I wasn't exactly raised in the "children should be seen and not heard" school, though my parents had rules and they were enforced, which I happen to think kids appreciate: you know what will happen if you do something wrong. But anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about, it's this: my memory isn't always reliable when it comes to childhood, but I don't recall being the total center of attention at all times. (Was I, Mom?) It seems to me that the adults often talked to each other (to be honest, I vaguely recall being bored at least part of the time, whenever I wasn't allowed to read or otherwise escape).
Just for example, when three adults and one child are eating dinner in a restaurant, will the highest level of conversation that the diner at the next table (who is not trying to eavesdrop) hears be, "Did you know that french fries are made from potatoes?"
Discuss.
I mostly knit, sometimes crochet or cross-stitch. I read, a lot. I love cats. I love hockey, especially my no-longer-local team, the Boston Bruins. Want more? Read on.
Training and socializing a child goes on 24/7, especially in public. Engaging a child in conversation and fostering an understanding of acceptable social interactions requires that they be treated with the same dignity and respect afforded other humans. They learn by example. They learn by doing.
ReplyDeleteI remember hoping no one overheard conversations at our restaurant table. We counted peas. We sorted by colors. We commented on plastic versus real plants. Another topic was what constitutes an indoor happy voice and an outdoor happy voice. The most frequent subject was thinking of nice ways to say you do not like a particular food, do not want any more, and may I be excused/what's for dessert?
The food store was another "I am in another universe, pay no attention to what I am saying" place. ("Hot dogs taste better cooked, dear, please do not bite the package because we do not need to buy more just now.")
I find those conversations, even now, far preferable to unavoidably overhearing a cell phone conversation.
I was raised mostly around adults. I have only one sibling and he being 11 years older, I do remember talking a lot. But also, even when it was only Mom, Dad and I out in a restaurant, I was just as frequently reminded not to interrupt when they were talking about something not related to me. The reminders grew a lot more frequent when we had visitors over.
ReplyDeleteMom and Dad were all for me asking questions, and discussing things with me, but there was a time and place for that. In public was considered a great opportunity for learning when to hush up and let the adults converse. Occasional comments/questions were fine, but I wasn't allowed to monopolize conversations, that's for sure. Which I think is a fine thing to learn early on. Everyone needs to learn the rudiments of when to shut up, and that they're not the center of the universe.
Funny, a sort of related subject came up in chat yesterday. Someone mentioned work habits, and I came back with basics of an article I'd read about the youngest of our workforces needing to be praised all the time for simply doing their jobs. Management is getting special training, focusing on things like complimenting people for getting to work on time. (!!) One place even has an employee whose job is to toss confetti when someone does... well, basically, their job as they should be doing it.
This sort of thing reminds me of when I was working in my first job at 20, frequently sitting in a restaurant overhearing people my age who were in college, and thinking, "Grief, those guys have no idea what the real world's like." Like a current 20-something friend of mine who encountered a snippy customer when working as a barrista. She was aggrieved at how unfair it was her boss chewed her out for sniping back at the customer. She simply didn't get it!
The more I think about it, the more the situation sounds like a fiction writing exercise: "Take four people at a restaurant table: one 50-something woman, one 20-something woman, one 20-something man, and a boy about 4. The older woman doesn't speak, the man hardly speaks, the younger woman speaks primarily and with great enthusiasm to the boy. 2000 words."
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