Civilizing details that you missed during childhood- share here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep the front porch light on all night for safety and always have, especially as a single mom. I think all homes should do this to deter crime and for safety reasons. I live in a "dark sky" neighborhood with muted street lamps and I actually dislike this aspect of my development the most because I don't feel comfortable walking after dark and I am in the burbs.

Overhead lighting that emanates from a boob light or a fan light in the the middle of the room is the worst. So unflattering and unsettling. Recessed overhead lighting is ok sometimes in a living room type room, or a dining room, though I prefer lamps. Overhead lighting is ok in kitchens and bathrooms, but never in bedrooms unless you are cleaning. But to be this is not about tackiness at all, rather mood settings.

So the bugs have to die because you’re still afraid of the dark?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:No one in my family ever used a fork and knife to eat (fork in the left hand, knife in the right). We just ate with forks in our dominant hand, and eating Euro-style is very unnatural and fancy to me.

I didn’t know we’re supposed to send a thank you note after receiving a gift.

I thought meat should always be very, very well done.

This one is me. I work internationally and I always feel very awkward, but I'm too uncoordinated to shift to Euro-style on cutlery.

I grew up using cutlery American style as well. I've always had the sense that European style is more refined, but it feels awkward to me so I don't bother with it. How many people here use American vs. European style?

We use American, like most people do here, but I actually don't think the European style looks more refined. It looks (to me) like you're in too much of a hurry to put your knife down.

I think people are mixing up American vs Continental style cutlery usage. In the American style you cut with the fork in your left hand and then put the knife down, transfer the fork over to your right eat tines up. The Europeans don’t do the fork switch and bring food to mouth tines down, with the knife to assist as necessary.

I think either looks fine; what I notice is how people hold the fork. To me it’s such a tell when people grip their fork with their entire hand and hack at their food. No matter where you work or live, what you drive, or where you went to school, I assume of you hold your fork like that and stab at your food, you probably didn’t grow up a particularly refined household. It’s not that I judge, but I can’t help but notice.

Yes the fred flintstone grip of the fork is painful to see.

I was taught all that too as a child, but I have to admit I absolutely don’t notice how other people are holding their forks.

Occasionally I do notice whether the fork overlaps the knife (tines down), or if the fork and knife are separated like rowboat oars (tines up), when someone is still eating. But that is only because I’m reminded of this one time during a meal w extended family (from different continents), when there was an overly spirited discussion on the subject. It was just at the age when us kids were starting to be more conscious about that kind of stuff, and probably why it came up at all.

I always do tines down too, and always parallel at an angle when I'm done. It doesn't really matter since every server everywhere still asks verbally. I guess I don't clean my plate!

This graphic took me right back to 9th grade Home Ec. in the mid 80s. I wish schools still taught these things. We had one quarter of child development where we even ran a preschool two mornings a week, one quarter of cooking and etiquette (where I learned your graphic and how to properly butter bread), one quarter of sewing and laundry/fabric care, and one quarter of health and hygiene. These were required courses for all students, boys and girls. We also all had to take “shop” class in 8th grade, where we learned to use all the standard tools plus some machines. It was, at the time, a good public school system in rural PA.


PA.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:As I’ve gone through adulthood, I seem to encounter ways of doing things that aren’t even polite or fancy but just the basics that no one in my family of origin seemed to know about. Now I’m wondering what I might be missing as I raise my own child. What did you only find out about as an adult? (And thank you to all of my roommates over the years who helped raise me)

Some of my gaps:

-didn’t grow up using washcloths. We owned them but only because they came in sets of towels. I guess we just smeared soap around. I used to break out a lot and even developed cysts on the back of my thighs from clogged pores until I realized all of my roommates used them but me.

-not washing hands in the kitchen. We washed our hands after the bathroom or after coming in from outside in the laundry room sink. My mom doesn’t even have hand soap in her kitchen. She might rinse meat juices and stuff off her hands but otherwise she doesn’t wash her hands before prepping food. I only learned it was a thing from working at restaurants in high school.

DH’s gaps:

-didn’t grow up using napkins at the table. When I asked what he did if someone ate something messy, he said you’d grab a dish towel and then put it back!

-grew up washing everything all together in one load. Eventually everything looked pilled and gray regardless of original color or fabric. I intervened when we met in grad school because I couldn’t handle watching nice work pants get tossed in with linty towels and cleaning rags.

-didn’t know about mattress pads or pillow covers, so they get sweat-stained and grimy. Changing the sheets at his parents’ is a scary experience.

