Please

“Don’t call me sir. That’s my father. You can call me Gary*.” The sales associate looked at my twelve year old girl with a patronizing grin.

“Yes, sir. I mean…sorry.” My daughter stumbled.

My daughter, out of habit, continued to use the manners she’s been taught since infancy. The associate continued to correct her in different ways. She felt uncomfortable and embarrassed.

Momma Bear had enough. I was madder than a wet hen. “Look. It’s part of our southern roots. It’s part of what she’s been taught, and she can’t just turn-off a habit. It’s our way of demonstrating respect. She’s going to say sir,” I said with all the saccharine I could muster.

Then came the patronizing chuckle.

You know those movies? The ones where the character freezes time and imagines reaching across the table or the counter to choke the passive aggressive person? I’m not saying the thought crossed my mind. I’m just saying I know those movies.

Bless his passive aggressive little heart.

We made our purchase; I smiled sweetly and thanked him for his time. Now who’s passive aggressive? See what he made me do?

Here’s the thing. Not everyone is southern. And saying yes ma’am or yes sir is not the only way to demonstrate respect. I understand different areas and even cultures have manners that vary. I don’t require ma’am or sir from anyone other than my own children. A simple yes or no is fine.

What got my goat was the man corrected my daughter for attempting to demonstrate respect and manners. She wasn’t being disrespectful. She wasn’t being rude. And yet, he continued to harp.

Seems a little backwards to me. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Some might say my daughter was being rude since she didn’t accommodate his request. I see your point. I do. But the thing about manners? As parents, we work to ingrain them deeply into our children from an early age. Our hope is those manners become rooted in habit. Habit that would take strong effort to curb. The point is, my daughter can’t just stop using them.

Bottom line?

If my child is being rude? Disrespectful? Disobedient? Acting as wild as a June bug on a string? By all means. You have my full permission to correct.

But to correct my child for using manners you’re unaccustomed to? Well. You just might be too big for your britches.

*Gary’s name has been changed. Not to protect him, but because I couldn’t remember it. I mean. I have bigger fish to fry. Y’all know what I’m talkin’ about.


 

6 COMMENTS

  1. Children with manners like this are a blessing. Shame on “Gary”. He totally demonstrated his lack of such!

  2. I grew up in Ohio. If I had said yes ma’am to my parents, it would have been considered sassy and disrespectful. Now that I live in the south, I cringe when my students say yes ma’am to me. But I would never ask them to stop. On the up side, I can say yes ma’am to my boss all day and she thinks I’m being polite!

    • Yes, this!!
      Until I was exposed to classmates from around the country in high school, I had no idea ma’am and sir was a thing. In The North it’s not. In The South where I’ve lived for the past 20 yrs, it very much is. I wouldn’t say that the person was trying to ”undo” your manners training but more so saying that your daughter didn’t have to call him sir. Ma’am and sir are used more formally and most commonly by adults in a customer service position to other adults, in The North than in The South. It isn’t uncommon when someone is called Ma’am or Sir to respond and say something very similar to what Gary did. Like many other things, it’s regional.

    • Hey Ac!
      I definitely understand and actually agree with you. However, in a situation when the child is doing his or her best to be respectful to an adult they’ve only known for 5 minutes, it can be a difficult leap to make. Especially when the child has been taught one way of responding to adults, and it’s a deeply ingrained habit. To berate a child you don’t know for answering with a “sir” or “ma’am,” seems to be the deeper disrespect in this case. It’s tricky, but ultimately if the adult can see that the child is doing his or her best, shouldn’t the adult be the adult and offer some grace?

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