Well, the peace and quiet is over and so is the stitching time

Glad I read your post before my fingers did the walking lol

Kids don't even seem to have been taught basic table manners, have you seen how they hold a knife and fork? They'd be better off with the spoon and pusher used by infants. And very few kids (and many adults!) don't seem aware of when to say "please" and "thank you", it costs nothing to do it and it helps oil the wheels of society. Now I'm off to shout at the wireless for a bit....

I have absolutely noticed this. When I was young my father raised me after the divorce and I was fortunate in that he taught me about little things; napkin in the lap at the eatery, hold the fork like this, not with your wrist, please and thank you, shower every day, simple things.

Times, they are a changin...

An interesting (to me) little aside. Jill and I were brought up the British way; fork in the left hand, knife in the right hand, using both at the same time. When we were in the Netherlands we were invited to dinner by a very nice American couple who ate the American way; cut your food up with knife and fork, place the knife with the handle towards the middle of the table, and eat with the fork in the right hand. The husband had had it almost literally beaten into him as a small boy that it was the height of bad manners to eat the way Jill and I did. He was sufficient of a gentleman not to say anything at the time, but he later asked me quietly about it. He was most interested to learn that the way Jill and I ate was absolutely correct in the UK. Jim.

You're dating yourself ! I haven't seen a pusher in years - mostly because parents today do not expect kids to learn to use a knife and fork for food. They are allowed to use their hands for food.

I watched intrigued what a child was going to do when presented with bacon and egg. Silly me, it picked up the bacon, smeared it with egg and crammed it in its mouth and continued the process until it was done. Grotesque to watch, quite spoiled my breakfast.

Sue,

It doesn't make a hill of beans difference for lots of young drivers. We have a graduated licensing program here in B.C., the kids just take the N (for New driver) off the vehicle. I know a kid who was under the graduated licensing program, and he got three speeding tickets within his first year of driving, lost his license for a year and a half. Is now 23 and is just as irresponsible. I know of two young ladies who got their licenses under the same program, one of them always speeds, but hasn't gotten caught, the other one cut me off twice within a short distance. She was heading to work and didn't even notice me. We still hear of dreadful car accidents, and road racing incidents.

The smartest thing we did was make our youngest son wait until he was

18 to get his drivers license. He wasn't happy about it at first, but accepted it, and we are all glad he waited. Our oldest son got his at 16, but never drove anyway, so it wasn't an issue.

Good luck to those of you with teenage drivers, and if you don't have a phone next to your bed, get one, it makes life a lot easier :)

take care, Linda D. in B.C., Canada

We did the same thing....slowed them down as best we could until they were 18. Heck, DD#1 didn't get her license until after she graduated college - then went out and bought a brand-new car within a couple of weeks of her license! (Without a co-signer -- better yet!)

DD#2 had a friend who had totaled three cars before her high school graduation. (Of course, she got the first one as the "requisite" 16 y.o. BD gift.) Parents just kept buying her a new one each time. Even DD was scratching her head over that and saying her friend's parents were not doing their daughter any favors!

sue

OTOH, my son got his license at 16 after Driver Training at school, and this was a great stress reliever. He could take himself, and his sister, to school, and drive friends home when they landed up at our house after school, which was often. He was, and is, a good driver, and my not having to do those things was a real blessing.

DD also had her license as soon as she could qualify. She was, and is, also an excellent driver---but occasionally a too fast driver (its genetic, but she got caught several times and I never have). So, some tickets, but no accidents. And I found out she was often the designated driver, so she was a blessing to some other mums who probably never knew it.

It's never all bad.

Dawne

I hope you made it clear that this is completely unacceptable. I suffered from not one but two older brothers who did this, and a mother who not only did not interfere but egged them on. Result? I did not bother to communicate with my family for many years ( they were over there and I am over here). Their loss.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

** Posted from **

Hey - we have a lovely set of learning silverware - it is from the Old Country though

Hey - I've been trying - DS and DD are reasonably polite at the table. Not Emily Post, but the basics.

C

However, he's got a new insult for a particular skater he deals with regularly (and trust me the kid is putz) - "Hey, Och - my little sister is faster going backwards than you going forward".

C

My kids hated my insistence on good table manners so imagine how delighted I was when my younger daughter, who had moved to Edmonton and worked with Dun & Bradstreet 'phoned to say she had just come back from the Four Seasons, having dinner with the president of D & B and then Premier Lougheed because she won some internal competition ' And mum, all that silver ware didn't fool me - you were right' - music to my ears. She felt he was watching what her reaction would be and she felt she flummoxed him by being perfectly at ease lol

As my ex used to say "it's not bragging if it's true". The corollary to which is obviously that it's not insulting if it's true. :)

My granny drilled it into me, too, and when I started moving in better circles, it definitely helped me fit in.

And, although we never had lobster at home, I am acquainted with the notion of a lobster fork. Mom bought one for the simple reason that the fork end was good for spearing pickles in the jar and the scoop end was good for adding mayo to the same bowl of tuna salad, thus only one utensil to wash instead of two. :)

I also know there's a difference between teacups and coffee cups ... an older relative was visiting from The Old Country and chided Mom for using the wrong shape (which was the only shape cup she had in her china pattern). A few weeks later, having educated us which is which, the old girl sent Mom half a dozen of the other shape, so that she could be proper. I don't know whether Mom was more amazed that the woman sprang for 6 cups or that her china pattern was still being made!

Given this guy thinks he's the next Wayne Gretsky and a general jerk on and off the ice. The idea a girl, especially a 9 year old one, could beat him in race of that nature is completely infuriating.

C

Well, I am beginning to wonder what it would be like to live off the grid in a yurt because I am rapidly growing disgusted with "community" life. Really, just buy five hundred acres somewhere, put some goats, sheep and cattle on it, let them graze, make my own cheese and spin my own wool, have some alpaca's and sell the wool, live off the land, never eat a hunk of meat (which I don't eat now anyway) and check out.

Geeze, what side of the bed did I get up on this morning LOL!

OH, the 'Strawberry Candy' are blooming. The buds are not open yet, but I haven't gone out there into the oven yet.

v

As you know, I take little to no interest in hockey but Gretsky was a totally nice person, likewise so is Crosby - the latter is from just across the harbour from Halifax. He's from Mavia country.

So if he wants to be like Gretsky, he better smarten up and be more polite.

Too simplistic. What do you do when the goats drop dead of disease, the steers/cows get foot and mouth or mad cow and the alpacas get really dirty with you when you try to sheer them ?

I have this really hilarious picture in my mind right now !

A vet once said to me, only half-jokingly, "Sheep suffer from many diseases. The first symptom of most of them is death"