Teach Me to Raise an "Upper-Middle Class" Child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're rich, OP. Maybe you don't come from rich, maybe you don't feel rich, but you ARE rich.

Teach your kid to eat at the table, elbows off, chew with mouth closed, don't talk with food in mouth. Butter only the bread you're about to chew. Don't butter the whole piece of bread and don't put a pat of butter on your plate to butter from. Napkin in lap. Please and thank you to waitstaff. Don't eat until everyone at the table has been served. Teach to eat neatly. Don't stuff your mouth full. Be willing to try new foods. Know how to say "I hate that crap!" nicely.

Teach your kid manners. Get up for old, handicapped, pregnant people. Hold the door for everyone with a smile. People who are poor are always out for themselves and are always desperate to get everything they can free. Only take one sample.

My DD has never taken swim lessons. She figured it out herself. But yes, know how to play sports. Doesn't have to win awards, but you don't want to be picked last for a team because you suck.

This is the opposite of my experience. It seems that poor people have the awareness of others to do these kind acts for others and people with means lack this same awareness to be bothered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're rich, OP. Maybe you don't come from rich, maybe you don't feel rich, but you ARE rich.

Teach your kid to eat at the table, elbows off, chew with mouth closed, don't talk with food in mouth. Butter only the bread you're about to chew. Don't butter the whole piece of bread and don't put a pat of butter on your plate to butter from. Napkin in lap. Please and thank you to waitstaff. Don't eat until everyone at the table has been served. Teach to eat neatly. Don't stuff your mouth full. Be willing to try new foods. Know how to say "I hate that crap!" nicely.

Teach your kid manners. Get up for old, handicapped, pregnant people. Hold the door for everyone with a smile. People who are poor are always out for themselves and are always desperate to get everything they can free. Only take one sample.

My DD has never taken swim lessons. She figured it out herself. But yes, know how to play sports. Doesn't have to win awards, but you don't want to be picked last for a team because you suck.

This is the opposite of my experience. It seems that poor people have the awareness of others to do these kind acts for others and people with means lack this same awareness to be bothered.

+1

On metro, it's the construction workers (okay, not poor, but not UMC either) who are looking after the old and the halt. The suits are looking after themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're rich, OP. Maybe you don't come from rich, maybe you don't feel rich, but you ARE rich.

Teach your kid to eat at the table, elbows off, chew with mouth closed, don't talk with food in mouth. Butter only the bread you're about to chew. Don't butter the whole piece of bread and don't put a pat of butter on your plate to butter from. Napkin in lap. Please and thank you to waitstaff. Don't eat until everyone at the table has been served. Teach to eat neatly. Don't stuff your mouth full. Be willing to try new foods. Know how to say "I hate that crap!" nicely.

Teach your kid manners. Get up for old, handicapped, pregnant people. Hold the door for everyone with a smile. People who are poor are always out for themselves and are always desperate to get everything they can free. Only take one sample.

My DD has never taken swim lessons. She figured it out herself. But yes, know how to play sports. Doesn't have to win awards, but you don't want to be picked last for a team because you suck.

Serious question. If you're not supposed to butter the whole piece of bread and you're not supposed to put a pat of butter on your bread plate, what do you do with it? Do you just not use butter? Ask someone to pass the butter every time you want a bite of bread? The habit I picked up from client lunches at my first "professional" job was to take a pat of butter, and then eat the bread by breaking off a bite-sized piece, butter that bite individually, and then put the whole thing in my mouth. I don't butter the whole thing at once, and I never take a bite out of my bread and then put the rest back down. Is that wrong?

Lol, there is a butter plate on the table. You use your knife to portion off some butter, then butter the piece of bread you're about to bite. Put down your knife, bite your bread, put down the rest of the bread, chew and swallow. Then when you're ready for another bite of bread, butter than bit of bread. You can bite your bread and put the rest down on the bread plate. That's fine.

So is it your own butter plate? Or is it shared and therefore the equivalent of double dipping?

