Chivalry is dead. Well, if not dead, then curled up in a hospital bed trying to recover from the ferocious beating it has received in the past decade or so.
At least it has company, though, with manners, common decency and simple table manners also suffering repeated assaults. And there is no one to blame but us.
Let me let you in on a little secret: I like having guys open doors for me, help me carry heavy things, kill spiders for me and generally act like the big, tough, macho man and do things they think I can't do.
I admit to letting my feminist ideals slide and enjoy not having to do dirty things like heavy lifting or mowing my yard. I can't help but notice, however, how much harder it is to find a nice guy or a polite person nowadays.
It's much more likely that you'll meet 10 jerks for every one genuinely nice one out there. I don't think the world is producing more jerks. We have just stopped educating our children at home on how to act and how to be decent people, and by the time they are adults, they don't know how to be anything but self-centered.
According to the Urban Institute, 76 percent of children with employed parents spend at least part of the week in some kind of non-parental care.
I know how hard the current economy is. Many new families can't afford to have half of the bread-winners at home taking care of their children, but even if you take your kids to the best day care centers or have the best nannies come to your home to raise your kids for you, it never can take the place of a parent.
A stranger won't raise your child the way you would, because the child isn't theirs. They won't have to deal with the child when it is older and has no manners. This dependency on others raising our children is what is causing the death of common decency, morality and chivalry.
It is almost a shock now to meet a child who says "please" and "thank you" and who isn't constantly throwing a tantrum. It's even more rare to find an adult who knows how to use a fork and knife correctly and not chew with their mouth open.
You might laugh until you look around one day in a restaurant and see the ugly truth. I used to work at an electronics store, and there was a woman who came in with her 10-year-old son. He told her what to buy and how much money she was going to spend.
I never would have allowed any child to speak to me like that woman let her son boss her around. Sadly, it's more likely that you will see a child scolding their parent in the store for not buying them candy or a toy and the parents bowing to the whims of a child than to see a parent disciplining their child.
So many parents spend most of their day at work, occasionally seeing their children over dinner, and they are reluctant to sully time with their children by disciplining them. By no means am I saying that mommy should stay home and bake cookies and clean house, but whether it is the mom or the dad, they need to teach these kids some semblance of manners.
There might still be hope for our future. My godson is 7. He opens my car door for me, and he holds the door open for me wherever we go.
So I hold on to that hope, although with the way things are going, I'm going to have to open doors by myself, lift heavy boxes and kill all my own arachnids since it doesn't seem like anyone else is going to help.
Be the first to comment on this article!