Please? And thank you!

As a committed writer for this blog I made a promise to myself when accepting this job. I would try my hardest not to use it as a platform from where I preach my morals and beliefs onto you, the unsuspecting audience. But I do have something I would like to get off my chest, vent about, blow off some steam. That is specifically what has happened to our manners? 

 Where have all of our pleases and thank yous gone? I know there are some uber polite folks out there, kudos to all of you, keep it up! But the rest of us (yes, I too am guilty of occasionally missing a please or thank you) we have no excuses. 

We all have bad days and don't feel like saying thank you or being polite. But that is not the person behind the counters fault, they don't know that. A simple hello, a quiet thank you or even a nod carries a lot of weight. What kind of example are we showing our children? 

Now, as a family, we are admittedly pretty adamant our kids says please and thank you. But they are kids, and they need almost constant reminders to do so. We have had several proud moments where we have been complimented on how polite our child was (when we weren't even there to remind them!) I think our hard work aka nagging, maybe working! But come on, this isn't a hard thing to insist our youth do. Yes, it may take a bit of prompting, a polite nudge now and again, but we all should do it. 

And yes, I do feel better. Please, and thank you.

P.S After finishing writing this piece, I left the coffee shop and waited in the snow to hold the door open for a woman walking in. She never thanked me! I should have slipped her the link to this blog!

Benefits of good manners
Manners and morals of today's children and teens