There's one plate of butter on the table. It's shared. You know what? This is getting too complicated. Just don't eat bread at the beginning of a meal. Who needs those carbs anyway, right?

This is the correct answer for the true UMC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're rich, OP. Maybe you don't come from rich, maybe you don't feel rich, but you ARE rich.

Teach your kid to eat at the table, elbows off, chew with mouth closed, don't talk with food in mouth. Butter only the bread you're about to chew. Don't butter the whole piece of bread and don't put a pat of butter on your plate to butter from. Napkin in lap. Please and thank you to waitstaff. Don't eat until everyone at the table has been served. Teach to eat neatly. Don't stuff your mouth full. Be willing to try new foods. Know how to say "I hate that crap!" nicely.

Teach your kid manners. Get up for old, handicapped, pregnant people. Hold the door for everyone with a smile. People who are poor are always out for themselves and are always desperate to get everything they can free. Only take one sample.

My DD has never taken swim lessons. She figured it out herself. But yes, know how to play sports. Doesn't have to win awards, but you don't want to be picked last for a team because you suck.

This is the opposite of my experience. It seems that poor people have the awareness of others to do these kind acts for others and people with means lack this same awareness to be bothered.

+1

On metro, it's the construction workers (okay, not poor, but not UMC either) who are looking after the old and the halt. The suits are looking after themselves.

+2

I've found genuine kindness lacking amongst the upper class and often the upper middle class as well. I'm second generation to immigrants that came here with pretty much nothing and ended up upper middle class. We are now quite well off, I've had friends across the classes and I've noticed this difference.

There are a lot of "outside appearances" with the wealthy and emphasis on manners (ex. the bread and butter thing!), but true manners that involve genuine kindness and empathy aren't well formed.

The very definition of manners is viewed differently between the classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Disagree. Grew up UMC and we talked about value. Even if you can afford to buy the $500 sneakers they may not be "a good value" (compared to the very similar $100 sneakers) so we would say they cost too much. We are trying to teach our kids the same thing - spend your money wisely. No need to throw it away. In fact, I'm pretty sure our kids think we are poor based on how we talk about spending money.

I'm surprised that this completely correct comment is so late in this thread. As I always say, rich people don't get or stay rich by making crappy decisions. The wealthiest people I know are very conservative with their spending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the butter discussion fascinating! I had no idea that you are not supposed to butter your whole piece of bread

Really? You are either young (under 35) or not raised UMC.

Not that poster, but I'm 36, and my Dad was a law firm partner, so we were comfortably upper middle class. And yet I butter my bread wrong. If I ever heard of it before, I've totally forgotten. Maybe people have been secretly judging me all this time. Oh well. Frankly I think the focus on etiquette as a marker of class may be somewhat regional. My DH's family can be weird and formal about stuff like that even though in many respects they are far more working class than my family. But they are from up North. I'm from the South, and people don't generally focus on formalities as a sign of class status. Politeness and chivalry are a pretty big deal, but politeness is judged by how you relate to others, not table manners and knowing where to put a spoon.

It may be regional, but I think you're from a different part of the South than I am. My southern family was not rich, but very focused on table manners (including the bread/butter thing), and formalities as a sign of class status. It was drilled into us.

Yes, this is true.

My DH was raised very wealthy in the posh suburbs of NYC and his table manners are atrocious. He eats fast and finishes before everyone, holds his spoon in a babylike way sometimes, and eats "Continental" because it is "more efficient." True but he does not need to be any more efficient. He will also walk out ahead of me unless he's thinking about it, and I'm not a dawdler.

I have come to accept most of it but wish his parents had taught him better manners so he didn't have to be so conscious to remember to eat slowly and walk beside other people. By the time you send them off to college, this stuff ought to be automatic. It makes everything so much easier when manners are just there instead of having to try and remember them all the time.

