To deliver a lesson in table manners?

[Mannersdomatter]

My partners child is 12 and just started high school (year 7).

I realised last week that she doesn’t know how to use cutlery. We went to a very nice expensive restaurant and she ate her entire meal, including broccoli, with her fingers. She was holding broccoli in her fist like a banana/lollipop and biting it.

later on I asked her to use her cutlery and she had it in the wrong hands and was totally
clueless how to hold it.

in addition to this she lies down at the table, sits on her phone, spills food down herself, chews with her mouth open and is generally lacking in table manners.

I work in education and have children myself and I am astonished at how immature she is. She behaves more like a 6/7 year old. She is clearly bright, but speaks in a very baby voice and asks the most silly questions for her age. I worry she’ll be targeted at school by bullies.

WIBU to say to my partner I won’t eat out with them again until he teaches her how to use cutlery? I don’t feel it’s my place to pull her up on her table manners (although I have done several times).

I just realised I sound like my mother! 😂

It absolutely did not go out with the victorians. There is very much a right and wrong hand for cutlery! Madness.

My DSD was like this when I first met DH. It was lazy parenting. She still struggles with it but she has been shown how to use cutlery when with us but I believe it’s all pot noodles and finger food at home so not much cutlery usage required. She also doesn’t believe in washing daily or wearing clean pants and socks every day as her mum says it’s unnecessary. So if your boyfriends ex is like this then it’s a case of ‘just can’t be arsed with parenting’. Just keep showing her how to do it with some positive encouragement. She’ll get there.

The only thing you are being unreasonable about it, is you need to correct yourself on refusing to eat out with them until she uses cutlery. You should refuse to eat out with them until she uses cutlery AND eats with her mouth shut!

I wouldn't say anything I'd just refuse to go anywhere decent with her.

Until your partner asks why.

Where does it say wrong hand? And of course there is a right hand depending on if you are left or right handed, that’s not Victorian it’s just good table manners.

Yes Americans are indeed wrong too. And my American friends know this and say they wish they had been taught to eat as daintily as Brits. HTH

I disagree. I would say you have just embarrassed yourself actually

@Spirallingdownwards thanks for your concern but no, I feel no embarrassment for feeling that it doesn’t matter which hand someone holds their cutlery

Dominant hand or not, you still need to be able to hope, and use, a knife and fork correctly! It really shouldn't be optional!

Cool. Just in the same way the OP shouldn't be embarrassed too then.

@Spirallingdownwards

it sounds it’s just a bid to keep up appearances in her vair vair nice expensive restaurants Mrs bucket

I eat left handed when I’m right handed (I think because my Mum was a lefty) so I always lay the table incorrectly…. Drives my husband mad!!

The amount of people on this thread with terrible table manners is unbelievable - of course there is a proper way to hold cutlery; doesn’t mean we all do this all the time! Children should be taught proper manners so they don’t embarrass themselves at functions as they get older. The amount of people who don’t know which side plate or glass is their’s always surprises me. It also astounds me that some families never eat at a table together. I also know plenty of left handed people who use their left hand to hold their fork. Am I being ableist? Possibly, but I’m not specifically talking about anyone with issues that mean they struggle with cutlery - most people don’t! You are not being unreasonable OP, her parents have failed her.

My nieces were eating in restaurants with their hands well into their teens. Anything like chips, chicken nuggets etc. It amazed me that my sister, who is a bit of a snob, and very critical of others never pulled them up on this. They were very mollycoddled though, and I think part of the problem was that she didn't want them to grow up.

When I was in a new relationship with my now DH I took him to a huge family dinner celebration (over 40 people). It was then that I found out that DH couldn't eat like a civilised human being. He lifted his plate to almost chin height, other elbow straight out and the fork straight through the middle of his clenched fist and scooping food into his mouth and chopping everything with the side of his fork. The knife was ignored.
My family didn't say anything but there was this one moment when I realised that everyone had gone quiet and were not eating after noticing this spectacle beside me. They did eventually realise they were gawping and pretended to ignore it but I wanted to hide under my seat! I gently had a word later on and can confirm that 20 years later he eats quite normally.
If I hadn't have given him a lesson in table manners back then, we may possibly still be married but I'm not sure I'd go so much as to a MacDonalds with him!

