Becky
Polite children & suffering in the name of politeness
by Becky - January 10, 2008 - 12:33 AM

Since we aren’t too far removed from the holiday gauntlets, it seems likely that more than a few of us have suffered through something for the sake of politeness. The search for “the politest little girl” or boy was an annual competition held by the Junior Inspectors Club of New York City’s Department of Sanitation. In 1940, the competition’s panel of judges (aged 10-15) awarded the honor to 9 year-old G. William Kennell, who demonstrated a thorough command of his craft:

Suppose you were dolkwntown and you didn’t have any money to get home, how would you approach the policeman?—”I’d say, ‘Please, Mr. Cop, will you lend me a nickel? I promise to return it.’ ”

If you went to your friend’s home and you wanted a drink of water, how would you ask to go to the kitchen?—”I’d say, ‘If you don’t mind will you let me go to the sink to get some water?’ ”

If you happened to knock a person’s hat off by a snowball, what would you do? —”If it were a grown person, I’d pick it up. If it were a child, I’d just say, ‘I’m sorry.’

I’ve been trying to track Mr. Kennell down, so if anyone has a lead…! I suppose I was a polite enough child, but mostly out of fear of human contact. I had an early aversion to loud voices or acrimonious public behavior. Disagreements caused me to break out in hives, and when other people’s mothers offered to take a friend and me to the beach with a cooler full of soda and peanut butter sandwiches, I had no other choice but to put aside my mortal antipathy to nut products and concentrate on getting rid of the sandwich (I ended up feigning interest in digging a shallow grave in the sand & then tossing the innocent thing in).

Even at seven, I would rather die than be embarrassed–or be an accessory to another’s embarrassment. I guess that’s politeness. Too bad this particular contest was before my time.

So, whether you were a polite child or not (were you?), what have you suffered for the sake of politeness?

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Comments (10)

  1. Some would call me a picky eater, but I just know what I like. The place I’m deployed to as a weather forecaster right now has a few different countries serving here. Just last night we had dinner with our Korean weather counterparts. There were no choices at their dining hall and I was given a plate with some kind of mystery food on it. Generally I’d just let the person I’m with know that I didnt want to eat it, but these people were so genuinely nice that I couldn’t do it to them. I choked down some sort of mystery rice in which I saw egg, ham bits, and some sort of chewy substance that I still can’t identify. There was also a breaded meat that caused me great pains since I’m not a fan of pork and don’t eat seafood. Luckily it was beef. While the food wasn’t horrible, it still wasn’t my cup of tea.

    posted by Tricia on 1-10-2008 at 1:01 am

  2. i remember one politeness mishap of mine occurred during a family dinner while i was visiting my grandparents in texas. i was a bored child at the table, and one evening i was also not hungry enough to eat the food before me. the pasta on my plate seemed to form itself into a landscape of hills and a bridge of carrots connecting some of the hills, all with the help of my fork. looking up from my creation, i realized that my entire family were chewing in slow motion watching in disgust as i used my food as an artistic medium. that was when i learned that the table is for eating.

    posted by Davie on 1-10-2008 at 2:06 am

  3. When I was in SE Asia in the late 60s my squad got news that Victor Charlie was planning to “educate” a Hmong village about the error of collaborating with the Yanks. This “education” usually involved killing the local elders and raping the girls. Sometimes they’d burn the place down just to punctuate their ideas.

    We advised the folks about what we’d learned and set up an ambush for Charlie. None of them (the VC) ever made it home, and we suffered no loss of life in the process.

    Afterwards, the Hmong set out a huge banquet in our honor. Among the delicacies were chicken foot soup and a local rice beer made by pulping rice in a stone pestle and the older women spitting in it to get the fermentation going.

    We were polite and ate what was put in front of us. The beer was OK, once we could get past what went into the manufacture. The foot soup was a problem for me, as I was around chickens as a child and knew where they walked.

    Needless to say, a wonderful time was had by all. The Hmong were happy, we were happy, and I didn’t eat anything for a week afterwards. Even K-rats made me want to puke, and they were leftovers from Korea with a pack of Luckies, which I traded for Newports in someone else’s rat pack.

    I’ve eaten other things to be polite, but this had to be the high (low?) of my culinary escapades.

    posted by Doc on 1-10-2008 at 8:50 am

  4. I was usually polite as a child, but I’ve always been an “old soul.” I would rather read and sit quietly with adults than to roughouse with other kids.

