Normally I would have used
the song playing with many animated graphics and
added it to my "Animated Dancing Pages Index" for children to
enjoy. But, I have decided to add it to my "Life &
Inspiration Index" because this page is geared more towards adults
than to children, I hope you will allow me to step up on my soapbox
and rattle on a little bit about something that has bothered me for a long time.
The above picture shows a young boy presenting flowers to his
mother. It is a very touching picture and I'm sure the little boy is
presenting his mother with a precious gift and hoping she will enjoy
it. I also hope the mother will show her appreciation by thanking
the little boy for his gift . . . and this brings me to the subject I want
to talk about. Recently I flew back to my hometown, and while
waiting at the gate for my flight, the following happened:
At the airport.
there was a young woman carrying an infant in her arms and was pulling
a small piece of luggage on wheels behind her. She was walking
towards the gate where I was seated. As she walked towards me,
something happened to
the wheels on the luggage and she was struggling to upright the luggage.
A man, I assume to be somewhere in his early to
middle 50's, stopped to ask if he could help, and the young woman said
yes. The man was able to get the wheels working properly and pulled
the luggage over to a seat as the lady followed behind with
her baby. The young woman then sat down. The man asked her if
everything was okay and she said it was, and then she proceeded to pick up a
magazine and began thumbing through it without even looking up at the man.
The man left, but as he walked past me, and seeing that I had witnessed
everything, softly said to me, "You're welcome", and then
shrugged his shoulders and walked away. This woman did not even take
the time to thank the man for his help!
As I sat there and watched the young woman, it brought back to mind a
similar situation that happened while I was in the grocery store a while
back. I
was getting ready to leave the store, and a lady just ahead of
me was pushing her
grocery cart to go outside. She had a toddler trailing behind her. As she
was opening the door, the toddler starting running back into the store,
and a young man who was coming inside told her to go get the little girl
and he would wait with her cart until she came back. When she
returned, the young man offered to push her cart to her car while she
carried the toddler. Her car happened to be right next to mine, and
as I followed behind them, the young man loaded her groceries into her car
as the woman put the toddler in the car seat. Then the woman got
into the car, shut the door and drove away without giving a second
thought, much less a 'thank you' to the young man who watched her drive
away. The only thing I could think of at the time was to tell him it
was very nice of him to help her, and he thanked me . . . kudos to the
young man!
I have
also witnessed a young mother who is teaching her toddler to say 'please' and 'thank you', but the
mother
does
not seem to have these words in her vocabulary list. So, is this
something she did not learn, but for whatever reason thinks it is
something her child should know, but not her?
Additionally,
I have experienced times when I had sent a gift to someone, and never heard back from
them to let me know they had received the gift, so I just had to wonder if
they had received the gift or was lost in delivery. Was it up to me to contact them to
see if the gift had arrived?
The point I am trying to make
is this. What happened to common courtesy and
good manners? My sister and I talked about this, and she agreed with
me that people just do not use the words 'please', 'thank you' and 'you
are welcome' like
they used to. We tried to remember if we had been taught to use these
words by our parents, or if we had just learned by
example. Neither of us could remember, but I do know that I have always
tried to say 'thank you' when someone had done something for me, given me
a gift, or even just a compliment of some kind. Perhaps I am just
old-fashioned and out-of-date?
My sister brought up the fact that our Mother
always sent a 'bread and butter' letter to thank people. At the time
I thought this was a term my Mother had made up, but when I did a search on the
internet, I found the definition of a "bread and butter letter",
and it is a thank-you letter or note from a guest to a host expressing thanks for
their hospitality. So this was something our Mother believed to be the
proper thing to do, and perhaps it was through our Mother's bread and
butter letters that my sister and I learned to say 'thank you'.
Also,
during this same conversation with my sister, we came up
with the thought that when you do something for someone or give somebody a
gift, should you expect something in return? Isn't a gift just that
. . . a gift given because you want to and not to get something in
return? We both agreed that a gift or a good deed should not be done
to get something in return, but does a 'thank you' fall into that
category?
As
perplexed as I am in all this, I guess I don't have the answers, so I'll
just step down from my soapbox and make a promise not to get back up there
any time soon. Thanks for taking time to read my babbling.