Go for it OP. If her parents aren't going to teach her, who will.

Why does it offend you so much? If someone eats perfectly neatly with the knife in their left hand, what's the problem? They're not being rude or disgusting, it's just a preference 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’d be bothered about the laying across the table and the being on the phone. Do you not engage with her that she feels she needs to look at her phone?

The clumsy spilling maybe can’t be helped, the knife and fork is a personal preference. That wouldn’t bother me at all.

Wow! 🙄

Possible dyspraxia, can have difficulty with cutlery, laces, buttons, holding pens, speed of writing.

My dd can look clumsy with cutlery, to avoid stares she only feels safe ordering food she can manage with a fork when out.

She retained a slightly immature tone for quite some time looking back in family videos, could have easily sounded 5 years younger.

It's not a question of being babyish or not intelligent but the brain doesn't relay messages fast enough for the correct movements to take place, so can appear clumsy, uncoordinated. Can affect minor and major motor movements.

Girls are often diagnosed much later ie teens, because they developed coping mechanisms problems become apparent when they fall behind in class, though my dd wasnt spotted.
Boys tend to be diagnosed earlier.

Worth maybe watching or asking if there are any other difficulties.

I'm ashamed to say I was aware of all these little 'quirks' started to put down to laziness, until someone told me of their sons diagnosis, suddenly it all made sense. My 14 year old is still on the very long list to be assessed.

Correctly raised, ate at the table with family, years worth of trying to work at laces, writing speed etc. Gosh the guilt we feel now.

Positioning I think is teen, we often nag to sit properly though I'd have to admit she's much more self aware when eating out.

Could also be lazy parenting.
Worth a conversation rather than put down.

My daughter is highly dyspraxic and took ages to wean (exclusively breast fed until 7 months) then we did ‘baby led weaning ‘ I.e. went straight from breast milk to toast with raspberry jam. She grabbed it out my hand one day when I was exhausted not knowing how to go forward, and (drumroll) we never looked back.

Years later, sitting at the table meal in meal out, both kids eat everything. They know how to set a table, they know how to use a knife and fork (actually doesn’t matter which hand even in posh circles), food is enjoyed.

Wich I could get DS (17) to remove his AirPods though. Damn!

No I am saying that people should know how to eat in various settings, this being one of them. It's a life skill.

As is the correct way to eat with your hands and with chopsticks, depending on the country / culture.

I'm also saying that being left handed does not mean you cannot eat correctly as evidenced by things that are done on a daily basis using both hands.

I'll add a few more, washing up, washing hair, changing bedding, typing even things like opening doors.

As I also said the left handers in my family all eat correctly.

@MrsB74

You are not being ableist, lots of adapted cutlery, and toddler cutlery too is curved to use in the 'correct' hands.

@sashh wow. I really wish I had read these pearls of wisdom many years ago. I had an aunt who was a leftie who had bad scarring across the back of her left hand. That was from the nuns at school belting her across the hand every time they saw her writing with her left hand as ‘she wasn’t doing it properly’. She claimed she couldn’t write with her right no matter how much they belted her hand (and had the scars to prove it). Pity, as she is long gone now, but I could have told her she most certainly could have done everything on a daily basis using both hands and so she obviously bought this havoc on herself. Or maybe, the nuns just didn’t belt hard enough or there should have been additional punishments because it’s just so easy and doable for everyone. Again, wow.

If one sibling eats fine and the other doesn't it does suggest that mild dyspraxia is more likely than a spoilt brat and bad parenting. Giving your boyfriend an ultimatum doesn't sound the best way to address it.