    I now work in customer service, where politeness is a boon. It’s become a second habit that’s hard to break. I find myself being polite EVERYWHERE. On the road, at the store, and especially to rude people!

    posted by Sarah on 1-10-2008 at 9:27 am

  5. I second #4 Sarah… I also find myself being especially polite to rude people. It either makes them feel guilty about being rude and they turn polite, or it just irritates them further, which is far more satisfying than actually being rude back.

    I was always a polite kid, and even though I’m horribly picky about food (even at 24) I still will eat anything homecooked when I’m a guest out of sheer politeness. It’s pretty rough sometimes, but I’m terrified of hurting anyone’s feelings.

    posted by Sarah on 1-10-2008 at 10:26 am

  6. Doc, I feel you on the chicken feet ;)

    I got a call from a Chinese friend of mine who I was going to go out shopping with. She wanted to bring lunch with her and made me promise that I would try whatever she brought. She brought chicken feet that had been cooked in some kind of soy-based sauce. *lol* she then proceeded to tell me how to eat them with chopsticks (which are the least graceful, if coolest looking, eating utensils known to man). I think I managed to snarf down two. Honestly, I think I would have been OK, if it hadn’t been for the little pile of bones stacking up on my plate. Eugh.

    In the name of politeness, I have endured countless awkward situation with members of the opposite sex. You know that feeling you get when you feel the conversation tipping in a general way that you don’t desire for it to go? Rather than bailing there, like a smart person, I’m more likely to watch the entire train wreck play out, carefully explain my motives with the least possible damage to their self esteem and still leave feeling guilty.

    Also, I’m the one that my roomies want to make all the phone calls to the internet/cable/phone company/maitenance/electric company etc, because I tend to have the greatest amount of patience and have inherited my mother’s ability to have pristine telephone manners while internally trying to determine which organ I’d like to puncture first in the person on the other side of the phone.

    posted by Ashley on 1-10-2008 at 10:52 am

  7. like most the people on this list, i’m a very picky eater. having dinner at somebody else’s house is painful for me and i try to avoid it at all costs. i have two good examples of pain induced by being polite.

    1. in college my boss was korean, she always brought her lunch to work. i asked about a strange fruit she was eating one day and she offered me a piece. i’m a fruit lover, so i figured that was pretty safe… until i got it in my mouth. it literally tasted like somebody had eaten a cantaloupe, puked it back up and formed it into the bite sitting in my mouth. luckily my boss had to go to the front of the store and i could escape to the trashcan without swallowing.

    2. my boyfriend was always telling his family how much i love chili. really, i mostly just love my chili. regardless, his mom decided to make me “cincinnati chili” as a special treat one day. i sat down ready to try some new, extremely talked-up chili, only to find out that the only thing chili and cincinatti chili have in common is beef (and both have cheese on top, although the cincinatti variety really should not). i could not eat it, i feigned a small stomach and escaped for a food run as soon as i could. (if you don’t know, like i didn’t, cincinatti chili is made with cinnamon and nutmeg and i think sometimes even chocolate. then it’s served over spaghetti noodles)

    posted by tami on 1-10-2008 at 12:57 pm

  8. While my cousins were roughousing, I was inside reading books and wishing I could wear pinafores and curtsey to my elders. I blame one too many Noel Streatfeild and Lousia May Alcott novels growing up! I work in customer service based job where I have to be as polite as possible while people rage at me over the phone. Not snapping back when someone calls you a EXPLETIVE DELTED moron is very difficult. But you bite your tongue hard, try to gag if you drew blood and not let that person get to you.

    posted by gwendy on 1-10-2008 at 1:28 pm

  9. My parents never taught me politeness. They told me it was rude to point your finger in public, but that was the extent of it. I always felt like a heel when my friends would have a speech like, “Thank you Mrs so and so for having me over, I had a very good time.” and I realized that I had always left their house with a hedonistic, “Bye, see you in school.” Now I understand that my parents are simply laid back about parenting and choose their battles instead of forcing behavior, but at the time I was mortified.

    posted by Nicole on 1-10-2008 at 6:39 pm

  10. I was quite rude as a child. Respectful (behavior) but rude (verbally) and I still am. I love Cincinatti chili.

    posted by AbbyJoy on 1-10-2008 at 11:19 pm

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