When Did They Lose Their Manners?

[Nor-TX]

I know this is off topic, but it is something that annoys me so much I just had to vent. Why is it, when having a conversation with one, two, three or more people the following happens. You start a story about something and after a couple of sentences, someone interrupts and proceeds to take over, never allowing you to complete your story. It doesn

[kareng]

I know this is off topic, but it is something that annoys me so much I just had to vent. Why is it, when having a conversation with one, two, three or more people the following happens. You start a story about something and after a couple of sentences, someone interrupts and proceeds to take over, never allowing you to complete your story. It doesn

[GlutenFreeManna]

I'm only 30, but I notice this too and I have to be honest, I have struggled with not interupting people when they are talking. I think it has to do with the speed of technology and also the blending of people from different backgrounds. I grew up in the midwest/northeast but my husband grew up in the south and we have lived in the south for over ten years. My family communicates completely differently than my husbands family. When I talk to my mom we talk fast, I can interupt her, she can interupt me and we eventually get back to the story one of us is telling and neither of us are annoyed. In fact if my mom is telling me a story on the phone and I don't interupt to ask a question or interject something for a few mintues she will stop talking and ask if I'm still there. Talking to my husbands family is a completely different protocal. My MIL will go on for several minutes and tell her story while repeating the same things more than once, THEN she will ask what I think and I can talk. It's really hard for me to talk to her because I keep thinking she is not there or not listening because I don't get the feedback like I get with my mom. Dinner at my husbands family involves only one person at a time talking and everyone at the table listening. Dinner at my families house involves multiple people having conversations at once and lots of noise. Neither is right or wrong, they are just different. So perhaps it is that many people are moving to your area from different area where conversations happen differently. However, it is rude for children to constantly interupt. And I think some of the know-it-all attitude comes from the access kids have to the internet these days. If you need to know something you can just type it into google and find out the answer. Also I find it difficult to watch TV these days. SOme of the commercials are so fast with lots of flashing stuff that I can't read, it gives me a headache. And I'm only 30! I feel old! Add into TV all the i-pods and X-box games and i-phones parents get for their kids and the kids are living in a fast-paced world where it seems like they should always know the answer to everything. Attention spans are shorter because of the technology. And that's my view even though I grew up with a computer in the house before the days of wide-spread internet access. I also think with the economy being bad parents are forced to work more and kids are being parented more by the media and technology they are exposed to. I'm not blaming parents, they gotta do what they gotta do to provide for their family, but kids are like sponges and they will absorb the form of communication they see most often.

[lovegrov]

One of my pet peeves. And it isn't just younger generations. I grew up in the 60s and early 70s and people my age do it all the time. There are occasions where the only way I can finish anything i to continue talking over the interrupters. Sometimes that tactic shuts them up but other times they plow on ahead.

richard

[curiousgirl]

One of my pet peeves. And it isn't just younger generations. I grew up in the 60s and early 70s and people my age do it all the time. There are occasions where the only way I can finish anything i to continue talking over the interrupters. Sometimes that tactic shuts them up but other times they plow on ahead.

richard

Or, they probably have adhd from eating gluten! Ha!

But, really...I know what you're talking about. Even commercials on television show children acting like their parents are the idiots by rolling their eyes, the tone of their voice, blahblahblah. I don't know when/where it started. And, why parents let their children do this to them. I'm glad I don't have kids.

[Gemini]

I know this is off topic, but it is something that annoys me so much I just had to vent. Why is it, when having a conversation with one, two, three or more people the following happens. You start a story about something and after a couple of sentences, someone interrupts and proceeds to take over, never allowing you to complete your story. It doesn

[Nor-TX]

Wow, thanks so much for y'all supporting what I said. I thought I might be flamed for my comments... I thought it was just me feeling this way.

[Jestgar]

Wow, thanks so much for y'all supporting what I said. I thought I might be flamed for my comments... I thought it was just me feeling this way.

Rude people are irritating. From other's responses it seems like you opened the way for a lot of people to vent.

[mushroom]

Being the polite, respectful person I was raised to be , I wait for an opportunity to add something to the subject/story being discussed, but by the time that opportunity presents itself the topic has been moved on by an interrupter (or several interrupters) to a completely different subject, and the moment is lost. And then they say, you don't talk much Well, we folks who wait our turn don't get much of a chance.

[Nor-TX]

Being the polite, respectful person I was raised to be , I wait for an opportunity to add something to the subject/story being discussed, but by the time that opportunity presents itself the topic has been moved on by an interrupter (or several interrupters) to a completely different subject, and the moment is lost. And then they say, you don't talk much Well, we folks who wait our turn don't get much of a chance.

You just made me laugh. This always happens to me and when the moment passes and I haven't added my response I just figure, "Oh well.... they would have probably tried to do one better".

My other question is how do people become such experts at so many things? I figure I have lived a pretty normal life and yet hearing about how wonderful they are, and what they have and what they have done... I go home feeling a little inadequate.

