Give the Gift of Manners

Give the Gift of Manners to your child and you give him nuggets of gold. No education is complete without manners.

Imagine your doctor, with all his education, spitting into his waste basket during a consultation or pushing his way in front of you through a doorway! Okay, you say, that's extreme, and maybe it is, but he's made you wait in the waiting room for an hour and half beyond your appointment time and not apologized hasn't he? Education made him a doctor but not a gentleman.

Imagine a businessman in a Brioni suit, tie and shoes with an MBA certificate on the wall of his CEO office, who rolls down his Mercedes Benz window and gobs into the street or when done eating at that fancy restaurant, leaves his fork and knife at 8 o'clock and 4 o'clock. It can happen. I've seen it. His stature is diminished. Education made him a rich man but his manners make him a slob.

Imagine a high school graduate who couldn't afford Princeton or Harvard or the college in the next county, who flips burgers and wears ripped jeans and soiled Reeboks. When an older woman boards the 5 o'clock subway he offers his seat to her and when he reaches the mall doors at the same time as that woman he instantly opens and holds the door for her. In formal education he may be poor but in breeding he is rich.

And what about the women who pooh-pooh and laugh at such chivalry? They don't demand nor command respect and they don't get it. Unfortunately they don't become the mothers who give gold nuggets to their children either.