Just out of interest, I'm from the UK and so I eat "Continental" style (which I assume means knife in one hand, fork in the other, cutting and eating as you go?) Is this style of eating considered lower class or bad manners in the US? I'm not planning to change, just interested! Where I'm from, I'd say the US style is considered either bad manners or, if the person doing it is American, then it would be excused as "American", but still not considered the proper way to eat. Interesting, I think, because I think it highlights that the really important aspects of class and manners are in how to treat other people, and that is probably international and universal, although there are differences as to what is considered courteous and polite in different cultures. But table manners are very cultural - e.g. the way one would eat in Japan and appropriate table manners are very different to those in Europe and the US

It would depend. In an area like Washington, people would just assume you did not grow up in America and are using your native manner of doing things. Perfectly fine. If you were American doing it I think it would just be considered unusual and/or an affectation. This style of eating as far as I know is not associated with the lower class in the US, nor is it necessarily considered bad manners--just not the right manners for an American.

You're wrong. Eating continental style is how UMC Americans were raised.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps the affected UMC...

[Anonymous]

I often find a correlation with the wealthier people are, the stingier and less gracious they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps the affected UMC...

No, it's just how my grandmother learned and therefore my mother, and therefore me and my siblings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I often find a correlation with the wealthier people are, the stingier and less gracious they are.

+1. They didn't get rich by giving away their money.

[Anonymous]

I grew up UMC, but two generations away from poverty.

Teach children the difference between "can" and "may". I find myself silently parroting my mom with, "I don't know, CAN you?"

Along those lines, using "a" instead of "this." As in, you don't say, " I saw THIS presentation" when you should say "I saw A presentation." Small thing.

Treat everyone with respect. Look them in the eye. Be kind and generous with people.
Take coats as soon as people enter the house. Offer them a beverage straight away, and it doesn't have to be alcohol.
Ask about people. Be interested in their lives and build conversations around mutual interests.
Don't talk about money.
Be humble. As I tell my son, if you say you are humble, you aren't.
Understand that some people are fighting battles you aren't aware of. (And don't end sentences with a preposition. (Smile).
Don't be walking advertisements for Disney, etc. when it comes to clothing
Understand that it is okay to be quirky as long as you don't tread on others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're rich, OP. Maybe you don't come from rich, maybe you don't feel rich, but you ARE rich.

Teach your kid to eat at the table, elbows off, chew with mouth closed, don't talk with food in mouth. Butter only the bread you're about to chew. Don't butter the whole piece of bread and don't put a pat of butter on your plate to butter from. Napkin in lap. Please and thank you to waitstaff. Don't eat until everyone at the table has been served. Teach to eat neatly. Don't stuff your mouth full. Be willing to try new foods. Know how to say "I hate that crap!" nicely.

Teach your kid manners. Get up for old, handicapped, pregnant people. Hold the door for everyone with a smile. People who are poor are always out for themselves and are always desperate to get everything they can free. Only take one sample.

My DD has never taken swim lessons. She figured it out herself. But yes, know how to play sports. Doesn't have to win awards, but you don't want to be picked last for a team because you suck.

Serious question. If you're not supposed to butter the whole piece of bread and you're not supposed to put a pat of butter on your bread plate, what do you do with it? Do you just not use butter? Ask someone to pass the butter every time you want a bite of bread? The habit I picked up from client lunches at my first "professional" job was to take a pat of butter, and then eat the bread by breaking off a bite-sized piece, butter that bite individually, and then put the whole thing in my mouth. I don't butter the whole thing at once, and I never take a bite out of my bread and then put the rest back down. Is that wrong?

Lol, there is a butter plate on the table. You use your knife to portion off some butter, then butter the piece of bread you're about to bite. Put down your knife, bite your bread, put down the rest of the bread, chew and swallow. Then when you're ready for another bite of bread, butter than bit of bread. You can bite your bread and put the rest down on the bread plate. That's fine.

So is it your own butter plate? Or is it shared and therefore the equivalent of double dipping?

There's one plate of butter on the table. It's shared. You know what? This is getting too complicated. Just don't eat bread at the beginning of a meal. Who needs those carbs anyway, right?

