That's awesome. I'm glad people still care. I also love when people ask their young children to say "Thank you," for anything, and I always make a big deal out of the "You're welcome."

Sometimes I think it's time to start a Radical Politeness and Civility Movement to try to get some of the social curtesies back into our society.

Miko, I'm with you!

I usually try to smile and say "good afternoon" to people when I walk by them, but they usually just look alarmed, like I might leap forward and sell them something. Maybe I have a Wednesday Addams smile or something.

That's cool, occhiblu, and you get a big thumbs up for doing that. Though I dunno, a thumbs up from Hugh Janus? Weird.

I helped a pregnant lady carry her strollered two-year old down the subway steps last night. The station was almost empty, and I don't think anyone else saw me. She said "Thank you," though, and I said, "You're welcome," and she rolled the stroller over my foot on the way to the train, just then arriving in the station.

It made a bad day worthwhile.

Agree with the womens.

Grocery stores seem to be a repository of ill-behaved, impolite children. They bug me, but not nearly as much as their idiot parents do.

I refuse to curtsy, though. ;)

occhi, you're a role model every day.

(Aaaaaaaaaaaaaw.)

This was a couple of years ago now, and I still remember it: I was on the bus outside the grocery store. A young tough, with his too-loose pants and his too-tight tank top and and his curled-lip sneer and his many tough-guy remarks to his fellow passengers and his invisible sack full of attitude, sprawled insolently across two seats in the front. As I walked past him toward the rear seats, I performed a mental eyeroll, but didn't remonstrate him, since no one needed the seats.

Then a tiny halting little gray-haired woman tottered aboard, bowed down with the weight of a few small grocery bags.

I started to stand, wondering if she could make it all the way to my seat.

Then Young Thug stood, said, "Ma'am?" and gestured toward his seat. He even helped her carry her bags.


And even now, I'm melting a bit to think of it.

I also love when people ask their young children to say "Thank you," for anything, and I always make a big deal out of the "You're welcome."

I've been trying to model this sort of thing when I have to step around kids, with a very polite "Excuse me, please" with a big smile and a "Thanks!" when they move. I like treating them like very important big people who I respect enough not to just step over.

On preview: Yay, good stories!

OK, I just got the curtsy thing. Heh.

I once stood up on a crowded tube train to give a pregnant woman my seat. When the seat next to her became free a couple of stations later, she put her hand on it to save it for her husband. Bitch

Ya shoulda sat on her hand, then when she started to speak, said, "Excuse me, would you please remove your hand from under my bum? Thanks."

I helped a pregnant lady carry her strollered two-year old down the subway steps last night.

And then a gunfight broke out between the cops and the goon transporting Capone's bookkeeper and the stroller started rolling down the steps!

Seriously, though, that was cool of both of you occhi and Hugh. We need more politeness. I was offered very few seats and had very few doors held for me when I was pregnant. I was always so grateful and a little kindness like that can make your whole day.

Door holding is just nice and I think we should all do it for one another, regardless of gender or condition of incipient fertility, whenever someone is nearby enough to be about to use the door. It can be a really lovely gesture.

I love winning over the rude Greeks... I'm all like, Good Morning, *smile, smile*, oh, I'll have a kilo of tomatoes *twinkle, *twinkle*, and this and this, *smile*, thank you!, goodbye! [polite form], and they wanna hate me, but just can't resist. A few days in, and they're smiling already before I even get to the shop/kiosk/stall. I love it. So much more of a challenge than the autopolite Americans. :)

/totally not as cynical as this makes me sound

Door holding is just nice and I think we should all do it for one another

Agreed, and even more urgently do I believe that we should relieve each other from doorholding duty. You've all seen that person, the one who held a door for a couple of people and somehow got stuck behind it as a stream of people sail through without acknowledging that someone stands there, holding it.

I find it charming how startled and touched random men look when I hold a door open for them, in a return of the simple courtesy that random men offer me every day.

Having said that, I'll admit that I'm still a bit scarred from an incident in my childhood. At about 8 or 9 years old, I was approaching the entry to a store, but instead of sailing through the door, I stepped aside and held it for an older man.

He stopped dead in the doorway and took me to task, actually yelling at me, for having the gall to think he was so feeble and old he couldn't open his own damn door, stupid kids, yadda yadda. (Incidentally, this was the day I first learned the word "emasculate." Someday, I'll write my vocabulary memoir.)

At the distance of almost 30 years, I can imagine the scenario: he'd just had bad news from the doctor, or his kids had been treating him as an invalid, or his virility was waning, or he was fed up with feminism, or some damn thing, and this pudgy little girl holding a door for his was just the last straw.

But I didn't understand it then. I went home that day and sobbed and sobbed into my pillow.

*pre-orders Elsa's vocabulary memoir.*

A vocabulary memoir is the most awesomest idea I've ever heard ever.

I jst reread my story of doorholding gone awry, and I'll just say: man, am I depressing lately!

(But that event quite shattered my little psyche: I'm getting teary-eyed just remembering it. It was a happy carefree day, punctuated by what I thought was a small kindness, and suddenly it was so hostile and confusing. It was like a David Lynch film.)

