Subliminal messages

I will admit that I grew up in a land where “yes Sir”, “ yes Ma’am” , “please” and “thank you” were not only appreciated but expected , I will also admit that I don’t expect everyone to be familiar with those particular social graces. While I must concede that rude Southerners do exist (they usually end up as outcasts and have to relocate Chicago.) they are much rarer than a foreigner might actually believe. Before I moved away from the Deep South I considered a man (young or old) who didn’t hold the door for a lady (young or old) to be the epitome of rude. Holy Cow , was I in for a shock !! Since leaving Alabama we have lived literally all over the world and in every place we have called home people seemed to pleasantly surprised with how polite my children are, except for other transplanted Southerners , they expect it . I certainly expect it of my own kids and I used to expect it from other peoples kids , not any more . Having lived in northern PA. for the past 6 years very little surprises me when it comes to the behavior of kids . I have had to change my strategy from threatening to call their parents to report their behavior to dropping subtle hints to the kids themselves because their parents just don’t care. Shortly after we moved here, we had a small army of children playing out in the front yard , I was not surprised when one wandered into the kitchen ,However, I was appalled when he opened his mouth and said “Hey Melissa, I’m thirsty, give me a drink” The concepts of Please, Thank you, May I , or Excuse me had never crossed his mind. I was floored, up until that moment, I had never been addressed in such a way by a 7 year old child , but I quickly realized that it wasn’t really his fault , he was never taught any other way. Fast forward to last night , we were feeding our kids, and a few others who asked of they could eat with us, when in walks a little guy (about 8 years old) they had been playing with . I had no idea what his name was forget about knowing where he lived or what was or wasn’t okay for him to eat, but I digress, he walks into the house, grabs a plate,fills up said plate and sits down at the table and proceeds to eat like he lived here. Thankfully, I have gotten used to such odd behavior from the local kids and wasn’t terribly shocked, we simply introduced ourselves as the parents of the house and gave him a drink to go with his dinner. Little does the poor kid know that he has just entered phase one of the Militant HouseWife subliminal training program !! Give me one month and I’ll have him actually asking for a plate before he sits down to eat at our table and if I work real hard maybe he’ll even say thanks when he’s done eatin’.