This past weekend while lounging around with my brother and his family, he made a remark of something that has nagged at my mind ever since.

I watched as my brother played with his son before his first birthday and mid-play he looked at me and said, “Where have those day’s gone when manners still existed? When an older person would walk into the room, and you stood so they could sit. When Jaxon (his son) get’s older he’ll know to do that.”

I sat there stunned for a moment.

He acknowledged something that I have caught myself doing on more than one occasion.

Not because I didn’t know any better, but simply out of pure selfishness because I am human and I will often put myself first before I help someone out.

But should I be ashamed because I sometimes lack manners?

I am not saying that I purposefully go out of my way to not use my manners toward others because it happens unintentionally more times than I can count.

But the older I grow and the more my mind opens up to the world, the more I realize that many of my peers lack their own manners.

I have seen children demand things from their parents while at the store and instead of their parents telling them no, they give in to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

Teenagers do what they want despite what their parents tell them because their parents “cannot do anything about it.”

Instead of the saying, “Respect your elders,” teenagers have turned it into, “I’ll respect someone who respects me.”

I can recall watching as someone dropped a wrapper onto the ground just because they were too lazy to walk the few extra feet to the garbage can.

The one that grinds my gears the most is when I am talking to someone and they don’t hold eye contact with me. Eye contact is important because it shows that the person is acknowledging what you are saying to them.

These are just a few examples of how our generation lacks manners.

Many of our parents were brought up in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and back then traditional manners like saying “please” and “thank you” were rare not to use.

Today I think it is rare to come across a young adult using simple manners such as that.

My mom often harped on me as a young child to use my manners all the time.

I was expected to say “thank you” after a nice deed was done for me even if it was done by a complete stranger.

I had to eat all the food on my plate and ask, “May I please get down?”

And although I am no angel all the time, I still try to keep the manners that I have been taught as a child. Sometimes I do slip, as I have mentioned previously.

In today’s society, I feel not many parents stress the importance of traditional manners to their children. Many of us do not use manners because we expect everything to be handed to us.

I believe that manners are just as important in today’s society as it was when our parents were growing up.

Where do you stand on having manners? Are they unimportant? Or should we stress the importance of them?