Bad Manners and Brimstone

Quote

Quote

Quote from: jazzgirl205 on October 23, 2021, 06:39:56 pm
When I moved to the county where I now live, I quickly learned that no one invited anyone to their home.  ... Therefore, they had no idea how rude canceling out and just not showing up was to the person who took the trouble to clean house, cook, devise diversions.  They didn't see the problem with changing their mind last minute and telling the host, "I just didn't feel like it."

I would think that would be rude in any country!   

But not, apparently, in Spain.
More than a decade ago now, when DH and I were active in organising British/Spanish reenactment events, a party of the Spanish reenactors who we were friends with let us know they were visiting England to see an international military model fair. We couldn't take the day off to join them there, but as we live only about a dozen miles off the route they would be taking back to their hotel in London, we invited them to come to our place after the fair, and we'd invite some British re-enactors who they knew, and give everyone a proper 18th-century dinner in our 18th-century house. So on the day there I was checking on my pies, basting the leg of mutton and whipping syllabubs, with the table laid for twelve with beeswax candles and all our best reproduction Georgian china and glass - when the British guests arrived from the fair alone, saying 'The Spanish aren't coming - M's wife felt a bit tired, so they decided to go straight back to London'.

We heard later that when they got back to Spain they told a mutual friend, an Englishman who teaches in their city, all about their trip and said that they hadn't gone to our big dinner he fairly hit the roof: "Don't you realise what you've done? When you've accepted a dinner invitation in Britain YOU SHOW UP! You've committed about the biggest social crime there is!" And they were aghast; they had had absolutely no idea. (It's also true that in Spain, just as in the county jazzgirl205 mentions, people don't tend to entertain at home. We had some really good friends in Spain but they always invited us to bars or restaurants; we were only invited inside somebody's home once, and that was because he wanted to show us his militaria collection, which obviously he couldn't do anywhere else.)

Hi!
My apologies for responding to an old post, but I've just read it and I am horrified at your Spanish acquaintances dropping your wonderful dinner party, Aleko. I'm Spanish (Catalan, actually) and this is absolutely Not Done.

While it is true we don't entertain at home as much as other countries, dropping out last minute, be it at someone's home or at a restaurant, is a very rude thing to do, and repeat offenders would find themselves very short of invitations.

I have organized multiple dinner parties at restaurants, and in my experience, any last-minute dropouts have had unexpected family issues or illnesses, and all have called asap to cancel and profusely apologise. Flaky friends are just invited to "the more, the merrier" do's, where no reservations are needed.

I sincerely cannot understand your acquaintances being aghast at their behaviour, and shame to them if they tried to pass it off as a "Spanish thing" rather than a "them thing". I am very sorry this has been your experience, but rest assured any non-flaky Spaniards would be absolutely grateful and delighted to be invited to such a thoughtful dinner

Again, thank you for your responses! It is very interesting to read other perspectives

It's true that I don't have children myself, although I do have frequent exposure to them. I ran it by a friend who has a similar family to the one in the story, along with your responses, and she was quite horrified. Unprompted, she immediately suggested the same option I did (i.e, hopping on and off) and said that no way would she allow other passengers to be subjected to a kid of hers screaming at the top of her lungs in a closed carriage for that long. Note that one of her kids is also fussy, so she has first-hand experience with that. She obviously has the advantage of being local, so she knows exactly how our metro system is set up. I understand that what I suggested may not be feasible in other metro systems.

My comment about other families managing was in answer to those saying that it was safer for little children to sit than to stand. I was just pointing out that no-one else seems to think that in here, children generally stand with no safety issues at all. Most parents make children stand up for elderly people or people carrying parcels, etc. It is perfectly safe here.

Absolutely no one is suggesting that everyone else should disembark to leave one family with the carriage to themselves.  We are simply saying that if it bothered you that much, you should go somewhere else.

I probably didn't phrase it well. I mean that the family was bothering the whole carriage (you could tell). You guys say that the one who's bothered should take action, not the family who's causing the bother. Therefore, it follows that everyone who's bothered should disembark. If everyone who was bothered had disembarked, they would effectively have had the carriage to themselves.

[...] The other kids sitting down seems reasonable, the parents had enough on their hands without potentially having the little ones roaming the carriage, or falling over as the train lurches.

Just one parent was engaged with the tantruming child at a time. The other was standing to the side with the empty stroller, doing nothing (probably bracing themselves for the next go). The older children were perfectly quiet, deeply embarrassed, and unlikely to roam the carriage. Actually, this is not something I have seen in here. Noise and activity levels may vary (which is normal and understandable, up to a point), but children always stay close to their parents. I have never seen children going up/down carriages, and I'm a frequent traveller. I was honestly surprised to see so many suggesting it as a likely option. It shows how different all of our experiences/expectations are!

Again, in the grand scheme of things it's not a biggie, I just thought it would be interesting to discuss. And it has!

Happy holidays to all! This is not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it may be interesting to discuss 

Yesterday I took the metro to go to my family's home to celebrate Christmas. It was understandably packed, with people and families carrying bags and presents, and when I got in and the doors closed, I saw we were all trapped with... The Screaming Child! (dun dun dun)

It was a family of 5, the father was standing to the side with a pushchair, and the mother was sitting with the Screaming Child (a girl about 2) and her brothers (about 4 and 6), occupying the whole bench. That also struck me as a little inconsiderate, and I'm also curious to see if you agree. There were lots of people standing, carrying parcels, some of them elderly. When I was little, I was taught to stand up for adults (my parents used to jokingly said that they must be more tired than me, since they've been in this world for longer). Although of course I can understand that sometimes a child needs to sit, I certainly don't think it was the case, and that others would have benefited more from sitting down.

The little one was having a royal screaming fit, it was really non-stop, and in a packed, closed carriage it was quite intense. The mum was doing general soothing sounds (to absolutely no avail) and sometimes murmured to the child, but she (the mum) looked quite unconcerned. After the mum engaging, the child would stop for literally five seconds and start again at ear-shattering level. At one point, mum and dad changed places, and dad did exactly the same, with the same results. The brothers looked mortified, poor things, sitting quietly in the bench. The whole carriage was giving the family the stinky eye (and some eye-rolling too). No apologetic looks from the parents at all, or any acknowledgement, they didn't seem to care (though it was impossible for them not to notice the others' discomfort). The little brothers looked far more embarrassed than the parents, and I felt a little sorry for them.

Now, I understand that this may have been a parent tactic to deal with the child, minimum response to teach her it doesn't pay. I don't know if it was very useful, since they did engage her and I think they were caught in a repeating cycle, but I do appreciate that maybe they were trying to deal with it the best way they could.

Where I think they went wrong is in being inconsiderate by subjecting the whole carriage to the screams. This was not a plane, where there's nothing much you can do. The could do something, but chose not to. I think they should have left the carriage once they saw how it was and that the little one wasn't going to stop. I was there for four stops, the child was already screaming when I got in, and was certainly still screaming when I left. I understand that they were also going to a Christmas dinner, and that there may have been time constraints, but I think they chose their convenience over the comfort of other passengers. In their place, I would have sat with my child on the platform (where noise wouldn't be so much of an issue) and wait it out. At most, if it didn't subside, I would hop on and off, maybe two stops at a time, to minimize bother to others (the volume of those little lungs was really something, believe me). Note that the metro system was reinforced for Xmas day, and the waiting time was about 3 minutes.

I hope I didn't sound like The Grinch here! Like I said, it was not a big deal and I (along with the other passengers, I'm sure) went on to enjoy a wonderful Christmas Day, but I do think the parents were quite rude in how they dealt with the situation. What are your thoughts?