Name(s):
Bad manners of youth
Lack of civility in young people
Rude children
Incivility of children
Claim
Expectations about childhood manners have varied over time and between cultures. Industrialized countries have largely inherited the manners founded in Victorian Britain. These manners spread through the burgeoning middle classes because one way to identify breeding was through manners, especially in the young. Some doctors who knew of the theory of evolution reinforced the idea that babies came into the world like savages in need of taming and that a respectable family would train its children to be little gentlemen and women as soon as they could walk on two legs. Children were accepted socially only if they behave like adults. Other cultures created a system of manners based on genuine personal regard for one's fellow creatures, whatever their age. For such societies, manners were an expression of inner feeling, not a proliferation of commandments.