Not to understand: Your House/Wedding/Child Your Rules?

[Hullygully]

What happened to manners?

What happened to consideration for other people, putting one's guests first, or making people feel comfortable or just mutually agreeing a framework of behaviour around kids?

How can it work if everyone has Me Me Mine about Their Rules??

manners are very clear: the host makes the guest comfortable and puts them first.

I disagree that it is as simple as that.

Sometimes people's preferences as to what will "make them comfortable" are significantly opposed. If the host will have to endure mild discomfort in order for the guest to be comfortable, they should do so. But if, in order to make the guest 100% comfortable, the host would have to be very unhappy, perhaps the guest could survive being only 90% comfortable as a compromise.

It would be really interesting to see if the debate falls into age camps (knowing Mary to be my age)

Which is 22 (the age)

Trills is a middling age as evidenced by her answer

If I had a hot date and some beautifully suited and booted beau turned up on my doorstep with a bottle of chateaufeuf du pape I would not make him take his shoes off. the romance would be killed.

Whatever happened to being nice to people?

MN is full of rigid my house/my rules etc posters.

How can you live like that?

or chateauneuf even...

Doesn't it depend on The Rule?

For example, what if someone lit up a fag in a non-smokers front room?

Although people don't generally do that nowadays do they?

The whole My Wedding/My Rules thing is so unnecessary if you start from the basis that you'd like your guests to enjoy the day and get pleasure from sharing such an important day with you. To impose ridiculous demands on your guests and justify them with My Wedding/My Rules suggests that you've either forgotten or never bothered to clutter your head with the basic concepts of good manners and hospitality.

If you are so big on manners then isn't it good manners to respect other people's decisions on their rules while you have the honour of being their guest? I.e. if friends say shoes off in their house then i will damn well take my shoes off, might have a bit of an eye roll on the way home with DH about it but i will respect their house and not take it personally... If they say they would rather not have children at their wedding well- they're paying for it! Who am i to impose? Would be privileged to have had an invite on their special occasion...
If someone says to me they would rather i not give their child a chocolate or let them watch tv then i certainly wont disrespect that! If they went through the making, giving birth & sleepless nights etc then they are the ones who have earned the right to say what they would/wouldn't like when it comes to the raising of that child. Makes perfect sense to me!

That being said we don't care if people leave their shoes on in our house, all of our (close) friends know that they can help themselves to whatever they like in our house... We have a more relaxed approach- but we are also very comfortable with guiding each other's children (e.g. 'Settle down now please let's have a bit of quiet' etc)
We also had anyone who wanted to come to our wedding... My sister (bridesmaid) left the chapel mid ceremony to BF her DS because he was screaming... Bit annoying but not catastrophic in the big picture.

Yes but usually it becomes Your wedding etc Your rules when the request leaves consideration.

I have never seen it said in a reasonable situation.

yy children should let adults sit down

fag is extreme (especially now), would have been all right a few years ago mind

Oops hadn't finished and didn't realise first post went through! haha

obviously it works best if both host and guest have manners. and use them. the conflict comes when one is behaving well and the other has never or refuses the learn the basic courtesies that make life go round that little bit better. consideration. politesse. not sweating the small things. ya know.

I came up with a solution to wedding-angst, after my husband relayed to me what SIL had said about some of my proposed choices. I didn't have a wedding! We eloped.

Sadly I am related to know a few people who think the world revolves around them, and have learnt from bitter experience (a trashed carpet, as it happens) that the rules have to be in place, for my wedding/house/children or my DCs, DH and I will be left to pick up the pieces!

Never had a wedding...
Wouldn't ever dream of asking anyone to take shoes off - I'd rather they kept them on tbh!
Would hope my children would move - I think they would - and if not I'd subtley convey to them that they ought to.
I can remember being irritated when the girls were smaller and had friends who'd get up and wander about while everyone else was still eating, or ask for more when they hadn't eaten what they had, or request that their bit of bolognese had no onions in.... but I would never have been able to say 'no, in this house we.....' or anything.

just bitched about them later

ah but friends shouldn't say, "shoes off in my house"

that is rude.

They are only allowed to hope in silence that they will be removed.

I have a shoe free house and one of my bestest friends doesn't take her shoes off, after FIFTEEN years, her dh and dc all take them off. But I wouldn't dream of saying anything.

It is a class thing, imo, or regional

I only ever came across the "My house My rules" attitude on MN

What is a middling age hmm?

What if someone came to visit and, during tea and cake, asked if you would put the TV on so they could watch the rugby/football/golf?

yes Nit, altho I was known, when all the dc were small, for dashing round the table with a flannel and wiping all the hands I could get at before they all got down again. and faces