Husband can’t set a table and doesn’t care to learn how
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Anonymous
I kind of took it as a joke that political outrage might be directed in a more constructive manner. |
Anonymous
I mean, being a sheep is kind of the point. These are the rules. It’s kind of like soccer. The rules might be arbitrary, but there are rules. They do exist. You and your family might not care about them when you are kicking the ball around in the backyard, or you might have your own “Johnson Family” soccer rules, and that’s fine. But if you are going to play with a group of people who don’t know each other well, everyone is generally going to play by the conventional rules, so it behooves you to learn them. And if your spouse grew up in a family that really cared about soccer and you never really played, they are going to expect you to learn the real rules of the game. The history of the rules doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who made them or who wrote them down. It also doesn’t matter if you “subscribe” to them. They exist outside of you. You might not want to be a sheep and play in your own special way, but that doesn’t make you a free thinker. It makes you clueless at best and kind of a jerk at worst. |
Anonymous
I want a shirt that says this |
Anonymous
It very much matters who makes “the rules” and whether individuals or societies choose to subscribe to them. (Did you know that “the rules” of traffic aren’t the same in different countries, for example? I know, mind blown!) The rules of soccer are covered by FIFA, which is recognized throughout the entire world as soccer’s governing body. What is the governing body of the “rules” of etiquette? (This brings us back to the question of authority, dear. You seem too simple-minded to make this connection on your own.) |
Anonymous
This is so weird. The rules for professional soccer are governed by FIFA, but your adult rec team isn’t governed by anything other than social convention. Even so, when you are in a group of people who don’t know each other well, everyone plays by the same rules. Otherwise, the game isn’t as fun. I really don’t get what you don’t get about this. |
Anonymous
THIS |
Anonymous
Well we know the paternal grandparents don’t give two F’s about manners or messes… |
Anonymous
| Anyoen who has the time and mental energy to care about setting the table in some way that reflects a traditional formal etiquette is bored. They definitely need to work more or to find meaningful things that add to their mental load so they aren't spending time on frivolous stupidity. Sounds like a bored housewife and too much time at the country club. |
Anonymous
| Isn't Miss Manners is generally accepted as the current manners and etiquette authority in the US? Although she's sometimes a bit snarky, she emphasizes kindness and civility as a response to rudeness. It's not necessarily always easy advice to follow, but does tend to make life more pleasant overall in my experience. |
Anonymous
+1. Weaponized incompetence. I married a guy who could manage the housing logistics supply for an entire country at war in his day job, but couldn't set the table, cook and turned all the whites pink. I got tired of that and other forms of disrespect and ended the relationship. Kids lived with me 100% of the time, because he couldn't manage custody - grocery shopping and making meals for the kids was something they had to nag him to do when they were in elementary and that they eventually ended up doing for him until they got old enough to realize his scam themselves. The men who want to find servants can always find someone to play the role. |
Anonymous
Is the table setting just a crutch so you can tell right from left? |
Anonymous
No. She was born in 1938. She isn't in touch at all with anything current. |
Anonymous
It is possible to be in touch or out of touch regardless of one's age. Miss Manners made this very point in a column about a politician who claimed he had no idea that it was not OK to call adult human females persons "girls." |
Anonymous
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Even Miss Manners acknowledges that the point of family dinner wasn’t to harp on table manners it was:
“In reality, instruction in table manners was incidental to the main lesson, which was how to exchange ideas, frame a polite argument and, if necessary, pretend to be interested in what others had done that day. In other words, to learn to socialize. But Miss Manners supposes that you must know what has happened: the loss of nightly family dinner. That was where all this was taught, in a more or less pleasant atmosphere.” OP seems to be failing to promote a pleasant atmosphere by focusing on the wrong things. So much for adhering to Miss Manner’s advice. https://www.uexpress.com/life/miss-manners/2026/03/31 |
Anonymous
| Much easier for the anti socials to just fondle their iPhone at dinners and never speak, even to their children. |