When my husband and daughter went on a trip with another family, he came home raving about the manners of the other family’s child. He said, “she did this and then did that…. and if she didn’t do that then her mother did this….”

This evening, I took my children and my daughter’s friend- the same child mentioned above, to dinner.

When my daughter got to the door to enter, a family was trying to come out… but she thought it ok to enter at the same time they were exiting. In fact, it was her friend who said, “let them go first.”

At the table, when the bread came, I mouthed to my offspring, “wait,” so the waiter could safely put the bread down- to which they did. However, after they each carefully took a roll, the same daughter thought it ok to reach over her friend to the other side of the table, to dip her bread. Worse yet, my other child then reached over the other way when the plate was moved to the other side.

Now, as this was happening, I could hear hubby’s voice talking about the girl’s manners- and I was mortified. Were they acting this way because I didn’t take them out to enough restaurants? Should I have pre-discussed how the meal was going to go down while in the car en route to the restaurant? Or, were they just poorly behaved?

When the entrees came, my kids started eating… I thought semi-nicely. It wasn’t until I panned the table and saw the friend eating, that I realized I failed as a parent. You see, she was daintily twirling her meal, blowing, gently biting, and repeating said motion. My kids were apparently shoveling the food as if the furor himself, tossed them crumbs.

Now, had I not devoured my meal within 3 minutes, I would have added to the discussion that I was going to have with them, the speed in which they ate.