Читать книгу The Yummy Mummy’s Family Handbook - Liz Fraser - Страница 14

Families have got themselves a bad name. They have come to represent all that is loud, rude, inconsiderate, stressful and unpleasant, and I can see why. There they are in every café, car park, restaurant, cinema and shopping centre shouting at each other, arguing, looking as bored and miserable as it’s possible to be, spoiling or neglecting their kids, making a mess, a noise and a pretty ugly spectacle of themselves.

Obese families, rude families, families on the verge of a nervous breakdown and even entire families wearing—wait for it—hoodies! Lord, what’s the world coming to? Just look at them all, messing up our tidy, leafy towns and villages with their horrible Family-ness. Bring on the family-sized ASBOs, that’s what I say. Lock ’em all up and throw away the key!

I am exaggerating just a teeny-weeny bit here, as you may have cleverly guessed, but you get my drift. Families are not quite the respected and valued pillars of society they once, perhaps, were. Seeing a family of four struggle over to the check-in desk, sticky lollipops and electronic toys in hand, can be enough to make the most tolerant, hard-of-hearing and child-friendly person cancel her holiday plans and head home again.

Well, it needn’t be this way, and with some simple old-fashioned examples of social etiquette and manners we might be able to give families an image overhaul, and put them back in vogue.

Consideration of others. This is probably the most important thing families can do when they step out of the front door. At this point you are no longer in the seclusion of your home, but sharing the space with other people: people who might not like kids putting their feet on chairs, leaving wrappers on park benches or picking their nose; who don’t want to hear your private disagreements aired in loud voices over a latte and a muffin; who keep themselves to themselves and would appreciate it if you would do the same. If more families considered their impact on others they would be doing us all a huge favour.

Basic manners. Once upon a time people held doors open to let others through; they said thank you when somebody did the same to them; they closed their mouth while eating, didn’t interrupt, never shouted in public and sent birthday cards that arrived on time. There are tons more, which your Granny probably taught your Mum and your Mum taught you, but now you’re too busy and we all know it’s a lot easier to fire off a text than walk to the post office and send a letter. This is a shame: if even some of these basic manners were re-introduced and taught to our kids, things would be a lot more pleasant out there. See page 248 for more on manners.

Bring something for kids to do. This applies to cafés, restaurants, aeroplanes and anywhere else where kids might get bored and start to be a nuisance. Nobody normal expects kids to behave perfectly and remain silent all the time, of course, but letting them rip up paper napkins, scratch tables with cutlery, kick the back of other people’s chairs or throw their unwanted carrots under the table is unacceptable. If you are going to take a child into a child-unfriendly place, always bring a book or a notepad and pencils and try to keep the little darlings happily occupied.

Leave. If everything fails, including the notepad and pencils mentioned above, and you start to disturb other people in the room, then leave before you do any more damage to the already dented and scratched reputation of families everywhere. Why should two people have their Sunday morning coffee ruined by a bunch of noisy, drink-spilling, bickering members of a family?

Do a good turn. Help old people across the road, offer to do some shopping for a neighbour who can’t get out easily, write to grandparents just to say “hi”, or bake some biscuits for the lady next door who’s had a hip operation. In our self-obsessed lives we quickly forget other people, and this teaches our kids to be selfish too. Anyone for a flapjack?

This is a very small list and there are hundreds more examples, including not farting in lifts, and not spending twenty minutes in a public loo checking out your eyebrows in the mirror when there’s a queue outside. I’m not suggesting we all behave like little prissy, nineteenth-century society gals, but a modicum of decent behaviour wouldn’t go amiss.