Washing hands in the kitchen is highly personal preference. Personally I strongly emphasize hand washing and sanitizing and am overall a germaphobe, but **despise** people washing hands in my kitchen sink and do not permit it in my house. The kitchen sink is for food preparation and meal clean-up; hand washing should be done in the powder room or other bathrooms. Why would I want people's hand germs introduced into the kitchen? Also, hand washing splashes water all over the kitchen counter which then needs to be cleaned.

How on earth do you cook? Like you cut up raw meat and then go to the powder room to wash your hands before touching other stuff?

Oh boy. I seem to remember a DCUM Food thread where a woman was seriously stressing out over all the hand-washing involved in cooking chicken. Her process was something like: Get the chicken from the refrigerator, wash her hands. Open the package, wash her hands. Salt and pepper, wash her hands. Marinate the chicken, wash her hands. Put it in the fridge, wash her hands. Then ... into the baking dish, wash her hands.

Does this ring a bell for anyone?

It wasn't me but I'm similar. If I touch raw meat, I don't touch anything else before washing my hands. I have a friend who is not so OCD as me about this and got herself (and only herself) horribly sick over Thanksgiving after preparing the turkey. I'll take the abuse for washing my hands too much rather than her miserable two days over a toilet.

PP, you don't need to do that. The chicken is wrapped. Wash your hands upon walking into the kitchen to begin cooking. Take out the dish you'll put the chicken in. Line up whatever sauces and spices you'll use on it. Prep the dish (Pam, olive oil, etc.). Take out chicken and put in pan, and then wash hands. Spice the chicken. Put spices away. Put chicken in oven. That's it. You only have to wash hands before beginning to prep food, and after DIRECTLY touching raw animal products. Also, please moisturize your poor dry hands - they're begging for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't know until I moved into our current neighborhood that you left the outside front door light on all night and on the weekends you always turned light on at the front of the house when people may be entertaining guests.

A few weeks after we moved into our neighborhood, an older lady stopped by with the neighborhood directory and a nice potted plant. She gently explained to me that this was "done" in our neighborhood. By golly, I walked through the neighborhood the next Saturday night and saw that most people were following the practice she described.

I began to do it and I noticed as new people moved in, they seemed to automatically do it. No one had to tell them.

I was raised in a "turn out the lights, you are wasting electricity" house, and I had no clue of this practice.

This is completely ridiculous. Leaving lights on all night is just contributing to light pollution. And wasting electricity. Two types of pollution that are both bad for the planet. And for what exactly? So the neighborhood looks more expensive for the stuck up neighbors? Did I understand that correctly?

Agree that it's wrong. We turn on the outside lights when it gets dark out, and leave them on until everyone who lives in the house has arrived home. Then they are turned off. We're not wasting electricity by leaving them on all night long! That's ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

You leave the porch light on at night. I’ve never seen a neighborhood that doesn’t do this. I can’t imagine a block of completely dark houses unless they were abandoned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up pretty sheltered in a very generically white part of the country. My parents did not swear, we didn’t have cable, and there really were no people of other races to interact with so racial epithets never surfaced even if a bigoted person might have been inclined to use them.

Even someone as unprepared for life in the big city as I was knew how offensive the n-word was, and through reading I had gleaned that there were also derogatory terms for other races, but it had escaped my notice that white people had bad words for other white people who weren’t WASPs. Imagine my mortification when a friend referred to “Mike,” and I innocently asked, “Do you mean (derogatory term for Irish) “Mike” or (derogatory term for Italian) Mike?” because I had heard some of the knuckleheaded boys in our dorm refer to the Mikes in question in that manner. Thirty years later I still cringe at that memory. Sorry Mikes!

I’m cracking up. No worries, they understand.

My Israeli boyfriend described my tan as I looked like an N, back in 1999. He was embarassed but she was in her 70s!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You leave the porch light on at night. I’ve never seen a neighborhood that doesn’t do this. I can’t imagine a block of completely dark houses unless they were abandoned.

Tons of neighborhoods don't do this. And the houses aren't completely dark because people are inside them! There are lights on in living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, dens, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep the front porch light on all night for safety and always have, especially as a single mom. I think all homes should do this to deter crime and for safety reasons. I live in a "dark sky" neighborhood with muted street lamps and I actually dislike this aspect of my development the most because I don't feel comfortable walking after dark and I am in the burbs.

Overhead lighting that emanates from a boob light or a fan light in the the middle of the room is the worst. So unflattering and unsettling. Recessed overhead lighting is ok sometimes in a living room type room, or a dining room, though I prefer lamps. Overhead lighting is ok in kitchens and bathrooms, but never in bedrooms unless you are cleaning. But to be this is not about tackiness at all, rather mood settings.

So the bugs have to die because you’re still afraid of the dark?

