Table manners

[PeteXXX]

Table manners.
Do they still exist? Important part of kids upbringing?
I mean, placing knife & fork together when you finish. Elbows off the table. Eat with your mouth closed (who wants to watch someone's mastication! !)
Sit at the table until everyone else has finished? Reaching across someone's food to get the condiments?

🤔

 

[Yellow Saddle]

To an extent, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.

 

[roadrash]

they certainly exist at roadrash towers

 

[Bazzer]

Certainly in my house and my daughters have continued as they were brought up.

 

[GetAGrip]

Always. I get so irritated at those food adverts where the adults all to seem to be playing with their food and/or smothering the poor little mites in yukky chippy kisses

 

[numbnuts]

Some kids today get dragged up, but manners come from the parents

 

[Freds Dad]

Table manners certainly still exist in our house but what annoys me when eating out I see people using their mobile at the table while eating their food.

 

[slowmotion]

The whole concept of good table manners is a wicked construct of a power structure devised by a privileged white male patriarchy that seeks...…….etc etc.

 

[swee'pea99]

Our daughter recently told us of her friends' parents' horror at her starting to eat before everyone had been served. Have to confess that's our bad - most particularly my missus's. I was raised 'proper', but her family obviously didn't hold to that one, and I slipped into bad ways. My daughter is now shaming us into better behaviour, tho' 'er indores still tends to just go for it. She gets hungry poor dear...

 

[figbat]

My kids are lucky(?) enough to go to an independent school where they mix with children of significantly wealthier families than ours (we may be the only family that lives in a house that is attached to somebody else's!!). I have noticed that the manners (table and otherwise) of some of these children are appalling. It is not without a little pride that I watch my kids in the presence of the others sit and eat, mouths closed, until they have finished and then ask whether they may leave the table. They also take only what is necessary from a shared plate of food and pass it around (rather than reach across and grab a handful then leave it uneaten on their plate).

At home it's the same - be at the table in time for serving, wait until everyone is served before starting (and they also even ask if they may begin, which they are old enough now not to but it is ingrained), eat nicely and wait until we're all finished before asking to leave.

 

[Globalti]

Yes, my colleague in Nigeria who has two mixed-race daughters has just sent the oldest to boarding school in England (she actually asked to go!) and on her first Christmas break home she told him that the other girls' table manners and general cleaniness and tidiness are absolutely appalling; she thinks none of them knows how to clean or tidy up after themselves and none has been taught how to eat properly. These are mostly British kids from well-off families.

 

[Drago]

Table manners are alive and well at Chez Drago. Another reason for eschewing McDonalds the need to eat with ones hands, which is oth breach of etiquette and disgusting.

 

[Dave Davenport]

Sadly, I think table manners are generally in terminal decline, Mrs D works in a primary school and says a large proportion of the kids can barely use a knife and fork.
I worked in Germany in the early '80's and had access to an American army base restaurant, I remember being shocked at seeing people stuffing food into their mouths with their hands and wearing baseball caps whilst sat at a dining table (mind you they probably thought I was weird eating a burger with a knife and fork). I've noticed quite a few adult American tourists struggling with cutlery and I reckon we're heading that way too (watching a couple of 20 something women trying to eat a fry up in a cafe in Edinburgh was pretty funny mind, there was egg all over the place).

 

[Yellow Saddle]

I have taught my children never to drink port from a sherry glass. The boy knows what to drink from a weizen glass and when to pour his ale into a pint glass. The little girl, on the other hand, is struggling with drinking her cocktails from a highball, her hands are still too small.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I try to enforce general table manners, but some things I let slip. I don't think we all have to adhere strictly to all Victorian (and older) customs. If you watch a lot of Asian people eat, they might use their hands. I don't feel right saying it's "rude" or "not the done thing", when millions of other people are happy to do it, and it's fine in their culture. Sometimes pizza, burgers etc are easier to eat with your hands.

But always, please and thank you, not leaning over things, not stuffing your food in, is encouraged. I've often heard my Mum say "don't wait for us, tuck in before it gets cold". So it's probably up to the parents to offer a little flexibility to visitors. And if they are that fussy about every single table manner, then it should be highlighted at the table before the food is served?