Manners - am I living in the past?

[NellyDElephant]

AIBU to expect my children to say, at the very minimum, thank you for dinner, please may I leave the table? Or something along those lines, after they have finished the meal I have just made them, straight after coming home from a long day at work?
Children are 7, 10, 12, 13.
Surely I’m not expecting the impossible here? Or am I living in the past and trying to help them to have the same manners I was expected to have at that age is just not going to happen?
12yr old is my DSD and it is evident these rules are not in place at her DM’s house - as there’s no evidence of any manners displayed here either. Now I’m questioning whether I’m BU!

YABU to expect a 12 year old to ask to leave the table.

YANBU to expect her to wait until others are finished eating. It’s a communal meal, not a cafeteria.

“ if OH is going somewhere or needs to do some work after dinner, he’ll say something like: ‘hope no one minds if I get down, I need to go and do xyz’”

Your adult husband refers to leaving the table as “getting down”? Does everyone have their dinner table on a plinth or something? I figured that small children literally “get down” from a chair, but adults say this too?

Please and thank you are normal. But the whole 'leaving the table' thing is way too formal for a family setting, in my opinion.

@GhostCurry

“ if OH is going somewhere or needs to do some work after dinner, he’ll say something like: ‘hope no one minds if I get down, I need to go and do xyz’”

Your adult husband refers to leaving the table as “getting down”? Does everyone have their dinner table on a plinth or something? I figured that small children literally “get down” from a chair, but adults say this too?

We usually eat dinner at our breakfast bar sitting on high stools. So yeah.

Manners are important, I always expect a please and thank you, and it's always been given.

But to ask 'please may I leave the table' is antiquated at best. My aunt and uncle drilled this into my cousins and even made them stand for their meal if there weren't enough chairs to go round. It smacks of making children appear to be lesser citizens.

If we're having a special meal then I expect my DC to stay at the table until we've finished, then they can head off and do whatever as it's likely some of us will finish the wine and natter for a while.

If it's just a normal teatime though, they're free to go carry on with their evening as soon as they've finished. I can't be doing with all this standing on ceremony for the sake of fish finger chips and beans

Please and thank you are important.

Mine will say thanks if someone makes the dinner off rota or makes a special meal, but not otherwise as we don’t thank each other for hoovering or setting the table.

They also don’t ask to leave the table. One of my rellies makes her kids ask on the basis that conversation is still happening but she makes absolutely zero effort to include them. Chat is all about the place she and her Husband work and I actually find that spectacularly rude to the children. Conversation round a table should be, generally, inclusive or at least not excluding.

I'm surprised at how many people don't think it's necessary to be thanked for dinner? Surely that's the bare minimum?

Why that specifically? There are umpteen things we do for our families all the time. I don't really feel the need to hear a performative chorus of drilled thank yous for them. A spontaneous thank you when someone has done something particularly kind, cooked something especially nice or helped with something, or just because you have a spontaneous feeling of gratitude, is much more genuine and I certainly appreciate that much more.

There is also the automatic reflex 'thanks' when someone hands you something etc. But that's still not the same as a parroted 'thank you for dinner' at the end of every single evening meal.

@crazyjinglist

I'm surprised at how many people don't think it's necessary to be thanked for dinner? Surely that's the bare minimum?

Why that specifically? There are umpteen things we do for our families all the time. I don't really feel the need to hear a performative chorus of drilled thank yous for them. A spontaneous thank you when someone has done something particularly kind, cooked something especially nice or helped with something, or just because you have a spontaneous feeling of gratitude, is much more genuine and I certainly appreciate that much more.

There is also the automatic reflex 'thanks' when someone hands you something etc. But that's still not the same as a parroted 'thank you for dinner' at the end of every single evening meal.

I agree . I don't want an automatic thanks for every meal etc. that's just family life. Sometimes the meal is a real family effort anyway so who do you thank? Generally who ever didn't cook is on washing up duty here so do you then thank whoever washed up because they did it?

