The Lady Guide to Modern Manners: 31 May
Dear Thomas,
My friend has three children. They’re totally idle round the house and I feel like intervening. It wouldn’t kill them to clear the table or load the dishwasher, would it? But I worry it’s wrong to tell off other people’s children.
Meryl Cotterill, Shaftesbury
Dear Meryl,
I once stayed the weekend with some friends and without thinking, at the end of lunch, said to the children, ‘Let’s clear the table.’ Afterwards their grandmother said to me: ‘That was astonishing. They never do anything.’
There’s something to be said for just getting on with it, rather than elaborate pre-discussion, which is likely to provoke resistance. Even so, there is the danger the children, or worse, the parents, will feel criticised. Mummies and daddies these days take pride in their ‘parenting skills’ (we never heard of these before about 1998). Or they believe they are bringing up their children by some wonderful liberal system and have failed to notice the result, which is either a hopeless slob or a praying mantis, or both.
A lecture direct to your friend’s children is unlikely to get anywhere. I remember various relatives tried this on with me when I was so beastly to my poor parents as a kiddie. But perhaps you can say one day, ‘Your mother looks just a little tired. Do you think she’d like it if we arranged the flowers/made some scones/brushed the cat?’
You’ll have to decide whether mummy might like to know what you’re up to. If she says ‘no’, then leave it alone. Otherwise, accompany the children and carry out the tasks with them. Not least because, if they’ve never lifted a finger, they won’t have a clue what to do.
This oblique approach might just bring about more permanent change or it could be that your friend wishes motherhood to be a full martyrdom.
On the other hand, parents do get their horns locked with their offspring. Intervention by an outsider can have a marvellous effect. There was once a little girl who always listened at the door while her mother was having grown-up chat with her best friend. She wouldn’t go away, until one day the best friend turned around and said, ‘We have had enough of you!’
The little girl was seen off for good. But it’s a matter of fine judgement when, and if, you make moves of this kind.
What I can’t bear is conspicuous parenting in public, by which I mean children allowed to treat the airport departure lounge as a playground, often with ghastly show-off daddy leading the way. Black looks and even brusque words from others present are absolutely called for.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 3940 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
Naturally he has been attacked online by Twitterers and bloggers. He has since apologised for his tactless comment, while pointing out that it is a reasonable line of intellectual enquiry to question the impact of Keynes’s sexuality on his economic theories.
Setting this particular case aside, I am struck by the irony that in an age where we are supposed to hold back from judgement, the very issue of tolerance is the one that provokes virulent online onslaughts.
More generally, why are so many comments on the internet so punitive and unforgiving? Is it something to do with the medium itself, allowing instant response, minimal thought and exposure of what would previously have been more or less private? Are we not to be permitted, in future, our offguard moments? What a terrible thing.
In these pages, at least, let us not condemn but aim instead for tolerance.
My friend has three children. They’re totally idle round the house and I feel like intervening. It wouldn’t kill them to clear the table or load the dishwasher, would it? But I worry it’s wrong to tell off other people’s children.
Meryl Cotterill, Shaftesbury
Dear Meryl,
I once stayed the weekend with some friends and without thinking, at the end of lunch, said to the children, ‘Let’s clear the table.’ Afterwards their grandmother said to me: ‘That was astonishing. They never do anything.’
There’s something to be said for just getting on with it, rather than elaborate pre-discussion, which is likely to provoke resistance. Even so, there is the danger the children, or worse, the parents, will feel criticised. Mummies and daddies these days take pride in their ‘parenting skills’ (we never heard of these before about 1998). Or they believe they are bringing up their children by some wonderful liberal system and have failed to notice the result, which is either a hopeless slob or a praying mantis, or both.
A lecture direct to your friend’s children is unlikely to get anywhere. I remember various relatives tried this on with me when I was so beastly to my poor parents as a kiddie. But perhaps you can say one day, ‘Your mother looks just a little tired. Do you think she’d like it if we arranged the flowers/made some scones/brushed the cat?’
You’ll have to decide whether mummy might like to know what you’re up to. If she says ‘no’, then leave it alone. Otherwise, accompany the children and carry out the tasks with them. Not least because, if they’ve never lifted a finger, they won’t have a clue what to do.
This oblique approach might just bring about more permanent change or it could be that your friend wishes motherhood to be a full martyrdom.
On the other hand, parents do get their horns locked with their offspring. Intervention by an outsider can have a marvellous effect. There was once a little girl who always listened at the door while her mother was having grown-up chat with her best friend. She wouldn’t go away, until one day the best friend turned around and said, ‘We have had enough of you!’
The little girl was seen off for good. But it’s a matter of fine judgement when, and if, you make moves of this kind.
What I can’t bear is conspicuous parenting in public, by which I mean children allowed to treat the airport departure lounge as a playground, often with ghastly show-off daddy leading the way. Black looks and even brusque words from others present are absolutely called for.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 3940 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
WHAT TO DO… if you are quick to condemn
The high-profile TV historian Niall Ferguson recently made unfortunate off-the-cuff remarks in which he suggested that the economist Maynard Keynes didn’t care about the future because he was gay.Naturally he has been attacked online by Twitterers and bloggers. He has since apologised for his tactless comment, while pointing out that it is a reasonable line of intellectual enquiry to question the impact of Keynes’s sexuality on his economic theories.
Setting this particular case aside, I am struck by the irony that in an age where we are supposed to hold back from judgement, the very issue of tolerance is the one that provokes virulent online onslaughts.
More generally, why are so many comments on the internet so punitive and unforgiving? Is it something to do with the medium itself, allowing instant response, minimal thought and exposure of what would previously have been more or less private? Are we not to be permitted, in future, our offguard moments? What a terrible thing.
In these pages, at least, let us not condemn but aim instead for tolerance.