Thought for today:
"The way that many young children speak to their parents today leaves much to be desired and also leaves one in no doubt as to the general demise in their level of respect; particularly in areas of manners and consideration for their elders.
In my day there was a clear pecking order. With regard to child safety, children were of paramount consideration to the whole community, but in respect of child consideration, children came at the bottom of the pecking order.
Children gave up their seat on a bus for any standing adult without being asked to and never spoke without invitation in the company of adults. The old saying of 'children being seen and not heard' was far from being an old wife's tale. These were the days when both boy and girl in their teens often rode the tandem of both school and work; occupying themselves on paper rounds, potato picking, hay ricking or any other spare-time activity that could be performed outside the school day and contribute to family coffers.
Even when a young person went to work, all of their unopened wage packet found its way into the family budget (with the exception of a few bob that was returned for spending money), and it stayed that way until one either got engaged or left home and got married. And children took this as a perfectly proper thing for them to do. Indeed, how could they possibly think this custom strange or otherwise when even dad tipped up his unopened wage packet to the mother of the house? How different things are today; for better or worse, I'm not quite sure?
As a life-long student of history, it has always amused me that during those olden days of abject poverty where there was always less money coming in than going out, mother kept control of the purse strings and was held responsible for there being food on the table. Surprisingly, when household income started to exceed expenditure and there started to be more coming in than was owed out, that was when the father of the household started to assume budget responsibility. Funny old world, aint it?" William Forde: November 25th, 2014.
"The way that many young children speak to their parents today leaves much to be desired and also leaves one in no doubt as to the general demise in their level of respect; particularly in areas of manners and consideration for their elders.
In my day there was a clear pecking order. With regard to child safety, children were of paramount consideration to the whole community, but in respect of child consideration, children came at the bottom of the pecking order.
Children gave up their seat on a bus for any standing adult without being asked to and never spoke without invitation in the company of adults. The old saying of 'children being seen and not heard' was far from being an old wife's tale. These were the days when both boy and girl in their teens often rode the tandem of both school and work; occupying themselves on paper rounds, potato picking, hay ricking or any other spare-time activity that could be performed outside the school day and contribute to family coffers.
Even when a young person went to work, all of their unopened wage packet found its way into the family budget (with the exception of a few bob that was returned for spending money), and it stayed that way until one either got engaged or left home and got married. And children took this as a perfectly proper thing for them to do. Indeed, how could they possibly think this custom strange or otherwise when even dad tipped up his unopened wage packet to the mother of the house? How different things are today; for better or worse, I'm not quite sure?
As a life-long student of history, it has always amused me that during those olden days of abject poverty where there was always less money coming in than going out, mother kept control of the purse strings and was held responsible for there being food on the table. Surprisingly, when household income started to exceed expenditure and there started to be more coming in than was owed out, that was when the father of the household started to assume budget responsibility. Funny old world, aint it?" William Forde: November 25th, 2014.
