dear melissa, i have really been enjoying your blog. my very best friend in the world, meredith turned me onto it and i am totally hooked! i do not have kids yet but when i do, i’ll tell you this.. if anyone ever criticized in a vicious and negative way a decision my husband and i made together about how to raise our children i would tell them where to go! keep up the good work! :

Hey Melissa!

WOW!! I’ve missed a lot in the last day or two!! I was away helping my Gram with a couple of things around her house on the Cape and came back to find that you’d been HORRIBLY slammed by a very cowardly reader!!! I’ve got to say that if reader “Holy Sh*t” had any sense of what was decent they would know the old addage that if you don’t have anything nice to say…don’t say anything at all!!!

And if they have children (and I feel bad for their children if they do!) I would feel confident in saying that their kids are probably ill mannered, rude and impolite. Teaching your children the lessons that you are teaching them is one of the best things that you can do for them. Letting your children figure it out on their own is being a LAZY parent! It takes hard work and constant reminders to teach your children how to be a nice and lovely person. Anyone who says different is L A Z Y and probably rude themselves!!!

I do the exact same thing with my kids. Constantly with “and what do you say” “and what do you say”. We say “yes mommy or yes daddy” not “yeah”. Yeah is not a recognized word in our house either!! My almost 2 year old and 3 1/2 year old both say “Please”, “Thank You”, “May I”, etc. now without being reminded BECAUSE I’ve been reminding them since FOREVER.

I make them say “Have a nice day” when we leave any store or business, I make them give each other hugs and say “goodnight” and “i love you” to each other before naps and bedtime…every single day. There is no room for rudeness or even indifference in our household. You be kind and nice and polite…ALWAYS!!! If there’s a situation that calls for anything different…we deal with it as it comes up. But in everyday life…manners, decency and kindness to all are one of the things that comes first.

We live in a society of (and pardon my French) but we live in a society littered with A-HOLES!!! As best demonstrated by the horribly rude, insulting and quite frankly – ignorant comment by that reader. I’ve got to tell you I’m furious for you!! If that disturbed reader was really interested in backing up his/her comments then they wouldn’t have been so cowardly and not left a link to where they were writing from.

In the way you teach your children, please know that you are not alone my friend. Every single one of my Mommy-friends (and I hope this doesn’t sound strange but I have a lot of them) teaches their children the same lessons that you do.

I hope that you didn’t give that readers comments a SECOND of your time. THEY are disturbed.

YOWZA!

You rock the planet girlfriend.

Keep it up. Your consistency will pay off. Our five year old, while fully a five year old boy in oh so many ways, is normally very respectful with adults. I cannot tell you how many times after being asked a question and responding with a ma’am or sir, the adult pauses and thanks him for being so polite. Unfortunately so many kids talk to adults just like they talk to their peers when they are very capable of learning the difference.

It is not about not allowing them to be kids and I hardly think it will inhibit them from socializing properly with their age group – please! – it is about teaching them to be respectful and kind toward others. From here it sure seems Pea is just that. Keep up the good work.

Melissa, your story made me smile because it really made me think of something Josh is doing these days…(We are on the same quest to instill politeness and manners).He still gets confused when excusing himself. He bumped into me the other day and in the most polite voice ever said, “Excuse you Mommy.” I had to laugh. He was trying so hard! It’s a long road but well worth the ride in my opinion.

P.S. I second Lulu and Milena and Erin etc.

Dear Melissa, I was going to leave YOU a note about how cute I had found Pea’s response but I have to forgo the opportunity and take a less savory one up. This one is intended for Miss S__T who so unkindly left you a message whose first reading left me so flabbergasted I felt compelled to address her.

Dear S__T: Haven’t seen you around here before and I can assure you that is has been no loss to me as a frequent visitor to Melissa’s Blog. In fact, though for all intents and purposes, this is an open forum, I think that those who visit here do so much the same way they visit a physical home. That is, with goodwill in our hearts, and proudly cloaked in our politeness and good manners. That is the way, I am happy to say, my mama trained me and I would hazard it is the way that most others who visit here have also been trained. We are no dogs. Should anyone be ashamed of themselves, I would have to point my finger directly at you. How shameful to speak as you did of a child, any child, in the first sentence of your horrendous message. It is what has prompted me to leave you this one. Witnessing the kind of sick mind that would even paint such an image begs the question about the kind of training you yourself must have received. Sadly, obviously, not a happy nor polite one. I am sorry for you that you think teaching manners to children is detrimental to them as well as archaic and an obstacle to their advancement. Should you have children of your own, I can only say, you do them and yourself a terrible disservice by believing this. If I believe I know what you are thinking, I would ask that you please keep it to yourself. If something impolite is in your head and nice thoughts do not dwell there, then please keep your vituperative, potty laced thoughts to yourself. Melissa’s children will advance well in this world with the kind of loving, careful parents that they have. Had you known anything at all about the author of this blog, this might be as apparent to you as it is to me. No one needs your unkind words, unkind manner, less than stellar thoughts and please, refrain form casting aspersions upon others. Should anyone need to worry about how they are perceived that would be you certainly and not Melissa. As my mother says, we project unto others what we have in ourselves. Quite frankly, I do not think what you have in you, worthy of anything much.

The moment I read this, I thought, they must live in the South b/c I, as a new york city gal, am always trying to discourage people from calling me ma’am.

I have to say my step-father use to constantly correct my grammar and it made all the difference. I always use “good” and “well” correctly. And I’m grateful for it. So hang in there with the ma’am. It does eventually stick.

I hate when I hear my 3 year-old echos me by saying “yeah”, “you guys”… it makes me crazy. Those kids really do learn by example so I better start saying “yes” and get rid of the “you guys” entirely.

Wow. Uh, yeah, going along with Lulu… You are a terrific Mother, Melissa. It is difficult to teach children manners, especially because so many people completely don’t have them anymore. Ahem. Polite is never, ever a bad thing. But you know that!

I am so horrified to read this post. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why are you putting a stick so far up your child’s rear end that she will never be able to get it out? She’ll be in therapy for years.

No kid talks like that – she will talk the way other kids talk. If you force her to socialize like she’s in 18th century London, she won’t be able to have normal friendships – nobody else will do it “right” the way she learned to; nobody else will be good enough for her. She’ll also correct her classmates (I can hear her saying “don’t say yeah” to the others already, and I can see them all hating her so much). Kids learn from what you do. If you want her to be polite, be polite. If you want her to train people and think other people are wrong when they talk and tell them so, then keep doing what you’re doing to her and keep turning her into a monster. She’ll never have a decent job in her life -who would hire someone like that?

Kids are not like a dog that you train to cute things and people clap. She’s a little person – she should learn by example and have some autonomy. If you took your concerns as posted here to a therapist I’m sure they would be able to help you with your own insecurity and control issues. If you’re so worried about how others perceive you based on how your child behaves, maybe it’s time to start thinking about how others perceive you based on how YOU behave around your child.

Aw, c’mon Dad, don’t be so into correction that you stain a tender moment! Let her say yeah, I missed you……and correct her later when she says yeah, I want some milk.

At this age, I still remember my dad correcting me for something at the airport when I ran up to hug him. I don’t remember what it was for, but I do remember feeling shot-down. Not that Pea feels that way, I’m just sayin’. Let the tender moments stand out, even if imperfect.