Sorry, bunnies, to be such a drag lately. It's been a brutal few months, and I've spent the last ten days confined to bed with no end in sight. I'm cranky and scared, and I keep turning happy thoughts into sad thoughts.

(Except my vocabulary memoir. My vocabulary memoir is unstoppable.)

oh, but Vocabulary Memoir!!!! You're a genius. A beautiful, beautiful genius.

I also hold doors open for guys, but only in the last year or two did I notice that it was maybe not totally normal.

Sometimes I think it's time to start a Radical Politeness and Civility Movement to try to get some of the social curtesies back into our society.

Make everyone watch old David Niven movies.

It was a happy carefree day, punctuated by what I thought was a small kindness, and suddenly it was so hostile and confusing. It was like a David Lynch film.

That way you wrote it, Elsa, it READS like a scene from a David Lynch script. :)

And don't apologize- I'm glad you're hanging out with us while you recuperate! (But I do cross my fingers and send you some get-better-soon wishes.)

Not that it's teaching kids to be compassionate so much as disciplined, but I just read this article about how the French raise their children. I thought it was pretty interesting.

And yay! Very sweet stories :)

The French are certainly stricter. They shout more. They slap more. And they enforce manners.

Sounds like my mom, and in general the other moms I knew growing up in the 80s and 90s. I remember having to write, "I will not backtalk my father" one hundred times after a particularly trying Costco trip.

The other morning, I was standing at the Muni train stop at the top of Duboce park, waiting for the inbound train to emerge from the tunnel, and idlely watching the kids in the playground nearby. It's a street-level light rail stop, where you step over the rails to cross.

From behind me, I heard a woman's voice commanding a child to "stop Stop STop STOp STOP!" I turned to look, and saw that a boy of about 3 was in full-tilt boogie, heading heedlessly for the playground, not seeing the train that was just then emerging from the tunnel. (cue dramatic music)

Instinctively I put my arm out horizontally and barred the way; I stopped the kid just before he got to the tracks.

I smiled at the Mom as she caught up and hugged/scolded the kid. The train pulled up, I got on and was off on my day, feeling good about having done a good deed.

I made it 3 blocks before I realized she hadn't so much as acknowledged me, let alone said thanks. (Ok, mamma bear worries about the cubs first & foremost, but sheesh...)

spec80, hee! I actually always used to say that I wanted a French child, because they're so well behaved.

Also, little children speaking sing-song French is too cute. Also, I read too much Madeline as a child.

The problem is that French teenagers are, in my opinion, insufferable. The idea seems to be discipline discipline discipline, then voila! total freedom. I'm not so sure about that transition (or lack thereof).

I think it was Marcella Hazan who, in one of her cookbooks, had a really neat comparison between a nation's childrearing and its cuisine. The Italians, notoriously lenient and indulgent parents, believe in nurturing and doting on bambini in order to develop the children's innate sense of self -- just as the cuisine tends to rely on simple preparations in order to let each ingredients' innate nature shine through individually. Just as the French discipline the hell out of their children to create good, prepared citizens who will function in a well-integrated society, they chop all recipe ingredients into small bits and fuss and fuss and fuss over things while they're cooking in order to meld all the flavors together into a unified whole in which individual flavors support the overall taste, rather than stand out from it.

I think she also had a riff on the Japanese, but I don't know enough about Japanese childrearing or cuisine to remember it.

I made it 3 blocks before I realized she hadn't so much as acknowledged me, let alone said thanks.

aw!!! I bet that about 20 minutes later she was all, like, "oh my god, I didn't even thank that fabulously nice guy who stopped little Beowulf from running onto the tracks. If I ever see him again I'm giving him such a big hug!"

What? I had to call the kid something.

Occhi! I love Marcella Hazan! I love that she's making those kinds of connections.

Seconding taz: I bet she was all in Mother Protector mode, busily internalizing the paralyzingly good news that her little cub had in fact not been squashed by a train, and that she stopped in her tracks a few blocks away, smacked her forehead, and realized she'd never thanked you.

I gotta find that cookbook!

Someday, I'll write my vocabulary memoir.

Elsa, that is not only a fabulous idea for a memoir, it's also one of the few ideas I don't think anyone's done yet. Structured memoirs have been based on recipes, calendars, prayer beads, mixtapes, etc., but the idea of a book of essays, each one nailing the moment when you first learned a word, would be great. DO IT!

Or at least, make a thread out of it sometime!

I saw a pregnant woman trying to get herself, her baby, and a stroller down the stairs to the platform at an U-Bahn stop in Berlin. All of a sudden a group of really sketchy looking teenagers appeared, said "We'll grab this", took the stroller down, helped her down the rather steep stairs, and then ran to catch their train. It was nice.

Every time I see a lady with a stroller at the bottom of the stairs, I try and help her get up them if I'm not holding a lot of things myself. It's in thanks of the many nice random strangers (mostly men) who have also helped me up the stairs with bulky items.

However, we had a conversation on the New Yorkers Live Journal community about politeness on the subways recently and someone brought a statistic where if there's ever anyone who's going to be giving up their seat on the train to another person, it's going to be woman-to-woman, most of the time.

