The lies the grownups tell you

It’s not just parents, it’s teachers, dentists, ballet instructors—adults lie to kids all the time. For example, I remember a substitute teacher telling our accelerated class that if we didn’t study hard, we would end up working as poor, starving cosmetologists. I know plenty of kids who worked hard and went to college just so they could drop out halfway through to follow their passion and become professional hair stylists. And they happen to be doing quite well for themselves.

Another lie was that your grades actually matter once you get out of college. This isn’t really accurate. You need good grades to get into a college. Then you need them to get into grad school and a first job. Beyond that, no one ever looks at your GPA again.

And don’t get me started on that whole Santa thing.

But all these little falsehoods pale next to the Big One. Every family has its own. The Big Lie in my childhood was that people will never like you, and you will never be successful in life, if you have bad table manners. In retrospect, I understand. My Dad came from a coal mining family, and through hard work and a lot of brains, he became an Air Force Officer. My mother was one of eight kids growing up during the Depression, her father was a day laborer, and as a child, she sold tamales to soldiers passing by on trains. During the course of their lives, my parents had to adjust to a new social circle and a new set of rules. So I understand that they wanted their children feel comfortable in a middle-class world, so that no one would ever have to point out which fork we should be using for the salad and which for the shrimp.

 

I have to admit that, as an adult, I have had many other adults tell me I have the best table manners they’ve ever seen. Weirdos in bars have actually offered to buy me food just so they could watch me eat. So it worked…but at what cost!  I actually believed that people would flee the cafeteria table or fire me from my future job if I ever chewed with my mouth open or slurped while drinking orange juice.

Under my parents’ careful eye, I became extremely self-conscious about eating in front of others, lest an elbow should stray onto the table. A good friend of our family’s once recalled of my childhood: “It was almost painful watching you eat.”

I was motivated. I wanted people to like me. I wanted success in life. To make those things happen, I thought I needed to cut my fried chicken into molecule-sized bits and eat them with knife and fork. Never did a dribble of sauce stain the corner of my mouth. It was inconceivable that a shred of lettuce might not comply with my effort to slip it into my mouth.

When stuff like that that happened to other kids in my neighborhood, my manners-conscious parents would say something that no one today would ever say, because we are aware of how hurtful and demeaning this word is, but this was long ago, and they would say, “He/she looks like a mentally challenged individual with all that tomato sauce on his/her face.”

Okay, they didn't say it like that, but I'm sensitive as well as self-conscious, and way they said it is just bad manners. But I digress. I was trying to explain the furnace of criticism in which my ways were formed.

You can imagine my utter disillusionment, then, when I was in sixth grade and Jennifer Jordan, the queen bee of my grade, (name changed to protect the bee) visited my home for a sleepover. We ate English-muffin pizzas in my living room (if you’ve never made these, you’re missing out. They are awesome).  My whole perception of reality faltered and shook as five other girls and I sat in a circle while Jennifer held court, eating her mini-pizza and smacking her lips like a rich white suburban barbarian, flashing partially masticated bits of muffin, sauce and cheese for all the world to see. It was impossible…how could she be admired, popular, socially successful, and have the worst table manners of all of us?

My whole definition of social order began to crumble. I was confused. I suppose the world had is justice eventually—Jennifer reigned supreme in high school, but eventually slipped out of favor, and although I am sure she is still beautiful, according to always-accurate Facebook, she appears to be a queen without a court at present.

Since then, I have met others with appalling eating habits. There was a boy I dated in college for a while. I was going through a difficult time. He was Navy ROTC, and well on his way to be an officer and fighter pilot in a few months’ time. We dated until the fateful day we ordered a pizza at my apartment. He picked up the enormous slices, folded the wedge in half, and bit off about half of it. Watching him eat reminded me of a Labrador—but dogs have a reason for eating like they do. They have no lips. I basically forgot to eat, watching him mangle the pizza like that. We broke up not long after. I could not imagine spending a lifetime sitting across the table from that horror.

As you can imagine, I am hyper aware of people’s eating styles. I once had an office across from a woman from Sierra Leone who was the loudest chewer I have ever heard. Since then, when I hear that volume of lip-smacking, I generally assume the perpetrator is an African immigrant, but that’s probably social profiling and I’m sure it’s wrong.

Well, I know it is wrong, because just last night I was eating dinner with my mother at a small family restaurant in a very affluent part of town. The guy behind mom was talking loudly about his son, who had decided his medical specialty would be anesthesiology. Apparently well-off, in my definition of the world, he should also eat with silver-plated behavior. Instead, he asked for ice in his red wine, and I had the benefit of seeing and hearing every bit of his enchiladas going down.

So, my youthful perceptions of the world were obviously flawed. My parents were wrong. You can rule the world and still eat like a dog. Am I planning to change my own ways? For better or worse, I really can’t. Sometimes, when I go wild, I do pick up a chicken wing with my hands, get sauce all over myself, and have to use about 45 napkins. I can only do it in front of people I’m already related to, like my kids or husband.

I don’t ride my kids as hard about table manners as my parents did. I don’t expect that any bar weirdos will ever offer to buy my daughter dinner so they can watch her eat—and surprisingly, I am A-ok with that. I think it’s a loss we all can handle.

Do I wish, sometimes, that they could all wield a fork with confidence? Of course. But I don’t worry about it too much, because I far too busy making them self-conscious about other behavior patterns. And some day my daughter will write an angry missive about how I tried to tell her exercise was essential to mental and physical health, and how she has been so much happier ever since she gave up walking in favor of the Segway.