Growing up in the 50s and 60s was a period when things were not handed to you on a plate. We saved for our first house, furnished it with cast offs, drove a Datsun, served $2.00 wine and fondue to friends and shopped at the produce markets. I didn't have a car when I was 16, didn't have a house when I first got married, didn't have a nanny or disposable diapers. We used cardboard boxes for sleds, passed clothes from cousin to cousin, played baseball in the street and had to be home when the lights went on. We had plain, good food and watched Ed Sullivan as entertainment. We listened to records of the Lone Ranger and Treasure Island as a family. We went for ice cream as a treat.... *sigh* We had ro say please and thank you and call adults by Mr. or Mrs... never a first name. I once did that and got my mouth slapped. We were taught to take responsibility for our mistakes. If we got into trouble at school... well we got into much worse trouble when we got home. Our tests were marked with a red pencil and no one was traumatized. We played tether ball and no one died. We learned the value of allowance (25 cents). Not everyone won at games. We learned spelling and how to listen to adults...

The funny thing is our generation gave birth to scientists, doctors, professors, writers, artists, all manner of professionsls - most of whom have manners.

Maybe we need to rethink what we teach these days?

[Gemini]

Growing up in the 50s and 60s was a period when things were not handed to you on a plate. We saved for our first house, furnished it with cast offs, drove a Datsun, served $2.00 wine and fondue to friends and shopped at the produce markets. I didn't have a car when I was 16, didn't have a house when I first got married, didn't have a nanny or disposable diapers. We used cardboard boxes for sleds, passed clothes from cousin to cousin, played baseball in the street and had to be home when the lights went on. We had plain, good food and watched Ed Sullivan as entertainment. We listened to records of the Lone Ranger and Treasure Island as a family. We went for ice cream as a treat.... *sigh* We had ro say please and thank you and call adults by Mr. or Mrs... never a first name. I once did that and got my mouth slapped. We were taught to take responsibility for our mistakes. If we got into trouble at school... well we got into much worse trouble when we got home. Our tests were marked with a red pencil and no one was traumatized. We played tether ball and no one died. We learned the value of allowance (25 cents). Not everyone won at games. We learned spelling and how to listen to adults...

Yup...that's the world I really miss! It wasn't perfect but it was far better and less stressful to live like we did than what we have now. There wasn't all the control we have now, which I am always annoyed at and tend to push back on. I feel bad for kids today...they are being raised in a box and have no sense of the freedom we had as kids all those years ago. Maybe that's why they are so badly behaved at times....it's their way of pushing back on all the controls placed on society today. I am so grateful I was a child of the 60's and experienced all I did. We also had better music!

[jerseyangel]

We also had better music!

Isn't that the truth!

It's funny--I was just having this conversation with a friend of mine two days ago.....

[Rowena]

Dude, I was born in 1989, clearly I am on the young end of this discussion, but I know exactly what you mean. My parents were very good at raising me to be a polite young woman, same with all my foster families before I was adopted. I knew respect, even at age 2. I may have the weirdest accent you've ever heard, being from Washington DC where everyone had a different accent and Idaho, a very lazy accent. But one thing is certain, I know I am far more polite than anyone my age or younger. It drives me crazy. I tell a story, and suddenly my former best friend jumps in with "Fred didn't respond to my email again!" And usually I wasn't even talking about boys.

Or how about the people yelling all the way across the lunchroom? For heaven's sake, if you want to get someone's attention, you go to them.

Or how about the people who laugh at me for saying, "Yes sir" or "No ma'am." My husband laughs at me because I say sir to him all the time. "I'm your husband, no need to call me Sir." I am sorry that is how I grew up. I called my parents ma'am and sir, same with my siblings. Its my way of showing respect.

What drives me crazy though is that people of my generation and the generation after me have dropped all titles whatsoever. A teacher is "Smith" or "Frank." And it isn't like the teacher says they can call him/her that.

A football coach is no longer Coach or Coach Franklin. Its Jeff or whatever it is.

Or the kids who say "Don" or "Lisa" for their parents names. When I was growing up, I barely knew my parents names... I always called them Mom or Dad. Admittedly sometimes (as I got older) I called my mom by her first name, but that was because I was trying to get her attention and saying mom ten times didn't work.

(And yes earlier decades had WAY better music... When the nineties hit, it all went downhill.)

And in case you are wondering, yes I am VERY odd for someone my age....

[MelindaLee]

I have laughed and agreed with so much in everyone's posts. I think we have ended up here because parents feel guilty over the lack of time they spend with their children. Lots of families are two income (or single parent). The kids lose that parent that correct them when they are rude, the parents give too much to compensate for the time they don't spend with their kids and don't want to correct them because they feel guilty and don't want to be negative in the little bits of time they spend with their kids. Too many families don't sit down to a meal together and everyone is grabbing food going this way and that. I know there are times when my family seems to be running 5 different ways, but we make an effort to sit down together. It was unacceptable to miss dinner time when I was growing up, and I try to keep the same expectation with my kids. We need to get back to this. Where do you learn to take turn in conversation...around the dinner table! (AND don't talk with your mouth full!)