I have been attending the weekly class on Guidelines for Being a Good Person and must admit that this morning my mind wandered to the question of the necessity of manners. I wasn't doubting. I was becoming more convinced.
People I have mentioned my latest writing project to have questioned in various ways, the reason for working on the book. An almost universal response is that yes we need behavioral guidelines because children today are so unruly.
So if the response is shared by many people, why do we have the problem? Is it just that I'm asking those in older generations? Regardless of the answer, another question arises. How did we get to this point? And why is it important?
Some would say it is the breakdown of the family. And this is what occurred to me this morning. As families are split due to divorce, separation, etc., they move into separate homes. Studies have indicated that when possible, neither adult wishes to sacrifice their standard of living so the spouse who leaves tries to move into a home of a comparable size. And yes, this only occurs when the financial situation allows.
We also have single people living in a society in which this is acceptable. I’d imagine that even as recent as the beginning of the last century, it was much more unusual for unmarried child to move out into their own home. But today it's normal so we have people living on their own and not having to follow any behavioral rules. They can do what they want when they want.
But times are changing again, to say the least. With the increasing global recession occurring at the same time as resource depletion and a rapidly-increasing population, it's becoming much more difficult for people to live on their own and do what they wish. In the news we're hearing more stories of three generations moving in together to try to hold on to the grandparent's home as their children lose theirs to foreclosure. We're also seeing people moving in together--the story of a working mother worried about her job and her young daughter moving in with a couple whose finances were also becoming strained--comes to mind.
What's my point? This began as a wandering thought, but yes I do have a point. ;-)
Our living space has been expanding. With more space and fewer people, simple good manners became less important. People spent much of their time on their own doing their own thing even when in a house with others. Families have fewer children so parents are now more indulgent of the one or two they have. (It was a lot tougher to be indulgent when you had six or eight kids.)
Now people are beginning to find themselves moving back in with their families or with extended families. The reality is, we're going to be spending more time living together. This is not just a trend; this is a change in the way future generations, beginning now, will live.
So this is the time to begin to learn how to live with larger families and with others who think as we do and who come together to live. The time to learn how to live with the brother-in-law who raised his kids very differently than the way you did. The time for older children to learn to look out after the younger ones and the younger ones to learn that the older ones may know something after all. Now is the time to start remembering what our parents used to teach us about, of all things, etiquette.
So it's beginning to look like my working on a modern children’s book based on a Confucian classic that teaches manners isn’t so bizarre after all.