A heartfelt thanks when you've cooked a favourite meal to celebrate or try to cheer up for example is much more appreciated that just saying words because you have been drilled to.

It's different if you go to someone else's house for dinner.

I’d find it odd to fear a child ask to leave the table. I never did and have never seen it anywhere apart from American TV shows. I have been complimented on my manners ad I always say please and thank you.

Manners have definitely evolved. And what might have been expected in say, the 60s, is dated and weird now. I include ‘please may I leave the table?’ in this. It’s impolite to slope off when your family are still sitting or eating; my kids would simply never do this. But the idea of them asking to be excused is ludicrous.

In Victorian times and earlier, it was considered mannerly to stand if a woman did or as she returned to the table. This would be borderline insulting nowadays. Ditto ‘ladies first’. Someone actually said that at the gym the other day as we entered the studio for a class. He got eye rolls and tuts from every ‘lady’

@DillDanding

I loathe bad manners.

My kids have never in their lives asked to leave the table, because no-one leaves the table when the meal is still in progress. That’s not a house rule, it’s just polite.

They’ve had friends here who have no manners whatsoever.

I would hate this, I get very restless after finishing a meal. Sitting and watching everyone else eat would annoy me.

One of my uni friends would walk on the outside of the pavement- it confused the hell out of me when he’d scoot around me to teeter on the kerb rather than walk on the inside! Hugely outdated as it was considered polite for gentlemen to allow ladies to be further from wagon wheels to protect their crinolines / other sticky-putt skirts... I wasn’t at uni in the 1800’s.

@phishy don’t you talk together too whilst everyone is eating?
I dint think we ever have that problem because a meal is also the opportunity to just chat together about our day.
Just like you would with friends in a restaurant.

to me, manners are non-negotiable. Trying to work out how to approach this, in a nice way. Any ideas?\

I'm usually pretty good on talking to teens, but you stumped me there. I guess have to say to her that this is important to you (for the reasons you think are obvious - but they aren't justified to me, either, so imagine you're explaining to an alien I guess) and ask for her cooperation. Let her think she's doing you a favour, I guess, that she's helping be a good example to the little ones.

Teens love structure, btw, and boundaries. But you'll have to find powers of persuasion -- persuade her that she agrees with you that these are nice habits.

[quote MananaTomorrow]@phishy don’t you talk together too whilst everyone is eating?
I dint think we ever have that problem because a meal is also the opportunity to just chat together about our day.
Just like you would with friends in a restaurant.[/quote]
We do but when I'm done, I'm done.

I agree but come at it the other way. I'm a slow eater generally so having others watch me eat makes me uncomfortable.

Last year we spent a weekend with a couple who liked us all to sit round the table all bloody evening. We literally never sat in their sitting room. I still have the backache.
That’s obviously a bit off topic.
I think you should compromise on another form of words: much as I love you I must go and write an essay.

@tigger1001

I agree but come at it the other way. I'm a slow eater generally so having others watch me eat makes me uncomfortable.

That was to @phishy - don't know why it didn't quote

@tigger1001 i can see why that would be annoying!

@NellyDElephant Of course you are being ridiculous and my only doubt is whether you know it or living in fantasy faraway world.

How old are you? I am 57. I used to say thanks when I was a child and my mum handed me my dinner on a plate on my lap in front of the telly. Years later she'd say thanks when she was widowed and came to stay every week. She was also in front of the telly apart from the times we went out. None of us ate our peas off our knives.

When I was about 10 my parents had the kitchen extended into a kitchen/diner and bought a new pine dining table and chairs in a rustic style. It was very smart in a 1970s way. We experimented with our new lifestyle every Sunday. One day I asked them: "May I be excused from the table?" They smiled and said yes. I'd been at the Enid Blyton Malory Towers books again.

Have you?

@interferingma typically goady mumsnet post there. I was referring to what the OP had said and you know it. Jog on.