Manners going out of the window?

I've just done a quick search and found that men being required to remove their hat, any hat, indoors goes back to medieval times when knights removed their helmet on entering a home to signify that theirs was a oeaceful visit and they didn't expect to be attacked.
So that's why I feel uneasy to see a man indoors wearing a hat ?

Aepgirl I completely agree with you. A cap/hat indoors shows disrespect to the house owner/host. I don’t understand why so many people think it doesn’t matter any more. Also elbows on the table - if, for instance, I was out on a dinner date, (which I wouldn’t be because I’m married but I can’t think of an analogy) and the man put his elbows on the table, there wouldn’t be a second date. It may seem petty to some but lack of manners ( which includes all other manners too) shows poor upbringing. Yes I am a bit of a snob but I’m happy with that. Showing manners shows you have respect for the person you’re with.

Most of us on GN were brought up in an age when things were much more formal. Life is more relaxed now, I agree with Furret good manners are about respect. I did expect please and thank you from my grandchildren and for them to be aware that things would be different at my house.

I don't know where the caps off indoors came from either, just that it's always been part of my upbringing and even now, in my seventies it makes me feel uneasy, and especially so at the table.
As a child I also remember ladies wore hats in church but gentlemen removed them. Must try to find out why.

Manners, like everything else, change in the course of a generation, or so.

When I was a child, up to around 1960 men and boys automatically took of their caps or hats when coming indoors, or greeting a lady in the street. A woman kept her hat on in restaurants and when visiting friends in their homes during the day, if she belonged to my grandmothers' generation.

Then we all stopped wearing hats and by the time it became fashionable for boys to wear baseball caps, the lads who did so, had never heard it was impolite to wear headgear indoors.

Putting your elbows on the table was most definitely considered bad manners in my childhood, where manners were not just a matter of saying please and thank you, but a standard of general polite behaviour.

Manners covered all aspects of life, but they change. My grandmothers had been brought up never to speak to an adult, unless spoken to. My generation wasn't, but we were taught to rise in buses and offer our seats to grown-ups. Today's children aren't, as a rule.

I remember the brother of a schoolfriend of mine rising whenever any adult came into the room where we were. He was the only boy I knew who had been taught to do so, and it really won him points in the eyes of my great-aunt, to whom it had been a commonplace of good manners in her youth.

Personally, I draw the line at mobile phones and lap-tops at the table during meals. I expect people to eat with their mouths closed and their elbows off the table and not to put their knife in their mouths, and while I taught I did ask pupils not to wear sunglasses and hats in the classroom.

Oh, and at the beginning of the lockdown I offended a friend, who had been reproved in a shop for not covering her mouth when she coughed, by remarking that I too would have requested her to remember to do so.

Kartush. Have I misunderstood your post ? No please and thank you at home ? Apologies if I read it wrong

young parents are quick to teach their children to say please and thank-you but that is all. as they get older what about consideration for others? 'Do as you would be done by' is another one, needs explaining to them of course.
I think the elbows on the table one was for back in the day with big family, there wasn't room to for elbows on table, A bit like men these days with their leg spreading! wouldn't have had that years ago!

If the children are in my house be they my grandchildren, my nieces or my great grandson I expect them to stick to my rules.... sit at the table for meals, no yelling at the table, no fighting, don’t interrupt, ask before you take something from the fridge or cupboard . I have never understood the elbows on the table thing, we have never done the please and thank you thing even with our kids at home but did teach them that outside the house others may require it.

I think good manners are so very important to both young and old alike, unfortunately a lot of adults don't set an example!! Thankfully my children had good manners & their children are growing up with those same manners too.
I always maintain that you should leave somewhere knowing that you'd be welcome back, tell my grandkids the same & get them to check & make sure that they have their manners with them in a pocket!
That makes them giggle! Yep Grannies nuts!!

There is a big difference between politeness, consideration and good manners, and Hyacinth Bouquet etiquette.

Caps in the house or at a table are nit my thing though I'd prefer the thing on their head than placed on the table. I've seen this happen many time in eating places in the USA and I just want to walk out. Manners have become out of date as there is so much ME ME ME now. Noticed even schools in some areas have RESPECT SELF as their leading philosophy for the children. Manners have no chance unless instilled at home. One thing I do like about the USA is how in a lot of places they use Sir and Ma'm addressing you.