I like to show parents how to put up the bumpers for their kids at my bowling alley. The staff is pretty laxadasical about customer service, and I like to think that I'm making the parent's day just a little bit easier.

Re: mom at train tracks. I bet she was a little embarrased for her kid, and didn't want to say anything lest you make a big deal out of a socially awkward situation. That could just be me, though. I get like that sometimes.

I usually don't even bother to sit on the subway (unless it's totally empty), since I'd rather not embarrass other people by getting up for them. It's easier to just stand all the time. I notice many other men doing this.

triode- I'm guessing she was still in shock at the almost-tragedy, and really kicked herself later.

I remember mullacc saying in a thread a long time ago that he did that as well, Hugh.

Although I seem to remember it was because he was afraid of hordes of pregnant women getting on the subway all at once.

Hugh Janus, that's the mark of real courtesy: accepting a slight personal inconvenience with the hope of preventing a greater inconvenience to others.

On my metro system the drivers routinely tell passengers to sit; if a seat is available, standing is not allowed. But I notice some considerate passengers who give up their seats just before an elderly person a pregnant woman, someone on crutches, etc.) boards. (I used to do it, too, but these days I need the seat.)

That strikes me as the ultimate in politeness: a quiet awareness of one's fellows, and awillingness to give them precedence without requiring them to witness your kindness.

In short, your courtesy distinguishes you. Kudos.

Some of those anecdotes of French strictness (from spec's article) made my eyes bug, but I have to say I do think they're on to something with this:

They think they are doing their children a favour, which is to civilise them. Teaching your children proper behaviour from the earliest age is of almost moral importance.

It's like I mentioned in the AskMe thread recently about whining kids: the ONLY child I know who doesn't whine is the one whose mother NEVER indulges it. That is, mom is ALWAYS in charge, and daughter is ALWAYS free to be...a kid, with boundaries. And I have to say, I'm pretty sure it's not a coincedence that she's also the kid who seems most happy, confident, and well-adjusted overall (and I include my own nephews in the mix, whom I love fiercely, but I worry that the oldest two are emerging as the kind of kids who get most of their whims induldged but aren't ever terribly happy about anything for long).

I've been pondering such things at greater length than usual lately, as scodyboy and I are finding ourselves having the "hmm, so shall we settle down and have kids?" discussion more and more these days.

Other points:
- I'm a hardcore door-holder for men and other women. Some men look surprised, others look uncomfortable, and still others look sweetly delighted to have the courtesy turned around on them.
- Elsa, I wish to read your Vocabulary Memoir right now! Brilliant idea.

I actually normally try to stand up fairly inconspicuously when I do want to give someone my seat; it got noticed more than usual this morning because the older woman didn't see the empty seat at first and was about to get back off the bus because there were no seats, so people had to specifically point out that I had gotten up for her.

And when I rode the subway I generally just stood, partly because I hated being boxed into narrow seats and partly because I figured other people needed the seats more than I did. The stupid fuckin' buses in San Francisco, however, basically force you to sit. If it's empty, then standing means you'll be swinging wildly around the aisle (assuming you even stay on your feet) as the drivers swerve up and down hills as jerkily as possible; if it's crowded, it ends up being highly rude to stand if there's an empty seat, because you're taking up room in the aisle that could otherwise be jammed with yet another body, and once the aisle gets jammed enough, there's no way to maneuver through the bus to reach an empty seat unless you're already standing directly in front of it, so leaving it open just in case ends up being an exercise in futility.

Sigh. I hate the bus.

Oh, occhiblu, it hadn't occurred to me that my blahblahblah about quiet courtesy might be seen to devalue your happy moment, and of course I never meant that. Far from it! It's delightful. Kids need to learn how to behave, and modeling the behavior they should emulate teaches them oodles more than just telling them.

It's nice when people are nice. And I think that's nice.

Heh, no, I didn't take it that way. And I agree, it's nicer to stand up without making a big deal of it; I always worry I'm going to put someone on the spot if I offer them my seat. Better to avoid the barter!

"See? That lady just stood up so that the woman could sit down. That was very nice of her, and that's what you're supposed to do."
Ah, good to see there is at least one parent in the world apart from me who tries to teach their child old-fashioned manners. On the train I catch in the mornings, there are a number of schoolkids and you can instantly tell the state school kids from the private school ones without even seeing their uniforms - the private school kids are the ones who sit in the floor - the state school ones are the ones sitting on the seats pretending to be asleep (kids travelling on concessional passes are not allowed to sit if there are other passengers standing). That's the difference between the state and private school systems (here, at least) - private schools back up the parents and enforce manners, state schools are forced to ignore poor behaviour by the uber-PC world we live in.

It still makes my blood boil, though, that people refuse to acknowledge that sometimes other people need the seat more than they do - one of those private schoolkids is a young girl who regularly gets on the train with crutches with here knee bandaged up (I guess she is having regular surgery or something) and nobody but me ever gets up and offers her a seat. It makes my mind boggle at the absolute selfishness of it, regardless of societal expectations of kids being less important than adults. It's just wrong.

Good on you, occhiblu and anyone else who practices these acts of manners.