Category Archives: Social Science

Mind Your Manners

I’ve been taking more walks around the neighborhood in the past few months, and I’ve noticed something: children and teens will pass within two feet of an adult and not acknowledge the adult. They will only say hello if spoken to, and it’s an offhanded greeting at that. So I’ve been asking myself: was I like that? Childhood was many years ago. I’d like to think that when I saw an elder, I smiled and greeted them. Perhaps I did, but I might equally have done nothing.

Perhaps it’s no wonder, though. We teach our children to be wary of strangers. Additionally, adolescence is a particuarly confusing and sometimes tortured social phase. And perspectives change. I’m becoming “one of them” in my middle age — tempted to look at the young ‘uns and find them sorely lacking.

A little surfing brought up an interesting essay on universal etiquette, and the author introduces the topic:

When I was an adolescent, manners seemed to be a form of phoniness, a way of acting that was meant to impress others with what a nice, sophisticated and aristocratic person you were. I resisted manners as being mere social rituals. I agreed with the saying ‘Clothes do not make the man,’ and I felt that manners, like fancy clothes, were a form of false advertising. I tended to distrust people who were overly well-mannered or well-dressed. It wasn’t until relatively recently that I realized that manners are not for the benefit of the person who has them but for other people! In fact, the intent of manners is to help others to relax and feel more comfortable, to help them feel respected as independent beings. In short, far from being a mere set of social rituals intended to enforce status, manners are, in fact, a set of rules intended to create a safe space and thereby to promote communion.

The author provides a tidy “baker’s dozen” of what he considers the rules of universal etiquette:

Do not interpret for people.
Do not evaluate for people.
Do not reveal or use anything people say to you in confidence for any purpose except for those agreed upon by them.
Take full responsibility for situations involving other people.
Make sure you comprehend what people are saying to you.
Be interested in other people; don’t try to be interesting to them.
Always include an intention to help in your dealings with others.
In your dealings with people, take into account their physical and mental condition.
Make sure that interactions you have with people occur in a suitable space and at a suitable time.
Act in a predictable way so as not to surprise people.
Do not try to force people to do things against their will or over protest.
Stay focused on the activity in which you are engaged.
Let people complete cycles they start with you.

Another link that is more specifically focused on teens is Great Parenting Tips for Teens : Adolescent Development. It provides an overview of the family’s developmental tasks in raising a teen, the areas that incur the most conflict between parents and teens, a list of what adolescents want, and developmental tasks for adolescents.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll start smiling and saying hello when I see children on my daily treks. How uncool is that? That ought to make ’em think. After all, one day they will be one of us!

Where Does It Go?

From time to time most of us aspire to episodes of timelessness, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms. Parents look at their children, or we look at our parents, and there is a horrifying thrill in how rapidly they change, a thrill that makes us want to stop time, as much for ourselves as for them. There are days so beautiful, so productive, so happy that we would like to fix them in our minds for good as the prototype of all days — while knowing that what makes those days so memorable is also the fact that they slide past as if by their own momentum.

Between the Years – New York Times, 1/1/04

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays brought some joy amidst all the chaos. Here we are, full of hope and resolution to improve ourselves. What is it about the turn of the calendar every 12 months that causes us to aspire to change? A more logical new year would be one’s birthday, actually.

In any case, I didn’t make any resolutions. Nope, not a one. I’ve decided, this year, to apply the concept of intention. (Yes, I know what they say about intentions, but I’m not playing.) I believe there really is a difference. A resolution feels like a declaration — a promise to deliver — with expectation turning to disappointment and judgment if it is not fulfilled. Who wants to start a new year with guilt?

Intention feels different. I’ve identified what I would like to do this year and will use this list to keep me inspired. The issue of whether or not I do them isn’t paramount. If I slack off, there is no sense of failure. I’ll just remember my purpose and return to fufilling my intentions as best as I can. (This is similar to meditation. When you notice yourself thinking, the point is not to castigate yourself for failing to keep an empty mind. That’s a distraction. You simply notice that you’re thinking and then return to meditation.) This way, I’ll fulfill my intentions to some degree and not fritter away NOW with self-recrimination. Sounds a lot more fun, don’t you think?

The Legacy of a Suicide

From the New York Times, And Still, Echoes of a Death Long Past:

All deaths leave their mark. But studies suggest that the psychological legacy of a suicide may differ from that of other deaths.

“Suicide flies in the face of people’s beliefs abut how life is and how it operates,” said Dr. John Jordan, the author of a 2001 review of research on suicide survivors and the director of the Family Loss Project, a group based near Boston that conducts research and offers treatment to the bereaved.

“Survivors spend a great deal of time trying to figure things out,” Dr. Jordan said. “What was the person’s frame of mind? How could they have done this? Who is responsible for it? What does it mean?”

Some people pass through a normal grief process and heal quickly.

But studies suggest that suicide survivors often experience more guilt, rejection, shame and isolation than those who grieve other deaths. If they have spent years dealing with a relative bent on an escalating course of self-destruction, they may also feel relief.

Some studies have found that family members bereaved by suicide feel worse about themselves and are viewed more negatively by others. In a 1993 study, wives who had lost their husbands to suicide were seen as more psychologically disturbed, less likable and more blameworthy than wives whose husbands had died from heart attacks or in accidents.

Suicide survivors themselves have an elevated risk of suicide, and according to some studies are more vulnerable to depression, a risk factor for suicide. In a 1996 study, Dr. Brent and his colleagues found higher levels of depression in the siblings of adolescent suicide victims six months after the death, and in the mothers of the victims one year afterward, compared with a control group. At three years, the siblings were no more depressed than a control group, but the mothers were still having difficulty.

The issue of accountability, Dr. Jordan said, of who is to be held responsible for the death, often gnaws at suicide survivors.

An Encouraging Trend

As a former Quirkyalone, this New York Times article has much relevance for me. Most of my life I pursued education and other projects, focusing on living and not basing my identity on being in A Relationship. Desperation can lead to poor choices, especially in mates. Sure, being single can be lonely at times. But I’ve come to understand that by being able to stand aloneness and befriending myself, I am a more whole person, and thus healthier in my relationship choices. The article, Just Saying No to the Dating Industry, is well worth the read.

Reality television shows — “The Bachelorette,” “Average Joe” — have fed the impression that finding the right mate is as simple as being presented with a room of 10 people and picking one. Bookstores bulge: “Surrendered Single,” “Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School,” “Make Every Girl Want You.” That is just a sampling from the last year; the next two months will bring one manual promising to lure the love of your life in seven weeks, another in a sleeker six.

“There’s a fetishization of coupling,” said Bella DePaulo, a visiting professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who studies perceptions of singles. “It’s made the pressure that’s always been there more intense.”

Yet like Ms. Cambridge, longtime combatants in the dating wars, psychologists and those who study the lives of singles talk about increasing dating fatigue. They say more and more people are taking dating sabbaticals or declaring they will let romance happen by chance, not commerce. Once-obsessive online daters are logging off, clients of speed dating services — which offer dozens of encounters in a roomful of strangers — are slowing down. A book due out in January, “Quirkyalone,” offers “a manifesto for uncompromising romantics” –those not opposed to romance but against the compulsory dating encouraged by the barrage of books, Web sites and matchmaking services.