Manners

Since she started talking about a year ago, we've been working with A. on basic etiquette. There's something incongruous about teaching manners to a 2-year-old, of course. Manners are an outgrowth, in part, of our ability to feel shame; we engage in them to reduce the likelihood of embarrassment, or to mitigate the effects of embarrassing situations when they actually happen. (I understand that's an overly anthropological approach to the topic, but I didn't pursue an over-education for nothing.) And since a 2-year-old is pretty much incapable of feeling shame -- it's a struggle, after all, to keep her from playing with her own shit when we're changing her diaper -- the manners lessons are more for our benefit than anything else.

She's hit-or-miss on everything so far. She knows the utility of saying "please," but she doesn't always follow through. Much of the time, our conversations go like this:

A: Want a cracker.
Me: "Want a cracker....." (pause to allow daughter to fill in the blank)
A: Want a cracker.
Me: "Want a cracker....." (pause to allow daughter to fill in the blank)
A: Want a cracker.
Me. "Want a cracker, please?"
A: OK.

We've moved on recently to "Excuse me," which we encourage her to say at the obvious moments, usually when she's expelled gas from one end or the other. For some reason, she's taken quite well to this little nicety, to the extent that she fakes a handful of burps during each meal. She hasn't figured out how to fake a fart yet, but I'm sure that will come soon enough. She has figured out, however, that other things in the house -- chairs, shoes, animals and parents -- are able to make noises for which they should also excuse themselves.

Case in point: This evening, as I was squirting ketchup onto the top of a turkey loaf I was making for dinner, the bottle emitted a tremendous, rude noise. Without missing a beat, A. stopped what she was doing and turned to look at the offending bottle.

"Excuse you, ketchup."

Even the condiments have no shame in our house.

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