Meredith provides so many insights to why and how she approaches life and manners with her boys. I love how her honesty helps bring out the actual ‘How To” manners in the issue! This information is too good not to share! I just know that if you’re a mom of boys and/or girls you will appreciate Meredith as much as we do (or dude)! Take it away Meredith!
All I Want is a Little Respect.
by Meredith Sinclair, Hoo-dee-Hoo
All of my life, I’ve lived with boys. I have two older brothers that throughout childhood were my personal trainers when it came to the ins and outs of the male species. They made sure I knew how to throw a mean spiral, spit off of a tall building with such perfect aim that it would hit a tiny car below, and how to make a super fantastic under-arm flatulence sound at a very early age.
I had no idea that during all of this, I was being groomed for motherhood. I was destined to be the mom of boys. I now live with two boys and a 42-going-on-12 –year-old and well let’s just say, I’m really glad I was heavily schooled in the arithmetic of men.
Ya see, I totally “get” how unbearably gut-busting they find bathroom humor and the word butt, the fact that they are genetically wired to wrestle each other to the ground, and the undisputable fact that boys will always choose dirt over soap and water. Always.
And while I find a good burp supremely funny now and again, I’m also charged with teaching these little men some manners, chivalry, decorum and respect.
I figure I owe it to the two unsuspecting little girls who will one day grow up and fall in love with them. And I owe it to them. Don’t get me wrong, my boys are not ill-mannered, dirty little heathens. Not at all. In fact other moms have told me time and again how polite and charming they are when I’m not around. But this task of raising respectful boys is a daily and often minute by minute endeavor.
Over the last twelve years I’ve learned not to take their rude outbursts and immature behavior personally, that sometimes the rules just need to be blown up, and that if as the grown-ups we can keep the big, long-term picture in full view, we won’t want to rip our hair out every time they make an inappropriate bodily noise at dinner. Boys will be boys. Boys won’t be girls. But armed with a few simple rules of the well-mannered road, at least they won’t embarrass us in public.
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