Where have all the manners gone? (GSSGC Blog)

Where have all the manners gone?
By: Jessica Lawrence, CEO, GSSGC

During my commute the other day, I was listening to Pat Morrison, a radio host on the public radio station KPCC (www.kpcc.org) interview Dick Meyer, author of “Why We Hate Us” – a book that details a number of issues with Americans’ pervasive “anything goes” attitudes. Their discussion focused largely on how a significant number of people have somehow developed the attitude that they themselves are the only important morale guidepost – that if they think something is acceptable and o.k., then it is. And what I see in daily life often lives up to that observation – young women coming in for job interviews looking like they just rolled out of bed; employees at restaurant counters acting like they really could care less that you, a paying customer, would like something to eat; fewer “pleases” and “thank yous”; and in one of the worst examples, young women thinking it is o.k. to beat another girl up on video tape and post it on the internet for the world to see.

I was starting to feel depressed by this reality, but then I thought about the fact that Girl Scouts has a tradition of teaching girls manners – teaching them to say “please” and “thank you”, to dress appropriately, to think about how what they do effects others, and to believe that there are things that are truly “right” and “wrong”. It looks to me like the world needs more Girl Scouts!