Ma'am and Sir

H has been using "ma'am" and "sir" a lot lately. I have super mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand. I figure it's one of those things like "please," "thank you," and "I'm sorry" that we've never forced her or B to say, but we've modeled it exponentially that we've got naturally courteous children (most of the time) that genuinely mean their words instead of parroting them because someone told them they have to (in which case all the "please," "thank yous," and "sorrys," mean, oh, nothing).

I know a lot of people teach their children to say "ma'am" and "sir" - especially in the south - because they believe it to be courteous and respectful. I said it often as a child, although I remember no one ever telling me to do so. I said it more as a teenager and adult when I found it fitting to the situation.

J says it often on the phone to his "superiors," and I know that H hears that. And I jokingly call her "ma'am" occassionally, and use "sir" sarcastically with J. And I think Daniel Tiger might say it on TV...

And although she's picked up on it naturally, something I'd typically rejoice in when it comes to the manners department, it still rubs me the wrong way.

Mostly because I know the history of those words. I know how they were used to separate people and classes. And my children are not inferior to anyone, nor should they ever feel so. I may be older and wiser (debatable), but I'm not better than my children (and neither is anyone else).

And so H addressing me, or anyone as such, feels strange.

Wrong, even.

I said J and I both have, and continue, to use it. But I just feel like that is so much different. We both fully understand the meaning and history of those words (and subsequently, J uses it much less frequently now than he did before I sat him down for a history lesson). We are able to both connect and disconnect those words to their true meaning.

H cannot.

For now I've just been ignoring her use of them. J flat out told her it wasn't necessary. I don't know.

As I said, on the one hand, she's come by it naturally, so I feel like it'd be wrong to discourage, but at the same time, I'm not sure I agree enough with it to encourage it either.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

When my little sister was a babe, she used to belt out Aretha Franklin's "Respect." She totally owned it. These past few days I've really felt like belting it out myself. And singing it directly at my daughter.

We're so laid back about most things, but I have a really hard time being laid back about respect.

Ridiculous, right? I don't expect my children to apologize if they don't genuinely mean it. I don't want them to even confuse fear for respect. I want for others (and myself and J) to earn their respect the same way that we'd expect any adult to earn it. Just because they are little, doesn't mean that any person automatically deserves to be respected by my children, no matter their age, race, or socio-economic status. If they haven't earned it, they don't deserve it.

And yet it drives me frakking insane.

Because I would like them to be respectful always. To everyone.

Typically H is very respectful. Of me, of J, of all others. But these past few days have been really trying in the ways of setting an example, as opposed to simply forcing her to behave and respond in a certain way. Suddenly my well-mannered child is rolling her eyes and sighing "I don't know" and "I don't care" or wholly and blatantly ignoring J and I. And the screaming at us or telling us what we can or cannot do. Agh!

It drives me insane. A part of me genuinely wants to put my foot down and say this is how you will speak to me because I'm your mom. But I know that won't work. I mean, sure, I could enforce it with some dire punishment that would compel her to obey, but then that's fear, my friends. Not respect.

And that's not what I want.

Doing this whole peaceful, gentle, parenting stuff is hard. It yields the results the world wants, and I see that. But it doesn't happen until I have to overcome my own upbringing and not react the way I was reacted to as a kid. It's hard.

I just keep reminding myself that so long as I continue speaking to her kindly, continue making it clear that rolling our eyes at people is not kind, continue making it clear that yelling at people is not acceptable and no one will listen to her until she has the same pleasant tone we do, she will outgrow this phase, too. I know she will.

But why does every "phase" seem to last forever (though typically rarely more than week) and always seem like the most difficult parenting challenge I've had yet?

She's not even 3 yet. I sometimes wonder how I'll handle the next 15+ years.

Miss Manners is contradicting

So, Miss Manners says to always have particular foods for your guests - family guests and otherwise. Basically if you have at least a days notice, even if the visit is only for an hour or two, you should make sure you have foods your guests like. So if Sally drinks a different milk than you, you get it. If Jimmy only eats blueberries, you stock up. If Jane is vegan, you acquaint yourself with tofu.

I get it. I try really hard to abide by it. But it's not always perfect.

Miss Manners also says to never feed your guests something you wouldn't eat yourself.

Well, sorry, I'm not eating tofu. Not even for Jane.

So I've had to loosely interpret these for myself. So I stood in front of the milk, so something I haven't bought from a store in over a year, looking for 2% milk, which I haven't bought in over 6 years, trying to figure out which was the less of the evils (I went with Organic Valley if anyone wants to know). And so this continued as I perused sugar, lunch meats, breads, etc.

I don't mind buying different stuff, in fact, I like it. I enjoy being able to do at least something to help people feel more comfortable when away from home because I thoroughly understand how alienating it is to be somewhere else and realize there is virtually nothing to meet your food needs.

That being said, I never expect others to buy particular things for us, so it's always a nice surprise when I show up to my sister in law or elsewhere and she's bought the kids almond milk and gluten free crackers.

On a different note, B is saying "I love you" pretty damn well lately which melts my heart. He will be dumping cereal on the floor and look at me with a wicked grin and say "I wuv you." And yeah, the cereal becomes a non-issue.

A lesson in Miss Manners

Most of the time I feel like J is the one who is pretty old school the two of us (though admittedly, I'm pretty old fashioned, too, in a lot of ways). But then he goes and shows me how backwards he is, like our coversation last night. And I'm totally calling him backwards out of love here.

I have a small pile of invitations to Mr. Baby B's first birthday (How is that soooo soon?) sitting on my desk. Most of them have been mailed out, but there are a few people I currently lack current addresses for. I said to J, "I feel so bad that these haven't been mailed. His birthday is in two weeks!"

And J looked through them and then said, "Well, all of these people live out of state. They can't come anyway. Why are you even inviting them?"

I wanted to ask him if he lived under a box. If he'd never looked before and realized where all the invitations were going for Miss H's parties when he mailed them out. But I didn't. Instead I said, "You're supposed to invite everyone who you'd like to attend. Even if you know they cannot. That way they know that you are thinking of them and that you would like them there."

"That's just going to make them feel bad because they can't be."

Okay, so I admit, at this, I rolled my eyes. "No, it's not. It makes them feel loved."

"That doesn't make sense," he grumbled. "But do your thing, and I'll support it."

"Haven't you ever read Miss Manners? How do you not know these things?!"

"Is Miss Manners real?"

My eyes may have bulged out of my head here. "Um, yes. How do you not know this? Oh. My. Goodness. How did you survive before me?"

"You know, no one got thank you cards or Christmas cards before we were married. I never heard a complaint. I managed."

"But you have to have proper manners, J! You send courtesy invitations and thank you notes for any gift you recieve that the gift-giver didn't hand to you personally. You have to know this stuff. What if I die tomorrow? Our kids have to grow up knowing this stuff!"

"Well, I know now," he assurred me. "And you're not going to die tomorrow. But if you do, I'll send everyone a courtesy invitation to your funeral and a thank you card for the flowers."

"You might want to check with Miss Manners on that one."