Forks on the left

As a parent, I have found my Mom speaking from my mouth instructing my kids the proper way to use and hold a knife and fork, they each had their own utensils.  Andrew and Gabriella had been taught how to use a knife and the proper way to hold a fork.  They both know how to set the table.  I am going to say that I have this major big habit, and it is not good, I watch the way people hold their forks, hold a knife while cutting, and whether or not they switch their fork after cutting.  I find myself wondering if some people have always held a spoon like it was a shovel or pick up a piece of meat with their fork and bite at it.  I think are they going to teach their kids that?  I really have to stop looking.

I am going to have to work on this flaw.......


In my youth, I was never mindful of other kids table manners because, in truth, I don't really remember sitting at a table eating with any.  Sure there was the few cousins or our parents' friends kids that we sat and ate with, I remember the giggling and laughter, but I don't remember them holding silverware.  The only kids I truly remember dining with were my grandparents friends' offspring.  There was Henry. We never got to sit at the big table on Christmas Day as Henry did, but then again we did not speak Danish either.  He was never a real boy anyway, Henry would not play any games with us, he was way above us.  He had a beard at like 7, no joke, Henry graduated Princeton at 14, was a professor at 16, so no he was never a kid.  Henry's parents were Jutta and Fred.  Fred was just the sweetest.  Sure he was inebriated just as everyone else was, but he was always the happiest and friendliest.  Mor always said that Fred was dumb as a stump, but was the best person in the whole world.  Jutta was a wonderful cook and she could make a chocolate cake to die for.  It was from Jutta that Henry got his smarts from.  We were well behaved at Mor and Far's house.  I know that we respected them too much to be otherwise.  Then there was Emmy and Leif's grandkids. There was three of them and they had a Kiki too.  All of us were about the same age.  We spent a couple of weeks each year in the summer together in the country.  Just grandmothers and kids.  We went on day trips together, played games, ate at the table together, and they had the same manners as us.  The big major difference between us and them was we were rough and tumble, dirty and sweaty, and they were plaid and preppy.  They wore white and we had dirt rings around our ankles.  We swam in the creek and that was  beneath them.   I often wonder if Mor wanted us to be like more like them and less like us.  I guess I should have asked her.