To insist the kids are not equal?

[Elsielouise13]

Inspired by thread about sitting in the front of the car...

One thing I am fussy about when it comes to choosing seats is in a restaurant. I can’t stand it when children rush to seats ahead of adults in a restaurant and ‘bag the best options’. When we go for meals with friends I’ll always insist to my children they wait til the adults have chosen their seats before they sit down.

Several times I’ve been out with other parents who let the kids decide the seating and then struggle in and out for the duration of dinner.

I’ll be fecked if I’m paying for a meal and miss out on watching the room and get to only see my husband and the wall behind him.

And in our house the adults are the ones doing the adulting and that’s why my children spent most of the afternoon messing about about and I ironed school shirts.

Treating your kid like they are not your equal, that their needs don't count, yours always come first, is simply going to ensure they continue the cycle as adults and behave selfishly when they can.

@Bluntness100 literally no one has said this. You’re preaching to the converted

Hierarchy is important to me.

It's simply life. When you're a child, you defer to adults. Then you become an adult and children defer to you.

Yes, I expect to have first dibs on seats and other such things simply because, as an adult, I am higher up in the pecking order.

Similarly I accept no cheek or bullshit from my own children or other children; if other people don't like it, they are welcome to fuck off. Children who don't show me respect are pointedly ignored.

I don't particularly care if I'm not a 'bag of laughs'.

@cavabiensepasser

Yes children need to respect their elders, and I would never allow my DDs to disrespect another adult; I will always tell her off for that. Because they need to learn respect for authority, whether parents, teachers and later employers, the police and the law of the land.

But pecking order? It was this that led to my DSis and me not believing that it would do any good to tell anyone about the SA we were going through. Children need to know that they are not just the bottom of the pecking order.

I teach my DC to respect people; not just elders, not just adults - everyone, unless or until someone gives them/me cause to think the respect is misplaced or undeserved.

I absolutely do not teach them that they should respect all adults no matter what, no matter how those adults behave or conduct themselves, etc. just because they're adults. Adults are extremely capable of behaving appallingly.

As this thread suggests, some of those adults are fairly unpleasant sounding individuals.

Cavabiensepasser, that's a very honest post. Your outlook on life and mine are clearly very different, and I would hate to teach my dc the values that you describe, but fair enough if that's how you feel.

Why would you not want to look at your husband?
Sorry for going off point op🐱

This whole thing of tying good manners up with hierarchy has me slightly worried- suggests that the people preaching it would have considerably fewer qualms about being rude to someone lower than themselves in the hierarchy. Which to me is not what good manners is all about.

Thinking back at the best mannered people I have met, not least in the distant past of my youth, the one thing that stood out about them was that their manners were equally impeccable addressing those on the lowest rung of the social hierarchy. And this cannot be combined with a constant anxious harping on one's own place. Sorry, but that sort of attitude just wrecks your manners and minimises your chances of being able to model them to your children.

Cory

Great post. I agree with both salient points - the strange fusing of 'hierarchy' and good manners, and deference; and your point about the most beautifully mannered people - in my experience also - being the ones who were just as considerate and kind to everyone around them, no matter the age or 'status.'

Some of the replies on this thread about the type of manners being imposed on children are slightly eyebrow-raising, to say the least.

Didn't know there was such a thing as best seats in restaurants. We all just sit down, don't give any thought to pecking orders and suchlike. My dcs manners are impeccable, I've often had people remark on it.

They are equal to you as human beings. Children with grabby parents who put themselves first all the time end up seeing life as a competition as adults (which is reeeeeeealy childish) and become grabby adults. You sound a right laugh though.

We've always had a family thing that 'rank hath its privileges' - e.g. Mum and Dad have their particular seats, and the kids automatically vacate that particular space if we come in to sit down, unless we tell them not to bother. Mum and Dad do more of the choosing of the meals - because they're also the ones doing the paying, the planning, the shopping and the cooking. If we have more people than seats when people visit, they know that it is expected that adults are on the seats, just simply because it's easier for young bones to get up and down off the floor! If we are on public transport, they know to offer their seat if an elderly, poorly, physically challenged or pregnant person needs a seat - because they had it modelled to them by their parents.

