Table Manners

[ciele]

AIBU to think such things are important?
I was brought up to consider such stuff as no elbows on the table, not eating with your mouth open, putting knife and fork together when you have finished as non negotiable.
My OH thinks these things are just the way my family was (read that as you will but I take it to mean shallow and overly concerned with the niceties).

'It makes me feel ill'

But what's happening is that your children are learning to be intolerant of people who have different standards to you. Which is unkind. Your own disgust at a child eating the 'wrong' way has filtered down to your own children. (Sorry! I think I'm in a minority of 1 here!).

basics like not chewing with your mouth open, or talking with food in your mouth - yes. Then it starts getting competitive, and becomes a way of judging people and putting them in their place. Why must you tip a soup dish away from you? Why must bread only be torn apart? What the hell are fish knifes for?
I've seen families out eating where the parents seem to enjoy imposing 'manners' on their young children as a way of humiliating and bullying them. If they are throwing food about or something similar then of course intervene, but if they having problems eating something unusual help them and gently offer advice, don't bark at them and tell me they are disgracing their family!

Hot topic in our house at the moment. DH has fairly bad table manners. I overlooked them during the honeymoon phase, but we are now in the "telling him I'll murder him if he chews with his mouth open" phase He also eats really fast unless you ask him to slow down. Drives me spare.

It's weird because his DM (who raised him) has good table manners. Yet DH can't even hold a knife and fork properly.

We are ttc though ivf atm and I honestly worry about him passing on his bad table manners to any potential children. If I ended up living in a household of people all chewing with their mouths open I don't think I could be held responsible for my actions!

Thanks Vandrew for an explanation of the elbows rule that makes sense. If pedastal table tipping is the genuine reason for that rule, it also makes it largely obsolete and therefore anyone not enforcing because they recognise it as such it is clearly intelligent! I understand fully about not leaving forward so much you are in other people’s way, but that is situation dependent. If you are eating with plenty of space, or especially if there are just two people sitting on opposite sides of the table, it makes no sense at all.

Someone mentioned shovelling upthread. So how many people stick to that other utterly illogical rule that you can only use the curved side of your fork? To use an implement that is so obviously designed to function in different ways and limit yourself to only one is surely the height of unintelligent sheep behaviour?

you can only use the curved side of your fork? It's a way for some people to look down on others because they aren't using the fork 'correctly'. Once you get passed basic courtesy, most table manners are just etiquette and are a way of sorting people into Those Like Us, and others.

It’s not rude and lemon like to insist on manners. I’ve eaten with people that have manners like pigs. So rough and low class. Courtesy and consideration for others cost nothing but there are so many today who don’t give a damn, and are pigs.

My father had to eat with books between elbow and body to make sure his elbows weren't sticking out (even the thought of them being on the table would be horrendous!) when he was a child so he was very strict with us and I have been with my children (not quite books between elbows though).
I think good table manners are a life skill and I frequently judge people for poor table manners.
My pet hate is shovelling- turning over fork in left hand rather than swapping it to right hand before turning over- and both my DCs see it as the ultimate sin!

I think manners are very important but the most important thing is making a guest feel at ease and welcome. Something like that story where the host drank from the finger bowl after a guest did as they didn't want them to feel awkward.

I hate waiting for everyone's food before beginning. Eat it as soon as it arrives and is best. Waiting is pretentious.

I do like knife and fork at 6/12 o'clock when finished but this is more about restaurant etiquette than anything else.

I've lived abroad and travelled a lot and one of the biggest lessons I've learnt is just how unimportant all formal manners are. They differ from country to country and group to group. If manners help all feel comfortable then they're worthwhile. If the only purpose is to signal good upbringing or that you can be 'proper' then there's no point.

My Dh was brought up with a father who took food off their plates, while they were eating. It had an horrendous effect on dh and his brother. When I met dh he used to shovel his food down so quickly.
Thankfully, with my encouragement he learnt to slow down and actually enjoy his food.
FIL tried to take food off dds plate when she was 2. I’m usually a polite, respectful person but I (went ballistic) made it very clear he was never to do that again. He never has.

I meant to say I ate at the same table as The Queen once. I practiced eating peas not with honey pressed on the back of a fork just in case they were on the menu. This is a perfect example of nonsense manners which serve no purpose.

I dumped a guy for picking up a lamb shank and eating it with his hands in a restaurant.

One thing to do it at a family and friends BBQ. Quite another to do it at a naice restaurant.

No issue with being thought 'Victorian'. Better than being thought Neanderthal.

I was brought up the same way OP and to this day I immediately notice poor table manners and find them off-putting. It doesn't take much to be polite and it makes the experience so much nicer for the people around you!

You were on a date with Hagar the Horrible, @TheDowagerCuntess!

