and do not even nod in his direction, they then have the temerity do it all over again, the process could continue for hours unchecked.

But who is blame? The Parents…for not imparting to their children the importance or being as old time Jamaicans would say, “mannersable,” maybe. The neighbor…for not insisting that they acknowledge him after all they are riding on his property…could be. Or perhaps society is to blame for the manifestation of declining environments where a child’s safety could hinge on whether he or she speaks to a stranger adult or not! In that case then perhaps, it is best that a child speaks to no adult rather than endanger himself trying to discern who is safe from who is not. Welcome to the Razor’s Edge where Manners becomes a double edged sword!