This is the correct answer for the true UMC.

haha, I had the same thought. 1.) Who eats the bread anyway and 2.) If they do sneak a little piece, who puts butter on it?! Waste of empty calories that could be better used for wine, lolol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often find a correlation with the wealthier people are, the stingier and less gracious they are.

+1. They didn't get rich by giving away their money.

Not really true. I think sometimes those that are wealthy are wise with their money and aren't throwing it away ton stupid stuff. That's different from being less gracious and stingy. I can be frugal and very gracious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're rich, OP. Maybe you don't come from rich, maybe you don't feel rich, but you ARE rich.

Teach your kid to eat at the table, elbows off, chew with mouth closed, don't talk with food in mouth. Butter only the bread you're about to chew. Don't butter the whole piece of bread and don't put a pat of butter on your plate to butter from. Napkin in lap. Please and thank you to waitstaff. Don't eat until everyone at the table has been served. Teach to eat neatly. Don't stuff your mouth full. Be willing to try new foods. Know how to say "I hate that crap!" nicely.

Teach your kid manners. Get up for old, handicapped, pregnant people. Hold the door for everyone with a smile. People who are poor are always out for themselves and are always desperate to get everything they can free. Only take one sample.

My DD has never taken swim lessons. She figured it out herself. But yes, know how to play sports. Doesn't have to win awards, but you don't want to be picked last for a team because you suck.

Serious question. If you're not supposed to butter the whole piece of bread and you're not supposed to put a pat of butter on your bread plate, what do you do with it? Do you just not use butter? Ask someone to pass the butter every time you want a bite of bread? The habit I picked up from client lunches at my first "professional" job was to take a pat of butter, and then eat the bread by breaking off a bite-sized piece, butter that bite individually, and then put the whole thing in my mouth. I don't butter the whole thing at once, and I never take a bite out of my bread and then put the rest back down. Is that wrong?

Lol, there is a butter plate on the table. You use your knife to portion off some butter, then butter the piece of bread you're about to bite. Put down your knife, bite your bread, put down the rest of the bread, chew and swallow. Then when you're ready for another bite of bread, butter than bit of bread. You can bite your bread and put the rest down on the bread plate. That's fine.

So is it your own butter plate? Or is it shared and therefore the equivalent of double dipping?

There's one plate of butter on the table. It's shared. You know what? This is getting too complicated. Just don't eat bread at the beginning of a meal. Who needs those carbs anyway, right?

This is the correct answer for the true UMC.

haha, I had the same thought. 1.) Who eats the bread anyway and 2.) If they do sneak a little piece, who puts butter on it?! Waste of empty calories that could be better used for wine, lolol

People eat bread when the waiters bring it to their table. I don't drink wine very often so I put butter on my bread. The whole bread at once. Then I eat it. I don't care if that is considered low class because I am not changing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're rich, OP. Maybe you don't come from rich, maybe you don't feel rich, but you ARE rich.

Teach your kid to eat at the table, elbows off, chew with mouth closed, don't talk with food in mouth. Butter only the bread you're about to chew. Don't butter the whole piece of bread and don't put a pat of butter on your plate to butter from. Napkin in lap. Please and thank you to waitstaff. Don't eat until everyone at the table has been served. Teach to eat neatly. Don't stuff your mouth full. Be willing to try new foods. Know how to say "I hate that crap!" nicely.

Teach your kid manners. Get up for old, handicapped, [b]pregnant people. Hold the door for everyone with a smile. People who are poor are always out for themselves and are always desperate to get everything they can free. Only take one sample[/b].

My DD has never taken swim lessons. She figured it out herself. But yes, know how to play sports. Doesn't have to win awards, but you don't want to be picked last for a team because you suck.

This is the opposite of my experience. It seems that poor people have the awareness of others to do these kind acts for others and people with means lack this same awareness to be bothered.

Have to laugh at the bolded. So far as I know only women can be pregnant. Why not write pregnant women?