My 4 year old GD knows her please and thank yous and sorry (though I think that an excuse for being naughty) but she's heading in the right direction. I remember being in a busy place with my then 2 year old daughter an was horrified to see her pushing her way through a crowd. I did apologise to some of the people she'd pushed. One person did say that at least she'd said "Excuse me"!!

I take my 10yr old GS to task for what I call "washing machine mouth" - eating with his mouth open so that anyone at the table gets a good view of the food going round. He's otherwise a pleasant chap to dine with - passes dishes, makes conversation and so on, but the open-mouthed eating is really unpleasant. I reason with myself that he won't be doing it in 5 or 10 years time (fingers crossed).

This reminds me of going to Spain in the early 1980's with my Nanna, somehow we managed to get booked into an all German hotel. We quickly got used to being gawked at during meal times and then people copying the way we had our soup by tilting the bowl. When my sister tried to have her soup by drinking it from the bowl like the rest of the German guests my Nanna gave her such a rollicking. It's stayed with me forever and still makes me laugh. Manners are very important to be passed on.

My mantra is 'my house, my rules'. Of course it is bad manners to wear a cap indoors - and always has been.

Elbows off the table is a pointless rule. As adults we sit around the table, elbows on table, having a chat. I wont impose my old fashioned etiquette on my grandchildren as times have changed. Caps on in the house? So what! I insist on please and thank you as that is important.

I like to hear please and thank you , but consideration to others is top of my list .

My boys were nervous wrecks eating at my mothers house.
I’m certainly not going to go down that route.
I love good manners but I think they are different to perceived “etiquette”
Please, thank you, not interrupting, sitting through a meal etc are easy to bring into daily life without it being “my rules “

I agree with those, who say that manners should be about respecting others. Just the last few days, there have been groups of teenagers riding their bikes all over the roads, blocking both lanes, dodging backwards and forwards, endangering themselves and other road-users. This is a comparatively wealthy area, with over 50 years of con MPs. I wonder how the parents would feel, if they knew, what the kids got up to.

I don't really get the 'no cap in the house' rule but don't think I'd be keen on seeing someone wearing a cap at the table. However if, as most people seem to agree that manners is about considering others and the 'others' don't like to see caps or elbows at the table, then surely it is good manners to respect that.
Hetty I thinks it's so sad that you see the practice of general good manners as a 'training session'.

Please, thank you and consideration ( respect , surely needs to be earned) for others are a given in our family. Other thing vary from household to household.

All our AC with their own children have brought them up to be respectful of others, all have nice manners, the boys wear caps in the house, I don’t understand really what that has to do with anything, as grandparents we don’t teach them manners, we are not their parents,

The motto of the totally rubbish secondary modern boys school I attended in the 1950s was "Manners Maketh Man". As we who were viewed as failures for not passing our Eleven Plus Exam by the education system at that time soon found out on leaving that school, that it was not to be good manners that would progress us very far in an adult world of manual work.

Being fifteen and suddenly thrown into working forty five hours per week, what we did soon find out in learning that world of work would be that forman and supervisors did anything but approach you in any way that resembled good manners.

For anyone to state that manners were better in times past is to me and many others of my generation " total rubbish". Such practices may have been for the homes and workplaces of the better off or better educated, but exemplary manners were not for the homes and workplaces of the average manual worker in previous generations.

In these times I believe in a standard of behaviour and dress around the home and office that bears in mind the thoughts and feelings of others, However, exemplary manners will not in any way progress a person in today's world, while reasonable behaviour, a good working aptitude, and intelligent actions will.

I think please and thankyou are essentials and general respect and politeness for others makes the world a nicer place. I too grew up being told to not put my elbows on the table which I'm still aware of myself when I do it. I do wonder what its origins are? My grandsons although young are polite?. Thankyou letters? A bit hit and miss these days although I think people are starting to appreciate letters more. I'm perfectly happy with a verbal or text thankyou though!

I have to say both my DiLs are very strict on manners & the DGC are very good. Sometimes youngest uses his knife wrongly but he knows how it should be done.
They always say thankyou for the nice meal afterwards too- although again youngest has to be prompted by big brother sometimes.
I'm sure their fathers were not so good at their age- I seem to remember prompting a lot!