I’m not afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of people in the dark. It’s not safe. And I think it’s sexist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up pretty sheltered in a very generically white part of the country. My parents did not swear, we didn’t have cable, and there really were no people of other races to interact with so racial epithets never surfaced even if a bigoted person might have been inclined to use them.

Even someone as unprepared for life in the big city as I was knew how offensive the n-word was, and through reading I had gleaned that there were also derogatory terms for other races, but it had escaped my notice that white people had bad words for other white people who weren’t WASPs. Imagine my mortification when a friend referred to “Mike,” and I innocently asked, “Do you mean (derogatory term for Irish) “Mike” or (derogatory term for Italian) Mike?” because I had heard some of the knuckleheaded boys in our dorm refer to the Mikes in question in that manner. Thirty years later I still cringe at that memory. Sorry Mikes!

LOL Mick Mike or Guido Mike? I married a polish mike who called himself Pollock Mike. Somehow it's ok when ur white. Like calling me a stuck up becky. Oh yes, I have heard that but I'm not going to go crying to Jeff about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washcloths are gross. Use soap. Wtf. They are just vehicles for mold and germs.

People use both. Wash clothes are not reused. Used and then washed.

I have read enough on here to know that isn’t happening. If you reuse it at all, it’s far more disgusting than not washing. Leaving a damp cloth to get all kinds of issues than washing with it is far worse than not washing.

[Anonymous]

I think using washcloths (or not) is very much a racial/cultural thing, not a universal thing. I guess all of these are, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Overhead lighting is tacky.

Not putting in overhead lighting is a way for builders to cheap out on construction. You’ve heard the BS from the construction industry trying to convince people that overhead lighting is tacky, but it’s actually a cost cutting measure. Same with “open concept”. It’s more expensive to build walls and create actual rooms.

I agree. I hate how dark our current house is from the lack of overhead lights. i want my house bright and the table and floor lamps don't cut it. It's more ridiculous given how much control we have over the harshness/color of our bulbs now. I want overhead lighting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up pretty sheltered in a very generically white part of the country. My parents did not swear, we didn’t have cable, and there really were no people of other races to interact with so racial epithets never surfaced even if a bigoted person might have been inclined to use them.

Even someone as unprepared for life in the big city as I was knew how offensive the n-word was, and through reading I had gleaned that there were also derogatory terms for other races, but it had escaped my notice that white people had bad words for other white people who weren’t WASPs. Imagine my mortification when a friend referred to “Mike,” and I innocently asked, “Do you mean (derogatory term for Irish) “Mike” or (derogatory term for Italian) Mike?” because I had heard some of the knuckleheaded boys in our dorm refer to the Mikes in question in that manner. Thirty years later I still cringe at that memory. Sorry Mikes!

LOL Mick Mike or Guido Mike? I married a polish mike who called himself Pollock Mike. Somehow it's ok when ur white. Like calling me a stuck up becky. Oh yes, I have heard that but I'm not going to go crying to Jeff about it.

I’m guessing it is not guido and that you didn’t grow up in a time when “Guinea” was used as a slur against Italian people. I only see it in books and really old movies these days haven’t heard it out loud since the late 90s in NYC and CT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Overhead lighting is tacky.

Not putting in overhead lighting is a way for builders to cheap out on construction. You’ve heard the BS from the construction industry trying to convince people that overhead lighting is tacky, but it’s actually a cost cutting measure. Same with “open concept”. It’s more expensive to build walls and create actual rooms.

Finally a sensible answer. The lack of overhead lighting in Amrican homes is perplexing. Coupled with low ceilings, I see how the builders are to blame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up pretty sheltered in a very generically white part of the country. My parents did not swear, we didn’t have cable, and there really were no people of other races to interact with so racial epithets never surfaced even if a bigoted person might have been inclined to use them.

Even someone as unprepared for life in the big city as I was knew how offensive the n-word was, and through reading I had gleaned that there were also derogatory terms for other races, but it had escaped my notice that white people had bad words for other white people who weren’t WASPs. Imagine my mortification when a friend referred to “Mike,” and I innocently asked, “Do you mean (derogatory term for Irish) “Mike” or (derogatory term for Italian) Mike?” because I had heard some of the knuckleheaded boys in our dorm refer to the Mikes in question in that manner. Thirty years later I still cringe at that memory. Sorry Mikes!

LOL Mick Mike or Guido Mike? I married a polish mike who called himself Pollock Mike. Somehow it's ok when ur white. Like calling me a stuck up becky. Oh yes, I have heard that but I'm not going to go crying to Jeff about it.

Polish - ethnicity
polish - furniture finishing compound
Polack - ethnic slur
Pollock - fish