When I read your post, it reminded me of this one:
http://petoftheday.com/talk/showthre...orm#post699439
Mary, I grew up in the 50ties too, and my background sounds similar to yours. My father was a bricklayer and my mom a housewife. I really enjoyed coming home from school to a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich. Then homework, and down to play. Not all children were lucky to have one of their parents home all day.
The world has changed, I like some changes, others not.
In school, we had to line up in two rows every morning and follow the teacher to our classroom, girls in their own classroom and boys in theirs. The playground was divided up by a thick white line, so girls and boys didn't mix. We accepted it as normal, even though, today, I can’t see it was an advantage for anyone, it probably made all of us more shy to the opposite sex.
It was quite normal to speak to grown-ups in a polite manner and adressing them Mr. or Mrs. Also to say thank you, when someone gave you something. However, some things were quite silly - like curtsy and bowing, I mean, it wasn’t exactly the Queen we stood in front of.
One time, my mom took me along to one her friends, and I did or said something wrong, I don’t think I was even aware of it. The friend “forced” me to apologize and I felt SO humiliated - I was hardly old enough to even pronounce the word she wanted me to say. I remembered this for a long time, and never wanted to go there again. So a completely wrong way of tackling it!
I believe all children are born with a positive outlook on things and a healthy curiousity, but they soon get spoiled, as some parents seem too busy with other things, to care much about how “well behaved” their children are (and I mean this in the good sense of the word) and this will backfire later on. Most children will behave like their parents.
Simple things like learning to queue up when waiting for a bus, let other people speak without interupting, and appreciate what you have, instead of wanting more, more, more, would be nice.
There’s nothing wrong with a good self esteem, but like some of you say, a lot of young kids really DO believe they are the center of the Universe, and it can be pretty tiring to be around these kids for long. It would be nice if they thought about others too - but then, some of them do.
Also this thing with fame... some will do anything to get their 15 min. on TV and make complete fools of themselves. I never understood that.
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