That's not done with rudeness - there's no snarling at someone to get out of a chair, and they know that if they make a suggestion about a meal they have a yen for, it will almost certainly be on the plan in the near future!

It doesn't matter where anyone is, in the hierarchy, everyone is treated with courtesy, respect, and kindness - and expected to treat everyone else the same way. Everyone matters the same.

The kids also know that if they are ever treated with less than kindness, courtesy and respect, and it upsets or worries them, they need to tell us, so we can sort that situation out. And they have done so. Just as they're expected to treat people in that way, they have every right to expect others to treat them that way, and to have it dealt with if that isn't happening.

I think our kids would think their parents had finally jumped the shark if we created a scene about seating placements.

My children just squabble over who gets to sit next to me. So they take it in turns and the other faces me. Poor Dad. It doesn't really matter, unless it's a buffet and you're up from your seat more than the children then they can sit on the inside should they be one.
If there's an age pecking order within your family does this stretch to gender or do you keep that equal? People are people whether they're 9 months, 9 or 90 years old. We were all once children, it isn't a different species and I don't believe we're more superior because we've grown up which is a natural occurrence over which we have no control.
Children giving cheek and 'bullshit' (don't know what you quite mean by that) is about exploring boundaries and very normal. You sound like one of the 'seen but not heard' brigade

@corythatwas Excellent post very true.

You are both reasonable and unreasonable.

I do think children should wait for adults to decide about things like sitting and do not get similar privileges, like sitting at the front in the car, or choose what to watch on tv.

In our family, and friends, we tend to put the children together and adults in their own group. But when they were younger, they needed to be close to the parents.

I really don't understand this bit
I’ll be fecked if I’m paying for a meal and miss out on watching the room and get to only see my husband and the wall behind him.
Presumably this is only a problem if children take certain seats. Or do you also force other adults to move places so that you can watch the room? Presumably, if you go out for a meal, the two most important things are the food and the company, not the view, particularly when the view is just strangers in a restaurant.
The other thing is that you could swap with husband so that he can only see you and the wall behind you. So, what you have is a DH problem.

The problem with teaching your dc that pecking order is more important than attentively thinking about individual people's actual needs is that they may grow up into the kind of middle-aged people who scream at my disabled dd in buses for taking up the priority seat. And one wouldn't wish that on anyone.

We only go to a restaurant once a year, it's a big social event, and it's usually a case of "Where can you squeeze 4 people in together?"

I've had that cory DS2 with ADHD's lethal if he stands up on the bus.

Surely though in the case of the restaursnt seating, the reason DC often decide is because a restaurant seat is something that matters a lot to a DC but no adult really gives a shit about?

It seems like pointless power play to say that adults must make that choice. The talk about pecking order and rank makes me a bit uncomrtable.

It doesn't teach them respect, or kindness. It just teaches them that they are unimportant, and their opinions don't matter.

I think it's important that DC are taught that their opinion does matter, and they are respected. This doesn't mean that their opinion is top, or that they get their own way all the time, but also that they have a say in things and don't end up feeling powerless.

It's a balancing act, but I think adults being petty just teaches them to be petty! I don't think you can expect a DC to learn their opinion isn't always key if their mum is getting stroppy about a restaurant chair. I think DC can end up mirroring their parents behaviour

Personally, I can't imagine being bothered enough about where we sit when out for a meal at a restaurant to even mention it on a Mumsnet thread. I mean, what does it matter?

The talk about pecking order and rank makes me a bit uncomrtable.

Me too. There is no hierarchy in our family.

I'm curious though about the hierarchy in other families. Is there a pecking order among the adults too, and is that based on age or something else?

I feel like this power play where adults are more important than children is actually very childish. Like a 9 year old feeling superior to a 7 year old just for the fact that they are older

I certainly wouldn't expect my children to be rushing past any one to grab a seat but I also couldn't be fussy about a seat either. When we go out to eat I am there to talk to and engage with my family or friends, not watch the room.

I feel like this power play where adults are more important than children is actually very childish. Like a 9 year old feeling superior to a 7 year old just for the fact that they are older

I couldn't agree more.