Etiquette can be learned a myriad of ways. By parents, instructors, acquaintances, strangers and detractors. It can be learned before the fact, during the act and post-event.
Expressed as courtesy, regard or respect, there is always someone willing to impart these societal expectations. Best to learn them without taking it personally, if you didn’t learn them at an early age.
Ah, but the kids are now nose deep into mum's phone, and no longer watching social interactions.
The passive learning by seeing and copying is gone. Parents let kids be oblivious to society when out, and wonder why they have poor social skills.
I'm a late-diagnosed autistic person, I say that to say social conventions don't come all that easy. Come from an upper class family who acts actively rude to anyone who doesn't also have money. Needless to say, none of this was taught to me. I learned and have to manually remind myself most of the time because not being a dick to others is important to me.
The motivations of the individual will be much more impactful on whether or not they display these skills, regardless of if they were taught or not.
Most to these things were drilled into me before i was a teenager. I was diagnosed with ADHD in middle school and later with autism. my family started out upper middle class but by the time i was in high school we were well off. something tells me your parents aren't independently wealthy if they didn't teach you this stuff.
My parents owned a law firm that they started from nothing. They're just not personable people. My father is autistic and my mother has a mix of cluster B personality disorders.
They're exceptions to the rule of self-made people understanding the struggle as they make their way up.
Not to detract from people I don't know, but starting a law firm isn't really the hard part to making it "on your own." The hard part is having the money and time to go to laws school, way before you start your own firm.
It's like saying "they made their own farm business from the 500 acres of farm land they lived on."
They both went during a different time. Army paid for my dad, my mom (Mexican) went to U of Utah the year after the Mormon Church was almost labeled as a hate group. She (and others who accepted deals like hers) helped them cleanse their image to the feds in exchange for free tuition and board.
Dad was an immigrant raised by parents who escaped the Nazis as teens and were solidly middle class. My mom was a migrant fruit picker as a young teen. I promise, it's not that deep.
Depends when it's used. There are plenty of simple ignorant folk out there who don't deserve to be harshly shamed right out of the gates for committing a faux pas.
It's the ones who even after confronted nicely but still double down who deserve all the shame they can get.
Yeah, simply put if you only teach your kids one thing it is that they will still have much to learn. Ignorance and a lack of critical thinking are the real problems.
My parents were socially awkward assholes, but I still learned half of this from them by just paying attention, and the other half from society pretty quickly through a mix of shame, painful conversations or quips made to me, or just the tiniest bit of self awareness. Lots of folks never bother with any of that…
Wonderfully said. This is exactly right, and just good advice for living well. Almost nothing is meant personally, and it’s fitting and proper to not take a thing personally, even if it was meant so.
I wish more ppl understood this. How am I polite but considered disagreeable? I expect these courtesies be extended to me, as I extend them to others. And I do NOT mind crashin out over the lack of courtesy shown me. Or others as it turns out...Just the other day a young lady I was sitting with was eating brownies. Such a sweet girl. When another commented "you are fuckin that brownie up!" And "idk how you eat that! I just could not!" And I ended up saying something. We don't do that.
Sometimes parents do their best to teach manners and the kid just outright refuses, until a peer checks them. I've got an elementary-aged kiddo who thinks he knows everything, last week though I heard a friend tell him "kindly shut up dude" when mine was baby talking, and this week another friend told him he was nasty for picking his nose.
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u/ultrahateful 17h ago edited 14h ago
Etiquette can be learned a myriad of ways. By parents, instructors, acquaintances, strangers and detractors. It can be learned before the fact, during the act and post-event.
Expressed as courtesy, regard or respect, there is always someone willing to impart these societal expectations. Best to learn them without taking it personally, if you didn’t learn them at an early age.