That's pretty much what I was envisioning

Or maybe Obelix at an end of story banquet.

A friend of mine commits the cardinal sin I've not seen on this thread yet: sucking her fingers. After she's picked something up and assumedly there's some kind of residue left on them. It makes me feel physically sick. You can hear it too, the sort of lip smacking sound when the finger leaves her mouth. I assume it's just normal in her household growing up as she seems to have no awareness it's what she's doing, and I can't think of any polite way to tell her to keep her fingers out of her mouth, and it's not my place. But it makes me feel so nauseous. She's a very close friend but when we arrange to go out for meals whether together alone or in a group it always pops into my mind to steel myself for it as even when I'm purposefully trying not to look or listen it's impossible not to. Even worse when she does it then uses the same hand to dip back into a bowl of chips or something, when we've shared chips and dip on the sofa I've just given up and said I'm full after the first time she does it as my appetite evaporates and I couldn't bear to eat from the same bag once she's done it. I try dish up even a bag of nachos into separate bowls as a result.

My family never ate at the table growing up and I was 7 before a grandparent taught me how to use a knife and fork correctly when I was at their house one day. I've always been grateful to her for that as I would still be eating embarrassingly now. Most kids who never get chance to eat at a table won't have a clue what they're doing wrong, it's a kindness to help them learn so they're not embarrassing themselves in important situations both as kids and adults.

@Lostsight I think it may be about practice. I can't actually shovel with my left hand-everything falls off if I try. I can shovel with my right hand as if I were using a spoon though. But I find it much easier to just use a knife to push everything into the bottom of the fork. I may be an extreme example being extremely uncoordinated but what I mean by all this is that doing the proper way may actually be easier if that is how you normally do it.

We always sit at the table to eat and insist on good table manners. My son in particular fights this, until he had 2 friends over and frankly they ate like pigs. He was horrified and no longer argues with us when we correct him.
They had hands wrapped around forks, food shovelled in mouths and don't get me started on licking their knives, considering I didn't see them cut anything im not sure how their knives got anything on them - I actually suggested my husband, daughter and I leave them to it and sit in the lounge just so we didn't have to watch them eat, but said it was for their privacy so they could all chat. They wont be invited round for tea again

Good table manners don't take any more effort or equipment than bad ones. So you might as well learn to do things properly, which will take you comfortably through all types of future social/dining situations

^^ This

Most kids who never get chance to eat at a table won't have a clue what they're doing wrong, it's a kindness to help them learn so they're not embarrassing themselves in important situations both as kids and adults

Some of my daughter's friends have poor table manners. I don't comment, partly because I want the children to feel welcome here, partly because I don't consider it my place to comment, and partly because by implication, you're criticising their parents who have brought them up to think this is OK

I agree allthgoodusernamesaretaken, you have to have some kind of standing really such as being a relative or something. I wonder if schools should teach it, it wouldn't take too long and they could practice it at lunchtime? But I don't see it working as the way we eat is a culturally coded thing so it'd be pretty offensive in schools with kids from different backgrounds to try insist there's one correct way of eating that may differ from the manners they're taught at home.

What do we honestly expect when KFC shows people sad at home eating out of a bucket? Says it all really. Many kids rarely see a knife or fork or have a meal without being sat in front of a screen.

Not at all. I was brought up with good manners and it doesn't cost anything. I also had to ask to be excused from the table and I still say excuse me when I get up! Eating with your mouth open is just gross.

Sat at home eating out of a bucket

I'm not certain I have ever had a conversation with the DC over etiquette or manners. They, like me have learned by example. Both have good manners, know which cutlery to use, don't lean on the table, stoop over their plates and shovel food in. They remind me if I forget to put out napkins! Although working long hours and not always being home for meal times now means many meals are on the hop, taken away from the table, or taken with dp, who has less than perfect manners. His own son hasn't a clue. I don't mind much what others do, but I think basic table manners are not difficult to grasp or maintain. My pet hate is to see people hunched over, with their head lowered to their plate scooping their food in, usually too much, and half of it being pushed off the fork. However I wouldn't dream of picking anyone up on this.

" incredibly rude to be hung up on manners "

no durutti is it incredibly rude to think that anyone wants to see the inside of your child's mouth while they are eating.

honestly this dreadful woman came to my house once and fed her kid a yoghurt. She stood there (yes) with her mouth wide open full of yoghurt while her mother said 'isn't she cute'.

'Er no not at all' was my joyless answer (inside)

I hate waiting for everyone's food before beginning. Eat it as soon as it arrives and is best. Waiting is pretentious.

What nonsense, mailTo! Waiting is not pretentious, it's just polite. It's very rude to start shovelling food into yourself before everybody else is served.